All over the internet we see endless battles between "libs" and "cons," "dems" vs. "reps," "hippies" vs. "rednecks," etc. Day after day, year after year, day in day out. Nobody seems to convince anyone, but there sure is a lot of flaming and thrashing it out.

I don't understand why so many people are so eager to shoehorn themselves into one side or the other of this stale punch-and-judy show."Left" and "right" are dying paradigms, a 20th-century game that is rapidly becoming obsolete. These positions are false constructs, increasingly irrelevant to reality as it is unfolding. And the old arguments are, by now, becoming boring as hell.

To give you a sense of where I'm coming from here, let's take, for example, the concepts of "environmentalism" and "gun control." These are both "leftist" positions, but if you examine it, what, logically, do they have to do with each other? Why should the same person be obligated to hold both views? And on the right, what does "pro-life" logically have to do with "pro-Iraq war?" Why are these two unrelated concepts lumped together as "conservative" ?

If you start to seriously examine it, both left and right seem very artificial, collections of cobbled-together, often-unrelated ideas. And yet so many people are eager to join one "team" or the other.

Why don't more people think for themselves? Why don't we see more nuanced blendings of ideas from both sides of the isle? It seems to me that that would be the only way forward in an increasingly complex world.

star and flag, this is not a new idea, but the way you have presented it is excellent. I have always wondered the same thing, how certain issues are pidgeonholed into a political party. For instance, i am pretty liberal i soppose on lots of things, and to me it makes sense that i think we should have access to weapons and right to bear arms, but somehow that "issue" got put into the "other camps" agenda. i know i'm not the only person who usually votes democrat that likes to shoot things...so what gives?