The narrow view of the "leave us aloners."

Seattle P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. writes today about Grover Norquist's new book, Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives. His column, ironically titled "America needs to get past partisan potshots," manages to unintentionally highlight the real rift between how conservatives and progressives view the world. I haven't read the book, but Jamieson describes the way it divides politicians and activists into two categories, "Takers" and "Leave Us Aloners":

The first, he [Norquist] says, is the "Taking Coalition" -- those lawyers, unions, government types and nanny-state meddlers that view the role of government as just taking stuff -- our rights, our freedoms, our hard-earned dough.

Yes, those mean ol' takers, always taking our stuff...surely no one could be in favor of that.

...there's a second group, Norquist says, that pushes back -- "The Leave Us Alone Coalition."

Folks in this group believe government works best at a minimum. If the capitalist system is given a chance to operate, economic forces will make society right. Many of these folks just want to be able to tote their guns and homeschool their children.

Isn't that nice? They just want to be left alone.

Jamieson then goes on to identify Tim Eyman, a local anti-tax activist and annual fixture in the initiative process, as a "leave us aloner." But only two years ago Eyman tried (unsuccessfully) to get an initiative on the ballot that would have made it legal to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. Apparently people who want to be "left alone" in their private relationships are not as worthy of respect as people who don't want to pay taxes.

This is the kind of narrow view always espoused by conservatives like Norquist, who don't care what the government takes from others' freedoms as long as their own pocketbooks are secure and no one tries to take their guns away.