Sarvis wrote:So if you subscribe to an ideology you must adhere to every single idea of that ideology? There's no room for other thoughts? ARe you abdicating free will to the ideology?
I'm sorry, but this is just silly. People are people; they are allowed, and should be encouraged, to think for themselves rather than follow the script. You're essentially asking for your leaders to be sheep, following some party platform hammered out decades ago. If an idea makes sense, but goes counter to the Party Platform you're going to denounce him for doing the sensible thing?
And we wonder why Party is so divisive in this country...
EDIT: As Rags said, the political spectrum is a range. I doubt there is any such thing as a pure Libertarian... except on the Series of Tubes, anyway.
You're basically saying, "Look, if I want to classify myself as a dog, I should have the right to" -- which is just stupid. We, as humans, categorize things. I am a mammal -- specifically a human. Whether I believe I am an egg or not, means absolutely nothing as I am still a human. When you allow the categories to bleed, the categories, and the act of categorizing, become meaningless. I'm not saying that someone who adheres to socialist doctrines can't also agree with a libertarian on certain issues; however, when they do agree, that does not make them a libertarian -- or vice versa. Sure, at the end of the day, Maher can call himself whatever he wants, but it will never change the fact that he is not a libertarian. He's a person with certain views that lean towards the libertarian ideology. Because a Jew believes in God, does that mean he can call himself a Christian if he still does not believe in Christ? No, no he can't. In the same manner that a man who believes in every precept of Islam, yet does not believe Muhammad was a prophet can not call himself a muslim. The point is, in every ideology, be it political, religious or otherwise, there are certain ideas which must remain sacred; and, if those ideas are not believed in by the person, that person can not, in good conscience or realistically, call themselves a follower of said ideology. In Judaism, the belief that Christ was not the Messiah (in Christian terms) is a separating and necessary belief. In Islam, Muhammad being a prophet is a central and necessary belief -- without it, it is not Islam. In libertarianism, the belief in minimal government is a necessary and central belief; without this belief, the ideology ceases to be libertarianism. Otherwise, I could go around saying I'm a vegetarian nazi, Israel sympathizer who eats a shit-ton of beef.
In short, think wtf ever you want to think, but don't tout yourself as something you're not. It belittles the ideology and the followers of that ideology -- as well as making the person look retarded because they forgot to look the word up in the dictionary. Also, free thought and subscribing to certain points of an ideology and being an adherent to an ideology are two very, very different things. I support both, but allowing those lines to bleed is a mockery of classification and language.