Some call the media "liberal" as an extremist pejorative, but the media is not liberal and liberals are far from extremist. Liberals simply appear to be on the "left" because there is no true voice of the left in America.

Liberals must take back the liberal appellation and make it clear that it is open-minded and centrist, not extreme. Communists and socialists are as extreme to the left as libertarians and free market Republicans are to the right. Evil lies at both extremes.

To understand this, we only need to examine the political economic spectrum from far left to far right. Doing so shows that liberals, or progressives, are centrist or perhaps even slightly to the right of center. This tilt to the "right" illustrates the need for independent, alternative media that is truly balanced.

In this paper, The Erroneous Rhetoric of the Right, are responses to some common charges against, and characterizations of, liberals made by libertarians and other right-wing economic conservatives.

Here is a brief essay drawn from the paper.

A brief lesson on economics

Libertarians want to eliminate most public services, such as public schools and libraries. For example they believe, as one libertarian wrote, "that public libraries should be privatized, because of one simple and glaring reason: Bookstores, new and used, and the Internet have made them unnecessary and obsolete."

This libertarian describes their mantra: "Libertarian: don't tax, don't spend, pay as you go, don't waste money, be responsible." Concluding: "Now, here's the memo, and take it with you to the voting booth this fall and ask yourself, which is best for me, my family, my budget and my future? Me, I'll watch my waste and vote Libertarian."

They praise libertarian virtues. Simple. Neat. Flawed.

To understand the flaws, examine the political extremes.

"Far left" socialists believe all businesses should be owned and run by the state, which I've never heard from liberals or Democrats.

"Far right" libertarians, and "free market" Republicans, believe virtually all government functions should be privatized ... except perhaps national defense, though now they're even privatizing, and profiteering from, many of those (e.g., logistics).

Liberals in the middle (yes, I know it's a shock, in the middle) realize free markets are best for some things, government-regulated markets for others, and government-run for others. For example, government should be heavily involved to :

- Moderate market instabilities due to delays between price signals and the ability of either supply or demand (or both) to respond to price signals. Think price instabilities during the California power crisis.

- Overcome adverse selection. Think health insurance where the healthiest drop insurance, the sickest stay in, prices go up, the healthiest again drop out ... creating today's health insurance death spiral (no, it's not due to "frivolous lawsuits").

- Take advantage of positive externalities. Think education because 1) when we work together, I'm more productive when you're better educated and 2) the payoff from education is so delayed and uncertain that no self-respecting capitalist would ever make the investment. So we all benefit from public schools and libraries. And think health care because 1) when you don't get a communicable disease, I'm less likely to get sick and 2) when we work together, I'm more productive when you're not out sick.

- Overcome negative externalities. Think intrinsic incentives to pollute: companies make more profit when the public cleans up the mess. And think development that leaves the public to pay for much of the cost of roads and schools necessary to support selling their product (producing TABOR/Gallagher reactions). Negative externalities allow companies privatize the profits and socialize the costs ... an insidious form of socialism.

So what's wrong with keeping it simple, ignoring uncomfortable realities, and sticking with an extreme? At the socialist extreme, people are cogs in the machine of the State. At the free-market libertarian extreme, people are commodities to be bought and sold. At neither are people human with intrinsic value. Evil is done in the name of dedication to these extremes.

Republicans have had great success in redefining the "middle" as the "extremist liberal left." The country has moved so far to the right that, practically, there is no "far left" left.

Liberals and Democrats seem to have an intuitive sense that, if we want  to create a sustainable society that works, we need balance between the extremes. Ideology doesn't trap them at one end or the other. That's why my rational choice is to vote Democratic.