Purity tests undermine political discourse between parties

Earlier this week, on my conservative talk show, I led a discussion on the need for affordable housing in Anchorage. As the discussion unfolded, I gave my opinion that since the private sector isn’t or won’t fill this need, the government is justified in getting involved to find a solution.

Oh, you would have thought I punched the Virgin Mary in the face or suggested Alaskans NOT get Permanent Fund checks. The calls came in, and I heard about it for days: “How could you be such a liberal?”

Now, let me point out that I never suggested any of the following of government: a new program or agency be created, even a single government worker be hired, taxes be increased, or that there should be even one new regulation or mandate on the private sector. Yet even the utterance of the concept of local government involvement in a community problem was enough to trigger an anti-liberal tizzy.

Every day on the radio I take calls from average people on a lot of different topics. It amazes me how often the discussion reduces itself down to a two-dimensional discussion of us vs. them. It can be Alaskans vs. Outsiders, Greenies vs. Developers, and of course Conservatives vs. Conservatives.

Wait, surely I meant Conservatives vs. Liberals, right? No, I meant what I said, although more accurately it is more like “I am the real conservative and you are a liberal” vs. “Nuh-uh, you are.”

This points to a problem at the heart of our political paralysis. It’s a “you are either 100 percent with me or you are against me” attitude. If I’m a conservative and we disagree, then you must be a liberal.

We can see this in our support for politicians. When Joe Miller ran for Senate, his supporters made it clear that you either 100 percent supported the Miller cult of personality, or you were a liberal. There was no middle ground.

Oh, and all you progressives reading this thinking “yeah, conservatives are nuts,” I hate to break it to you, but you are just as bad. Take Global Warming: Any sensible person would understand this isn’t a single question, but rather a series of questions: Is the Earth warming? Is that warming unusual? Are humans the prime cause of that warming? Do we have to destroy our current industrial and commercial activities to combat it? And so on.

Left-wingers would have you believe you are either entirely on board with their positions on every one of these questions or else you are a conservative wing-nut. In reality it is entirely intellectually defensible to say you agree there is scientific credibility to the assertion the Earth is warming but not that humans are the cause, or that we have any real idea how the Earth would respond to an overhaul of world economies.

This leads to what I call “bullet-point” conservatives, liberals, tea partiers, etc. These people know what team they are on and what their team and their opponent’s team is for and against, and that is basically all they know. Positions of pro-life, pro-development, pro-gun, etc. make you conservative. Positions of pro-government, pro-choice, and pro-environment, etc. make you liberal.

So when I talked about the need to do something on the issue of affordable housing, all they heard was “I love the welfare state, which makes me a big flaming liberal.”

There are a lot of Republicans I know who, like me, are tired of the Tea Party/Libertarian faction of the GOP defining and trying to define and enforce this two-dimensionality in our party. Their patron saint Ron Paul only received 24 percent of the vote in the 2012 Alaska presidential primary. They are clearly a small but loud minority. So where do they get off telling the rest of us we have to comply with their purity tests?

What these political puritans don’t understand is that when you label, demonize and exclude even those who mostly stand with you, then you empower those who mostly stand against you.

I am what some call a “Chamber of Commerce conservative.” Like the far right, I am pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-military. But these are not among the biggest concerns in my life.

I care, first and foremost, about creating a vibrant economy and educating our kids well so that both we, and our future generations, will have the freedom of opportunity we, and our past generations, enjoyed. I know government can be a part of the solution to problems without over-taxing, over-regulating, over-mandating, and still respect individual liberty.

Most of all, I believe none of that is at odds with the Republican platform. And if your priorities are a little different from mine, you can still have a home in my party.

Casey Reynolds is the host of the Casey Reynolds Show, broadcast 8-11 a.m. Monday through Friday on KFQD, FM 103.7 and AM 750.