There is a continuum of political application to society for the people of the United States in particular and the world in general. Most people see the polarity of the political spectrum as a line with fascism on the right and anarchy on the left. This spectrum has the Republican Party occupying a right of center position and the Democrat Party occupying a left of center position. Current political strategic posturing by the two major parties vie for the great "undecided" who can't determine from day to day if they want to be prosperous or secured by the largess of government. Each year this middle 20% of the electorate are pulled, first one way and then another, by the latest shiny bauble presented by the two sides. Sometimes the bauble is a new government program; sometimes it is a new tax cut. More often than not it is a smile, a haircut or a winning personality that grabs the attention of the middle of the road voter. On this hangs the fate of the free world.

The Libertarians see the political spectrum as a square that puts anarchy, totalitarianism, fascism and liberty into quadrants. They even have a test you can take that will give you x and y coordinates to show where you fall, based on how you answer their questions. People who think government should do less generally end up in the libertarian quadrant and members of the Green Party usually end up in the totalitarian area. I take this test and usually end up in the libertarian section. I'm not a member of their party though. By that I mean I don't send them money.

Liberals see the political spectrum as a single polarity. Further, they see no contradiction to this view. There is the extremist, far right wing, which includes everyone who ever voted for a Republican, a group of independents and the vast mainstream liberals who occupy the middle. From their perspective there is no extreme left wing. Even when the forces of the counter revolutionaries were bringing down the Soviet Union, liberals started referring to the communists as the conservatives.

I believe that the true nature of the political spectrum today is like a vine. At the root is freedom. The vine is constantly growing away from the root. Along the way are those who claim to support freedom and those who most certainly oppose it. Both groups are moving away from freedom as the vine grows. The Republicans are moving always from freedom at the same pace as the Democrats. The difference between the two major parties is that the Democrats are pouring fertilizer on the vine and the Republicans are wiping some of it off. The result is that society as a whole is in constant motion away from freedom. Every compromise with the opponents of freedom moves everyone further from the root. If you listen to politicians of 40 years ago, the Democrats sound a lot like the Republicans of today.

Another analogy has freedom as a glass of pure fresh clean water. The opposition to freedom is a glass of rancid cooking grease. Bipartisan agreement allows some of the rancid grease to be poured into the water. Not as much as the Democrats want, but some. Republicans meet with Democrats and they compromise. No one is happy with the deal. Democrats do get some of what they proposed. Republicans can say they prevented too much rancid grease from getting into the water. But the water ceased to be pure, fresh and clean. We consistently move away from the ideal.

This bipartisan compromise can never favor the cause of freedom because the water remains tainted and grows more tainted as time progresses. Government always gets bigger, spends more and entraps the people into dependence in greater numbers. It is the nature of consensus, compromise and bipartisanship. For those who are truly interested in freedom and liberty; hope does not lie in the political realm. The United States Constitution that started out as an outline of a limited central government has become a catalog of controls, regulations, taxes, departments, agencies and constant growth.