Or at least, I've been thinking it. I consider myself anti-war...ish, but I still regarded most "anti-war" protesters as a bunch of dishonest phonies. If you want to have an anti-Bush rally, have an anti-Bush rally and call it that. Don't claim to be anti-war and then just clam up when we change Presidents.
One of the things that bugs me about the left (the American left, anyway) is that the left just isn't that honest about what they really want and what really motivates them, left-wing politicians even less so. The hard left has a long history of this, they say innocuous-sounding things like "equality" and "workers rights" instead of "socialism" or "big government," and they even built such deliberate deception into their philosophy (see "popular front"). I believe in Europe things are quite different, and left-wing politicians will openly say they prefer socialism, or don't believe in the rule of law or private property, or whatever. I prefer honesty. I don't always agree with conservatives and Republicans but by and large they are extremely upfront about what their policy aims are and why they push for the policies they do.
Perhaps in a more left-wing country it would be right-wing politicians who hide behind popular fronts and left-wing politicians are more open. I just don't know.
My worry is that in many parts of Europe the only "right-wing" political movements with a real grass-roots push seem to be anti-immigrant, protectionist, xenophobic ones. I consider such big-government policies to be the antithesis of my own right-wing libertarianism, but the powers that be have decided to classify people like that as "right-wing" right alongside with myself, so what am I gonna do?
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