The political spectrum is too narrow a concept

Many speak of the political spectrum as if it was a well-defined concept of how people stood on very issues - often "conservatives" on the "right" and "liberals" on the "left".  Fortunately, people are much more complex than that.  Somebody may be a "religious conservative" but believe "corporations have too much power".  Somebody else may complain "government is interfering with business", but have a "liberal interpretation" of the Bible.

I think it has become a ridiculous situation when some define others as "not conservative enough".  I think "conservative" has become something defined by ALEC which has come up with a lot of issues that real conservatives have not even considered - like voter ID.

I think we should think more of "The Political Pie".  Each issue is an irregular slice of the pie.  In the middle of the pie is "The Truth" represented by a fuzzy tennis ball.  On some issues people are far away from the "The Truth" and on other issues the same people may be closer to "The Truth".

Each blur represents people of one "side" of the political spectrum or the other.  Neither "side" consistently comes close to "The Truth".  Instead of dividing themselves into left and right on everything, people should work with people who share their views on a given issue.  Today a "conservative" and a "liberal" may be in agreement on an issue and tomorrow they may be in disagreement on another issue.  This was the dream of the writers of the Constitution.  Unfortunately, even they fell into factionalism and we've had polarization ever since; sometimes less than other times; too many times more so.