All my adult life, I was branded by officials as ‘an exponent of the right’ who wanted to bring capitalism back to our country. Today-at a ripe old age-I am suspected by some of being left-wing, if not harbouring out-and-out socialist tendencies. What, then is my real position? …I refuse to classify myself as left or right. I stand between these two political and ideological front-lines, independent of them. Some of my opinions may seem left-wing, no doubt, and some right-wing, and I can even imagine that a single opinion may seem left-wing to some and right-wing to others-and to tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less. But most of all I am loath to describe myself as a man of the centre. It seems absurd to define oneself in topographical terms, the more so because the position of the imaginary centre is entirely dependent on the angle from which it is viewed.

The difference between left and right of center … originated in the French parliament. The people left of center were liberals; the people right of center were conservatives. Broadly speaking. And generally speaking, people on … the right of center, are interested in property values, property, property rights. The rights and the rights of property. And generally speaking again – it's all generalized – the left-of-center people are more concerned with humans and human beings and human concerns; to the care of humans, not the care and worry about property rights. That's generally been true. And Bush is pushing this country farther down the hill, faster than anyone has before.

I'm what you might call centre-right but I've always disliked the right wing as much as I've disliked the left wing.

I've tried to maintain a relatively balanced view of the excesses on both sides of the political spectrum, but one thing I have clearly experienced repeatedly is that the Left will shun and exclude to a degree that's almost unknown on the Right. I've never had anyone on the Right, that I've talked to, refuse to talk to a hypothetical guest, for example. And I've had people on the Left, they just do that all the time. And I don't get that exactly. I think maybe it has to do with the association in personality between agreeableness and Leftist's proclivity. So the socialist types, the Lefties, are technically more agreeable. And I think maybe among agreeable people, if you don't go along with the agreeable game you are much more likely to be categorized as a predator.

Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do.

I found I generally preferred the old leftie, radical-activist types who stood charmingly and unfashionably on the side of substance.

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere inbetween.

With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I think I am very moderate. My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles; my representation of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories.

I had a left-wing, humanitarian, secular humanist, liberal inclination on the one hand, which implied positions on myriad issues.
On the other I had prejudices and angers and hatreds toward various classes of people. None of which included skin colour or ethnicity or religion.
Well — religion, yes. I used to get angry at blue-collar right-wingers, but that passed, because I saw that in the end, they were just a different sort of victim.

I had some left wing fella ask me this, he started asking me my views on most things. I'm liberal in many senses, like when it comes to (probably not when I was younger) when it comes to gay people's rights I fight for a gay man's rights – so on all of these issues, as I've grown up, I said,... when people say that I'm far right, well what makes me right wing? Am I right wing just because I don't like Islam? Does that make me right wing just because I don't like a fascist ideology? If I didn't like scientology, does that make me right wing? No, it's an ideology. So I said like, "most of my views, they're very liberal – many of them would be left-wing".

All I cared about was finding answers, no matter who had them. When, later on, I began to associate with conservatives, it was because their ideas were closer to mine than liberals' ideas, not because I saw myself as one of them. I'd already noticed that it was liberals, not conservatives, who were most likely to condescend to blacks, but I assumed, like the good radical I once was, that liberals and conservatives were simply two different breeds of snake, one stealthy, the other openly hostile.

I would rather be a good man than a great king.

Maybe there are two types of people in the world: those who favor humans over ideology, and those who favor ideology over humans. I prefer humans to ideology, but right now the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for artificial high dramas, where everyone is either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain.