Submitted by h brando, Jan 8, 2008 12:13

Your editorial reflecting dissatisfaction with the negativity of the Norman, Oklahoma confab is solidly based on realism

The commonly expressed thought that " What we need are problem-solves, not idalogues" has an appealing sound. What;s wrong with that statement? Plenty.

Ideologies- reflected in the formation of political parties- are the intellectually formative structures into which day-to-day "solutions" fit. "Why bother?" asks Bloomberg and others. "Just let's face issues and solve them without reference to ideology, and wiothout party labels being attached to them": The reason why these solutions MUST be labelled is that the solutions themselves often are based on assumptions which, pursued, can lead, inadvertently, to totalitarianism. or other undsirable and uninteneded consequence. We know, for example , that depriving citizens of their inherent rights, under our Constitution, leads to the tyranny of the few. This is factual, even though such deprivation in certain instances might well solve some immediate problems..

Decisions must be placed in an ideological context to preserve freedom. We must have parties to represent, however imperfectly, the diverse approaches to our awful quandaries.

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