Being against other people's policies eventually puts you in a downward spiral. It's fine to be principled and oppose views that you don't agree with, but you also have to have an alternative.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I am able to put aside personal beliefs and follow the law, even when I strongly disagree with it.
The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it's possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.
Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.
I understand that it's good tactics to categorize me as a close-minded, unobjective extremist, but nobody that respects me has those views.
I'm literally an independent. Apolitical. So that I am not always going to be with the Left's perceived interests or the Right's perceived interests.
I'm not against anybody.
I feel that if I am freed of the burden of politics, then I can do more and I can take more unpopular decisions. I can have as my guidance for decision whatever is right, not whatever is popular.
I'm an extreme libertarian, but I realize we're in a democracy, and in a democracy, people can have views of all stripes, and there's no reason to argue about it.
Usually, whatever people's particular political leaning is, they either think I'm just like them or the opposite.
I am not going to stop speaking out on behalf of policies that I think are right - regardless of ideology, party or political expediency.