Kagan, Right/Left and Authoritarian/Libertarian

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

This is not about whether Kagan is good or bad, but about the form of the discussion of her merits, here and in the wider world.

I have noticed that most (not all, but most) critiques of her from the left are critiques of her position on the authoritarian-libertarian axis. The question of where Kagan falls on the Left-Right spectrum is almost secondary to the ongoing debate.

Right-left is, at heart, about money and political representation. The other axis is about the rights of the individual in collision with the interests of government.

Different people put different weight on the two axises (or is it axes?) Personally, I am a weak-socialist (Euro-style mixed economy) but put a lot more weight on the authoritarian-libertarian axis than the left-right axis.

We are fortunate that the American left has a drift toward both big government and individual rights. It didn't have to be that way, any more than being anti-abortion had to coincide with favoring the interests of corporations. The two idea-coalitions we have have some sense to them but neither is truly consistent.

A party in a two-party system must, to ever win, form the most cohesive coalition that reaches 51%. But no 51% coalition can be intellectually consistent.

Thus we can never say, "You are on the left so of course you favor x" when x isn't about right-left.

And it follows that any intellectually consistent person will have profound problems with some of his/her party's positions.

[Voice for Peace]

1. thanks Kurt, thanks Hunter

interesting post, appreciate the dual axis analogy. k/r

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. There are a lot of online "What are you politically?" tests using the dual axis model

It saves a lot of wear and tear versus trying to differentiate Hitler and Pol Pot on one axis. (Both authoritarian mass murderers, but with very different right-left ideologies.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. ...

[Rex]

4. The person she is replacing was a Wildcard and didn't turn out

to be what the Rwing wackos wanted (ie another Scalia Clone). We shall see.