Axar.az presents an article, "My Leftist Credo" by John Samuel Tieman.

I'm a socialist. A social democrat, to be exact. A Third Way social democrat, to be even more exacting. If I lived in the United Kingdom, I'd vote Labour. In a London pub, if I said, “My father was a railroad worker, my mother was a secretary, and I was a member of the teachers' union, so today I vote Labour,” the response would be a polite, “Of course, you do.” Here, in the United States, it's a big mystery.

Ever since the McCarthy Era, all forms of socialism have been taboo. Most Americans make no distinction between a Stalinist and someone like me, someone many of my fellow leftists would barely consider a socialist. So let me make it personal. Here's my leftist credo. I'm not A. O. C., Bernie Sanders or Zohran Mamdani. And if my credo is idiosyncratic, well, welcome to my world.

Not long ago, I was having dinner with a bunch of psychoanalysts. I explained how I was raised in a house of Republicans. In high school, I spoke up for Barry Goldwater. Today, I am a Third Way social democrat who serves on my city council. I belong to no party. Were I in the United Kingdom a few years ago, I would have spoken up for Tony Blair. I like Tony Blair. So one fellow at dinner asked, “When did you stop being a Republican?” I've thought of that. I'm not sure I ever stopped. Not really.

In 1972, when I cast my first vote, I voted for George McGovern. On the rest of my ballot, I voted Socialist Worker Party. Which is to say I voted “No.” I had been in Vietnam. Richard Nixon could send me to The Nam, but he couldn't get my vote. So I voted “No.”

When I was an undergraduate, I read “The Communist Manifesto”. For a time, I was an atheistic communist. I was still voting “No.” My views tempered with age. By graduate school, I had fixed on social democracy as simply the most practical approach. My views have been further tempered by the Third Way.

What do I mean by Third Way social democrat? I'm pro-business, and have the voting record to prove it. And I'm a leftist. The Third Way is a centrist approach that seeks to reconcile economically liberal and moderate socialist approaches. In a few words, the Third Way searches for a balance between free market principles and social welfare. Personally, I advocate for a compellingly dynamic market that recognizes and incorporates the need for a range of social safety nets that protect the most vulnerable, as well as a range of measures that protect the environment.

But about my dinner companion. I would answer him today – I've always been informed by conservationism. How?

These are dark times for my country. I believe we must commit ourselves to the following, many of which come from a conservative perspective.

We must commit to a concept of individual liberty that is tempered by the conviction that genuine freedom entails more than simply an absence of restraint.

We must commit to limited government, fiscal responsibility, and the rule of law.

We must commit to a veneration for a cultural inheritance that is vastly more complex than simply being a white Christian nationalist.

While we should be reluctant to discard traditions and traditional social arrangements, we also must embrace change for the common good.

We must respect the market as the generator of wealth while still guarding against the corrosive impact capitalism can have upon morality.

We must combine the stewardship of nature with the sense of living one with nature.

We must have an appreciation of utopian visions while rejecting those utopian promises based upon American exceptionalism and militarism.

Thus does a bit of conservationism still live inside me. That and I have an “I Like Ike” button.

Let me conclude with another personal perspective. In my lifetime, I cannot ignore that I have been the beneficiary of a large-scale government program, the G. I. Bill. I got my bachelor's degree, my M. A. and my first teacher's certificate because of the G. I. Bill. I live in a home largely financed by that same Bill. I am also financially secure because of fortuitous investments in, among other things, the stock market. The government and the free market, such a combination works. I've seen it work.

That and it all has its limits. Perhaps 95% of my city council work has nothing to do with ideology. My neighbor's cracked sidewalk is not an ideological problem.