I Am Not Partisan

I am not partisan. I am not a team player in politics.

To be partisan is to be loyal to a political team—usually a political party—regardless of whatever policies that team pursues or puts forth. Sure, most people who are very passionate followers of their party have their limits and will abandon their party in time if it strays too far. This is why you saw massive numbers of Democrats switching to the Republican Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s, preferring Richard Nixon to an heir of Lyndon Johnson. (Yes, this touches on where we’re going in my recently started series, “The History of Conservatism, Liberalism and Libertarianism.” Sign up for email notifications to find out when the next one in that series is published.)

Still, there are many people who clearly side with their party through much that might be otherwise considered contradictory positions. A clear sign of partisanship is when a person accuses the opposing party of doing something and then later praises or supports, or as is more often the case, makes excuses for their own party when it does the same.

We all see it. Especially in our political opponents and in the media. It’s something that is so blatantly obvious, yet so common. The message sent is, “Don’t accuse that guy of wrong; you’re on the same team!” Where we don’t see it so much is in ourselves.

After his notorious Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, Psychology Professor Phillip Zimbardo said, “Most of the evil in the world comes about, not out of evil motives, but someone saying, ‘get with the program; be a team player.’” (More on that experiment here. Some caution advised for younger viewers due to the nature and results of the experiment.)

Human nature is prone to just such a mode of categorization. That is why it is so easy to assume a collectivist view of the world, a topic I addressed a couple posts ago (“The Reality of Collectivism”). That is why so many young Germans in Nazi Germany could end up committing the atrocities of the racial and biological hygiene programs and the full horror of the holocaust. Most of them, as young men, if given a chance to choose those actions from the comfort of their childhood homes, would be appalled at it.

And of course, that level of brutality, the psychology of which was specifically being studied in the Stanford Prison Experiment, is beyond the more “mild” accusations I am making. Still, it serves a good and sobering tool to demonstrate the dangers of this sort of thinking.

Fundamentally, there is no principle behind a partisanship that stays true to team rather than a constant standard. For those who say that there is, we often call that situational ethics, which, by definition, hardly fits any definition of principle. It is either okay to steal, or it is not. I cannot say the other team is wrong to steal, but there must be some good reason for it if mine does it.

I am not partisan. I do not adhere to a political team. My standards and beliefs are far and above any situational ethics, a concept I personally find repulsive, if I can be about as blunt as I have on this site. To the extend a political party aligns with my principles, those areas have my support. To the extent they violate my principles, those areas do not.

Many Democrats scoffed at George W. Bush when his military authorizations caused greater unrest in the Middle East, but were silent when the Obama administration pursued similar policies. Many Obama opponents among Republicans readily screamed about and scolded his healthcare legislation, but now support measures that keep most of it intact.

I would go so far as to call this cognitive, if not moral, dissonance. A harsher, yet fully applicable term: hypocrisy.

But there is nothing that can tie me to a team. I belief first and foremost in a Truth built upon the Word of God and His revelation. All else flows from there. I also support, as should be most obvious to my readers, liberty. (I lay out my case here: “On What Basis Liberty? Part 1“.) Not because I support all the activities protected by liberty, but because I believe that the power of the state is too great a danger to equip with the power to punish on its own ebbing and flowing standards of morality. (More on that in my post, “Church & State”.) Christians, of all people, should see the clear tide of acceptable opinion marginalizing and looking to correct or punish our “narrow-minded” views, and yet in many cases we are often as guilty of being team players as the next guy—just as ready with the excuses. (Want to know my recent thoughts on the Libertarian Party? Sign up for my email.)

To what extent will you violate principle and truth to stay true to your team—to your political party? To what extent will you make excuses for your favored candidate when he or she acts in opposition to what you know is true and right?