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We have an unfortunate habit of viewing political positions in a one-dimensional way. You know, the old "left wing", "right wing", dichotomy, with "centrists". These terms don't make one gram of sense in reality since politics isn't one-dimensional, it is multi-dimensional.What I mean is, there are dozens of issues you must have positions on, many possible positions for each issue, and thousands of possible combinations of positions, but there are only three ways of describing them in the bad model: "left", "right", and "center".
I bring this up because I have been described as "far-left" by some, and I don't feel like that at all. You see, I come from an environment, college, where ideas are judged based on reason. Either a political idea makes logical sense given your values or it doesn't.
When I say end the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan now, cut our bloated/wasteful military budget, pass a carbon tax to stop climate change, pass Medicare for all, save up for the next recession, give full civil rights to gays, and convert to the metric system, I'm not describing an "extreme left" set of positions. I'm describing a set of positions that flows logically from my values, which it turns out, are commonly held values for many in America. Sometimes when you take your values to their logical conclusions, you get to really innovative ideas.
To conclude, stop labeling people as an excuse to pre-judge them. Engage with their ideas, not with a label that can never capture a gram of their full complexity.
