The essays in this series had their origins in the Little Cranberry Island Forums from the summer of 2008. Little Cranberry Island is one of about two dozen islands off the coast of Maine that support a year-around community. There is a little town on the island known as Islesford. During the summer its residents include lobster fishermen, doctors, ministers, lawyers, school teachers, ambassadors, boat captains, investment bankers, U.S. Agency for International Development executives, university presidents, librarians, reporters, columnists and editors, marine biologists, graphic designers, mechanics, academics, housewives, carpenters, investment advisers and artists—some still active and some retired.

Last summer a young fourth-generation lobsterman suggested that it would be both interesting and informative in the midst of the presidential campaign to invite this diverse group of residents to participate on some Saturday afternoons in discussions of some of the important issues facing our nation including international relations, health care and the economy. His mom, a high school math teacher, and his dad, a lobsterman—artist, own and operate an art gallery on the island large enough to house such a meeting. Several island residents with expertise in the selected topics were invited to lead the discussion and the Little Cranberry Island Forums were born.

The forums surprised us in more ways than one. The level of interest and participation was high. The hunger for facts and knowledge about each of these topics, and the civility of the discussions, were surprising. And the knowledge of one or the other of the residents also was surprising. Pulling together all of that knowledge and exchanging it freely without political posturing was a revelation.

Last fall I wondered if it might be possible to capture in print what had been accomplished in these community discussions, extending the format to a broader range of topics. This series of essays has been my effort to do so. Each of the essays was intended to start a discussion, not to end it. Whole books could be written about each of these complicated topics. I've tried to lay out the basic facts about each topic and to prepare the ground work for discussion.

I am grateful to the Daily Report and its editor, Ed Bean, for giving me the opportunity to write this series of essays. Like many of our readers I have been frustrated by the failure of our nation's elected leaders to come to grips with many of the problems weighing upon us now and on our future. While I have learned a great deal as I sought to educate myself about the issues, I know that there is far more to be known than one person could assimilate in months.

In many ways, individually and collectively, we are in a rut. Perhaps native Georgians have a propensity to think in terms of malaises. It is hard to shake off the limitations we have learned to live with over a lifetime, and to find new and better solutions to each of the problems we face whether it is national defense, prison rehabilitation, the resolution of labor disputes, crime, transportation, health care costs, habitual fiscal deficits, the regulation of the ownership and use of dangerous weapons (whether internationally or locally) and on and on. At least we are not leaving the younger generations with a boring world without challenges. Their hands will be full with the task and I wish them well for their sake as well as ours.

Two of the most overused and abused words in the English language are liberal and conservative. Whatever they used to mean, and regardless of how they are defined in the dictionary, the current usage has drifted far afield from their origins. They are often useless and misleading labels that obstruct the intelligent consideration of the subjects to which they are applied.

Dictionaries generally define liberal as “favorable to progress or reform; a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform; pertaining to representative forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies; favorable to a policy of leaving the individual as unrestricted as possible in opportunities for self-expression or self-fulfillment; favorable to concepts of maximum individual freedom; free from prejudice and bigotry; tolerant.” To hear some folks talk a liberal is a left-wing populist or socialist. The definition and the popular usage don't match.

Dictionaries generally define conservative as “disposed to preserve existing conditions and institutions and to agree with gradual rather than abrupt change; cautious or moderate, or cautiously moderate.” The popular usage doesn't match with the word's dictionary definition either.

There are at least three other words used in the political word-wars that should be addressed as well. They are populism, socialism and libertarianism.

A standard dictionary definition of libertarian is “one who advocates liberty, especially with regard to thought or conduct; one who maintains the doctrine of free will.” Socialism is a theory or system of social organization that advocates vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, etc. in the community as a whole. Populism refers to the platform of the Populist Party in the elections of 1891 that advocated “expansion of currency, state control of railroads and placing restrictions upon the ownership of land” and has come to mean in the common usage someone who favors forms of collective ownership and control somewhat short of the socialist model, but clearly headed in that direction.

