Tick box politics

 One of the things that really winds me up is tick box politics. This seems to have been a problem in America for forty or fifty years but in the last twenty years or so the sickness has spread to most of the Western democracies, with Britain being particularly bad.

I saw it at its most naked during the Brexit referendum in 2016 and the three years of bitter wrangling that followed. It wasn't just that many Remainers refused to accept the result; it was that they labelled Leavers as being racist, xenophobic, right-wing, moronic and harking back to the Imperial past of Britain.

Frankly, this was a load of old moody but it's still trotted out occasionally (though mercifully less so since we left the EU at the end of 2019. 

But Brexit was just one area. For instance, there seems to be a whole kind of 'package politics' that you're supposed to buy into if you're on the left and another one you're supposed to follow if you're on the right. 

(As a centrist I hold views that some would consider left-wing and others right-wing but that's because I'm an independent thinking and independent thought is the polar opposite of tick box politics!)

For example, on abortion it's automatically assumed that pro-choicers are leftists and pro-lifers are right-wing; on gay marriage it's automatically assumed that its supporters are left-wing and its opponents are rightists; on capital punishment it's automatically assumed that pros are right-wing and antis are left wing; on feminism it's automatically assumed that antifeminists must be right wing; on the transgender issue it's automatically assumed that anyone who wants to protect women's safety must be 'transphobic;' anyone who supports publicly funded healthcare must be a leftist if not an absolute Communist; anyone who supports reforming the bloated public sector must be right wing.

And so on and so on ad nauseam. 

The inhabitants of the West seem to be totally dominated and brainwashed by this ultra tribalism and it's not just poisoning politics and society in general; it's making freedom, tolerance, fairness and any kind of civilised society almost impossible.

The sooner we stop these ridiculous one-dimensional attitudes the better because if we don't do that then we really are heading for the collapse of democracy and the establishment of a totalitarian regime.

And we know from history - and the present examples of China, North Korea and others of that ilk - the harm that totalitarianism does to the world.