I'm so tired of people saying "I'm not a liberal or a conservative, I refuse to be labeled"... yes, o.k., so you're also not any of the following labels, right? heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual, religious/atheist, political, moral/immoral, male/female, human, alive, conscious. Just because you make your own decisions about what is right/wrong and what the best options are in society/international politics/national economics/etc doesn't mean that you are not somewhere on the liberal/conservative scale.
Just because I self-identify as human, atheist, heterosexual, economic-liberal, social-liberal, and good-government (ask if you don't know), doesn't mean that I will always agree with those who self-identify the same way. Yes, I am a registered Democrat, but that's only because Democrats tend to agree with me and Republicans tend to disagree with me. I'm not therefore forced to vote Democrat, I'm just forced, in the primary, to indicate which Democrat I'd rather see in the general election instead of being able to say which Republican I would rather see.... and in my state, that means I more often will have a decision to make than otherwise. If I were in another state, maybe I'd change my affiliation, but it wouldn't change the criteria by which I would vote in the general election.
Labeling isn't a bad thing. In the case of politics, it cleanly and concisely gives us a starting place. If you meet someone and they want to know about your political ideals, you don't have to go through every issue, you can just explain in a few, or even one, terms and deal in generalities at the start.
By the way, what kind of music do you like? What? You like a type of music? Nonsense, I thought you refused to be labeled and I was sure that you would go through the entire list of artists you like.
