If aliens were to land on Earth tomorrow, and tap into the Internet to try to determine the political values of this planet's denizens, they'd get a pretty distorted picture. But then again, if they monitored our television and radio broadcasts, they'd get a different but equally distorted picture. Here's why:

Broadcast media are a limited resource. To get on them, you need (a) money, and (b) the tolerance of those who own the infrastructure. Most broadcasters reject “advocacy ads” (at least from political groups outside a limited norm–and then usually only in the form of political campaign ads). So the set of voices that get on the air is very, very limited.

The Internet, on the other hand, is the land of open access to media. Someone with a modicum of technical expertise, access to an Internet-connected terminal, and enough free time can create a media outlet near or on par with those of the big media companies. The floor is open to whoever wants to shout. So every viewpoint (no matter how small the group) is represented equally–at least in theory.

In fact, it's a little different. The politics of the technically proficient deviate substantially from the “norm” (if there is a norm) of political thought, not that there's anything wrong with that. Most techies, in my experience, tend on average to be mostly libertarian, free-market, marketplace-of-ideas, information-wants-to-be-free, do-your-own-thing-in-the-privacy-of-your-own-home kind of people (if you can make any generalization about them, which is a dangerous pastime to begin with). But Internet politics–and blogs–tend to amplify the extremes of the spectrum.

I think that's a good thing–except in the most extreme cases, where the arguments spill into the physical world with violence and hate. Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis; the clash of ideas creates new ideas, as long as the guns and knives don't come out in the process. Dead and dying ideas (like fascism, racism, et al) tend to resurrect themselves mostly in places where information is controlled and limited; they don't do well in an open marketplace.

The problem is, despite the Internet's world reach, it still can't reach the majority of the people in the world without somehow capturing the attention of traditional media, which still own the “last mile” to the vast majority of the people on earth. The Internet is still guerilla media, and 'blogs effectively still have the same reach as the 'zines in alternative bookstores. So the dead ideas keep rising from the dead, to be defeated anew in the light of day but living on in the shade.

That's why an open Internet is so important. That's why corporate control of media is so insidious. That's why the Internet, despite its technical basis, is a political creature, and why the governments of countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba (and, yes, the United States) want to limit how much of the Internet reaches their citizens, and keeps a close tab on what passes over it.

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.