Eric Raymond ranted yesterday about why he isn't a liberal or a conservative. The problem is that the political structure of this country is built around that bipolar vision of political thought, and all the other points of view don't matter (unless you count Jesse Ventura. And I certainly don't count Jesse Ventura.)

When I was in college at the University of Wisconsin, I found myself in a bit of a political predicament. I was going to school on a Navy ROTC scholarship, which made me a persona non grata among many of the established political circles there. The only group that seemed even the slightest bit welcoming was the, ahem, College Republicans.

Now, the College Republicans at UW were a somewhat diverse group. There were libertarians, John Anderson Republicans, and Reagan conservatives. In 1982-86, being a Republican in Madison was something of a subversive act–it was like a guerilla cell fighting against astronomical odds.

And, at some level, it was fun.

There was just one problem–I was ideologically incompatible with the conservative core of the group, a couple of John Birch wannabes (they even had YAF buttons they had dug up from the club's Goldwater years–my favorite to this day was the “Free Prague” button.

It all sort of came to a head during my senior year, when I was voted the “most liberal Republican in Wisconsin” by the state College Republican committee. I was given the Gypsy Moth award.

About that time, I decided that the political game would be a lot more fun if I started playing both sides against the middle. So I joined the Campus Democrats–while at the same time remaining on the rolls of the College Republicans. And I started informing for both of them.
It was something I should have done much earlier, as it turns out. It was hugely entertaining. And, as it turns out, it revealed things to me about my latent political leanings that I hadn't really thought about before.

The truth is, the left-right dichotomy is only useful for simulating debate–not creating it. And that's the way the established parties like it. They couldn't exist without each other. But we can do quite well without them.

So what label do I wear these days? Well, I'm in the middle of the road–but the curbs of my road are Noam Chomsky and Murray Rothbard, not Daschle and Helms.