To paraphrase Scrooge...

"Labels, labels, labels, labelslabelslabelslabelslabels!"

Ugh. 

I'm *so* fed up with them. 

I understand and appreciate that in this world we've created, we need reference points. Otherwise-

Otherwise, how can discerning thinking take place?

(Damn; my tongue is now lodged -embedded- in my cheek. HELP!)

The truth as I've come to see it, is that people don't need labels in order to process information in a responsible, informed way. 

They need labels in order for it to be a 'one and done' situation. 

You see, it's all a question of 'discrimination by way of mnemonics'. 

Or maybe I'm misusing that word. 

Perhaps I should be expressing it 'discrimination by way of a Pavlovian response'. 

So a label triggers a response. 

There's little discernment going on. 

There's little actual 'thinking' going on. 

Don't they refer to this process as 'the lizard brain'...?

As I've been visiting relatives south of the border, I've been all the more aware of how labels dominate life here. 

Parties. 

Teams. 

States. 

In the Sandra Bullock film 'The Blind Side', there's a hoot of a scene where Kathy Bates is being interviewed to be a tutor. And Bates suddenly confesses what she knows might be a deal-breaker: "I'm a Democrat."

With the Canadian election done-and-dusted, I've been reading online comments at a broad range of sites, and it's been depressing/stunning/shocking/disillusioning to see just how entrenched so many people's 'value systems' are in their labels. 

Specifically Americans in wanting to transfer their perceptions of 'conservative' and 'liberal' to Canadian politics, how much fervour they clearly feel, how much vehemence they're compelled to express...even though they just as clearly haven't a clue as to the subject matter. (Not that they probably have much more a clue as their own political system; the amount of misinformation, the extent to which people are misinformed about their own particulars is truly bewildering.)

I know there's nothing new here. 

'Us vs Them' has been around since time immemorial. 

It's one of the prime motivating factors of what's pushed civilization forward, the basis of, at the very least, competition. 

But people have become so lazy, so unwilling to actually use their grey matter to differentiate, to discern, to form qualified opinions, that instead, they resort to labels and whatever qualities they've attached to them. 

(And then, so often in the case within the US, wrap it all up in the flag. 'Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy'.) 

So I've come to hate labels. Especially in the realm of 'politics'. 

I want good governance. 

I want good policies. 

I want sound reasoning, with a little bit of visionary thinking combined with some pragmatism, some faith...and maybe a dollop or two of creativity that occasionally brushes up against pure genius. 

I want engagement, I want discourse, discussion, dialogue...

What I don't want is self-serving, self-aggrandizing, obfuscating rhetoric. 

I don't want close-minded, addle-brained partisan politics that has little to do with the betterment of our human condition.

I don't want 'Us vs Them'. 

And I sure as Hell don't want labels. 

Thankyouverymuch.