When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.—Gary Lloyd
As more and more Americans are beginning to realize, the differences between the two major political parties are minuscule.  While Democrats and Republicans do differ on some issues, their solution is generally the same: more or less status quo.  Instead of offering radically different alternatives, the alternatives they offer only differ by degrees.  Instead of engaging in vibrant debates, we simply hear the same old tedious platitudes.  To be sure, there are some individuals such as Ron Paul who use their position to disseminate ideas which lie outside popular convention, but their voices are drowned out in the cacophony of the pop media.  By and large, the two parties have merged into wings of the same party.

For example, the idea of a national sales tax, the so-called Fair Tax, appeals to many fiscal conservatives.  However, the Fair Tax will not do one thing to shrink government.  One of the selling points of the program is that it is revenue neutral, meaning that the federal government will raise the same amount of revenue under the Fair Tax as it would under the current income tax system.  In addition, the Fair Tax will simply shift the burden of compliance onto businesses instead of individuals, and it includes a provision of the negative income tax, the guaranteed minimum income, in which the government sends out "prebate" checks, thus encouraging dependence on the government.  This is a program supported by people who say they are for small government?  Unfortunately, this is the reality of modern America.

Not to pick on conservatives, liberals are just bad.  Democrats oppose the Iraq War because it is viewed as President Bush's war, not because they oppose war itself.  After all, President Clinton had no qualms about dropping million of pounds of ordinance on the Iraqis.  Even Barack Obama, the supposed antiwar candidate, is anything but; he's just more subtle.  Under Obama, the role of America as the world's policeman would continue and be expanded.  Sorry folks, you can't run around the world sticking your nose into everyone else's business and not expect to get punched occasionally.

The list of issues goes on and on. 

On social security, the best the Republicans could offer was to allow people to contribute a small percentage of their earnings to government approved private accounts.  How radical!!

On health care, the Democrats want to socialize the whole system.  On the other hand, the Republicans, the self- proclaimed party of small government, only took the small step of introducing the Medicare prescription drug benefit plan, a program that former comptroller general David Walker called the most irresponsible piece of legislation since LBJ's Great Society days.

On monetary issues, there is no talk from either party about re-legalizing hard money and phasing out the Federal Reserve.  Hell, there's no talk at all about the monetary policy, perhaps the biggest and most important issue of them all. 

Well, at least the Democrats are strong on civil liberties.  Oh yeah, that's right the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act are still on the books, and the NSA is still spying on Americans.  And, it was a Democrat, Jane Harman from California, who introduced the most Orwellian piece of legislation of all, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1955/S. 1959).  Nice.

The fact is that Americans have been sold a defective bill of goods.  We have been taught to think in terms of right versus left, of conservative versus liberal.  That's a false paradigm.  A much better defection of the political spectrum shows not only right versus left, but authoritarian versus libertarian, such as the Nolan Chart on which the World's Smallest Political Quiz is based.

In America today, the horizontal line the bisects this diamond, the liberal/conservative plane, is moving down towards statism.  That's a very bad neighborhood.  It includes folks like Hitler and Stalin.  Many people still think Hitler was to the far right and Stalin was to the far left.  In reality, the differences between Hitler and Stalin were minor.  Under communism, the State owns the means of production (capital and business) outright.  Under fascism, businesses hold the title to their property, but the State controls it.  Since ownership means not only possession of a thing but control of that thing, that means that the State still owns the means of production.  Thus, the difference between fascism and communism is only superficial.  Sound familiar?

America has prospered not because of government but because of freedom.  True freedom is comprised of two inextricably linked components: personal liberty and economic freedom.  Personal liberty allows people to live their lives in the way they want without violent intervention.  This promotes social harmony.  Economic freedom allows people to interact and trade with one another in mutually beneficially ways.  This promote prosperity.  Unfortunately, liberals and conservatives have tried to separate these two concepts, leading to disastrous results.  How can you have personal liberty when you are not free to keep what you earn?  Limiting economic freedom destroys the very tools that human beings need in order to shape their lives in the ways that bring them happiness.  On the other hand, how can you have economic freedom when you cannot control your own life, when the government places restrictions on what you can trade and the activities in which you can engage?  And what good are the tools to pursue happiness when the goal itself is put off limits, anyway?  Therefore, as you can see, the vertical plane of the Nolan Chart, how much control the government should have (and, hence, how much it infringes on individual liberty) is much more important than the horizontal plane, which really simply involves what the government controls. 

Until and unless Americans undergo a paradigm shift in their political awareness, and once again recognize that freedom and liberty are the means to peace, harmony, and prosperity, the country is going to continue to head down towards authoritarianism.  Whether that authoritarianism is called socialist or fascist, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, who cares? 

The choice is not left or right.  The choice is liberty or tyranny.