I am a registered Independent in the state of Oregon.

I know that most people don’t willingly divulge their party affiliations without a fight, but I’m tired of not caring. I may identify more with Democratic views than I do with Republican, but not enough to feel like I should have to register as one. Our country was founded on independent spirit and, dammit, that’s what I’m going to be. Besides, the principles that each party stands for are so muddled and incongruent from candidate to candidate that, to me at least, party affiliation seems insane.

Is Ron Paul a Republican when you compare him to, say, Rudy Giuliani? Is Dennis Kucinich a Democrat when you compare him to Hillary Clinton? Isn’t Mitt Romney a robot? What party should he really belong to, then? And, for god’s sake, what the hell is Mike Gravel?

I’m sure someone will fire back with detailed breakdowns of what these people say they stand for that makes them a Democrat or a Republican, but that’s all just hogwash. Thirty or forty years ago, Republicans were isolationists and fiscal conservatives. Now, a Republican president has gotten us into one pre-emptive war and is looking to get us into another while he runs the deficit to record-highs. Hell, Abe Lincoln was a Republican. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican (before he was a member of the Bull Moose Party). Strom “I Hate Black People” Thurmond was originally a Democrat. Why, just a few years ago, Joe Lieberman was a Democrat. How crazy is that?

It’s easy to assume that, over the course of my lifetime, were I to pick a party and stick with it, that party’s platforms would change at least once or twice. But not so quick so as you’d notice. It takes years and years, as the party slowly bends to the will of it’s up-and-coming members. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that this happens, just by watching the political landscape unfold over the past 15 years or so and by reading history books dealing with our nation. Social perceptions change and parties are melded to society. No big surprise there.

So, in order to change with my own perception, since I often seem to be so out-of-step with society, and to appeal to my occasional swashbuckling sensibilities, I registered as an independent. Not a Democrat, not a Republican, not a Libertarian, not a member of the Green Party, but a independent. I’m free to cherry pick the platforms and issues from every party that I like and espouse them as my own, discarding the rest like so much chaff. This is just one of many ways in which I am like a combine. I also have a large, forward-mounted cab and a large hopper…but that’s beside the point.

To use another farm analogy, I don’t like to “mooo.”. I don’t like herd mentality. I don’t even like those little rope barricades they set up at the airport or the bank to get you into a neat little line. My political beliefs do not conform to neat little orderly lines, so why should I conform to party lines? I’m leaving myself to open to graze, free to roam as I will.

Now that I think about it, it’s kinda oxymoronic to be a “registered” Independent. Kind of like being a “practicing atheist” in a way, I guess. Oh well…

I don’t think that these realizations are restricted me alone, either. I think we’re all independent at heart, or at least we want to be. I don’t think you like to be herded into organized groups. If you really step back and look at it, being a part of a political party is like being in line at the DMV. Whether you’re in one line or in another, neither of them is likely to move any time soon, and even when you do get to the point where you can tell them what you need, you’re going to get the runaround and probably won’t be satisfied with the answer. Not to mention that both of those lines end up at the same place, in the same building.

Just another reason to be independent.