Politics: Trying to get beyond "right" and "left"

The benefits of a two party system is that the USA doesn't wind up with kooky coalition governments where a stronger parties have to bring in extremist parties to assemble a government.

The other side of a strong two party system is that some people don't feel truly at home with either party and join one or the other reluctantly or opt out entirely.

This sense of disconnection with the two major parties is most strongly felt by those with religious convictions.

For example, those on the evangelical and Christian left who have strong economic redistributionist views like the Democrats but feel alienated from that party because they are pro-life.

Meanwhile, Christian conservatives who sign on with the Republicans because of the pro-life issue and Protestant work ethic feel alienated when the party is so pro-business it hurts the average citizen.

In response to these kinds of concerns, some authors have published "manifestos." From the left, there is Jim Wallis and his book "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It."

I recently heard a radio interview with an author from the right, Rod Dreher whose book is "Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)."

Am going to have to look into this Dreher chap a bit more. He sounded interesting on the interview.