Glenn Beck recently presented his "Freedom Scale" (depicted below). It illustrates the current political environment in a way that, if most Americans embraced and understood, could lead to a revolution to take back the federal government from the entrenched career politicians who continue to move us toward total government control.
On the extremes of the scale are No Government or anarchy and Big Government or total control by the government. The Occupy Wall Street movement and extreme libertarians advocate for anarchy. Communist and fascistic regimes and dictators operate under the total control end of the spectrum.
One of the reasons the Articles of Confederation was replaced with the Constitution was that it leaned too far to the left side of the spectrum. The central government had virtually no power under the Articles. The Constitution granted it a few "enumerated" powers.
Looking at the modern political landscape, the education system, Hollywood, the mainstream media and labor unions all lean toward and advocate for Big Government. The Democratic Party is only slightly to their left and aggressively moving us total control (higher taxes, Obamacare, thousands upon thousands of job-killing regulations and record levels of dependency on government via unemployment benefits, disability payments, food stamps and free cell phones).
The Republican Party currently resides to the left of the Democrats on this scale but they also advocate for bigger and bigger government with more and more control over the individual (Patriot Act, Prescription Drug benefit, perpetual war).
The so called "moderates" tend to live somewhere in between the GOP and the DNC but, in my mind, make up a small minority of the electorate. If you can't figure out whether the current political environment is good or bad, you probably should not vote!
The sweet spot is right in the middle where the Tea Party and the majority of libertarians reside. They want minimum federal government involvement (only those powers enumerated in the Constitution) with the States picking up most of the slack. They want maximum freedom with just enough security (provided by the government) to hold the community together. They want capitalism to be the driving force behind everything from the local farmers market to the banking system to the education system. Competition and accountability beats government regulations every time! Finally, they believe federal regulations should be minimized.