The use of the labels liberal and conservative conceal a multitude of sins, and the words themselves are now so pliable in meaning as to be almost useless in a thoughtful political discussion. We are suffering from a collective failure of our political vocabulary that restrains and degrades our political dialogue. It would be much better to describe specifically what we like or don't like about a particular policy rather than slapping a confusing and uncertain label on it.

Instead of telling us that the person who proposed a particular program or policy was a liberal or a conservative it would be much more helpful to tell us what was advocated and the facts and arguments about it so we could decide for ourselves if we agreed or not without the intrusion of a distracting (and often inappropriately applied) label. We need to focus on the problem to be addressed, the factual circumstances, the solution proposed and any experiential data.

A lot of folks are confused about where they stand on the historic spectrum from left to right. The dictionary definition of liberal and libertarian sound a lot alike, but the current day adherents to these views see themselves as worlds apart. Libertarians see themselves on the extreme right although in historical perspective they have been on the extreme left—the antithesis of conservative.

Many columnists and commentators have ruminated on the difficulty of the Democratic Party maintaining its coalition of diverse interest groups: labor, African-American and Hispanic minorities (even in jurisdictions where they aren't the minority), intellectuals and academics. Fewer have noted similar difficulties for the Republican Party in maintaining its coalition of libertarians, fundamentalist religionists, so-called conservatives and business interests. In any event, the old spectrum of left to right (or right to left) also has lost much of its former meaning.

To be conservative used to mean a high level of skepticism about change and the goodness of human nature, and a propensity for maintaining the status quo. This resulted in policies of fiscal restraint and balanced budgets, staying out of other people's wars and not starting your own, minding your own business, respecting folks' right to live their lives as they wished and not trying to save the world for democracy. It's obvious that many Republican policies in recent generations have been anything but conservative. Enormous deficits, social engineering and proactive wars are inconsistent with conservatism as we used to know it. Because conservatives tend to support the status quo, the folks holding the most wealth and power in a society tend to be conservatives.

Libertarians have traditionally trusted individuals and individual instincts over groups and group instincts. Liberals have tended to have great faith in the goodness of human nature (which presumably could and would lead to less government regulation) and faith in the collective wisdom of the people rather than the wisdom of the elite few (unless they were among the elite few themselves).

Our own government has lived beyond its means for so long that it is hard for most of us to conceive of an alternative. It is even harder to accept paying the taxes necessary to pay for the services we expect from our government. Our state governments (as well as many local governments) on the overhand, as a result in part of state constitutions that prohibit operating without a balanced budget, have been more fiscally responsible, but some of them have nonetheless evaded their constitutional restrictions by granting retirement and health benefits to state or local employees greatly in excess of the funds reserved to meet these obligations, or borrowing money irresponsibly for capital projects. In many cases these obligations exceed the capacity of government to honor them without imposing an excessive burden on everyone else.

It is easy for skeptics to tell us that big government is the problem, and that we need to cut back the role of government in our affairs because of its inherent inefficiency and unresponsiveness. It is also easy for skeptics to tell us why more government is needed to protect the public from private greed. The skeptics are right on both accounts. Everyone is looking for a magic formula that will make it easy to govern our communities, our nation and the world—unfortunately no such magic formula exists. There is no easy way to govern ourselves well. The only way we can achieve the government and nation we desire is through a persistent, thoughtful effort to enact fair laws, to elect thoughtful, practical, ethical public representatives, and to keep a watchful eye on them.

Our current popular fashion of political campaigns does not encourage a thoughtful consideration of candidates and issues. A very large number of people crave better representation and outcomes than we have achieved. Many of us have given up the effort find such solutions and representatives because it is so difficult to obtain a good result. Making decisions about the future course of our country is not easy and most of us don't have the resources and patience to find the facts and make good choices. It is not now, never was and never will be easy to govern ourselves well. Here's hoping that the next generation can learn and do better.

These conclusions are not inspiring and uplifting. We all wish we could snap our fingers to elect the right leader and live happily ever after. It isn't going to happen! Why does the myth of Sisyphus come to mind? We can never quit trying to create a perfect union, but we will never achieve our objectives. We are nonetheless destined to make the effort.

Michael H. Trotter, Special to the Daily Report