In journalism there is nothing worse than interviewing someone with TB - True Believerism.
You know the type - no matter how fair and rational an argument may be, any criticism of a their ideological tilt is met with scorn and abuse and being branded as a stooge for the other side.
Most commonly such characters are found working in the press offices of politicians, spending their hours abusing journalists who write critically of the actions of their party, or deliberately hindering the media's quest to hold such public figures to account.
Such characters have variously branded me a Labor stooge, a Liberal supporter, a Nationals sympathiser, a fascist, a communist and a capitalist pig - the combination of which means I'm either a well-balanced personality or must be doing something right in my job.
But the rapidly changing world is turning traditional ideology upside down, leaving TB sufferers supporting a brand and not a belief.
Take for instance the events of the past week with the financial meltdown in the United States. Some stubborn Republicans and Democrats initially killed Bill to bail out cash-strapped banks, arguing that such intervention contravened their belief in free-market principles. Never mind that free-market principles have put not just the banks, but the people of the western world at risk.
Thankfully that Bill has now been passed, albeit with many hailing it as the death of capitalism. Hyperbole yes, given that pure capitalism, like pure communism or pure any other ideology, has been dead for a long time.
Take for example the nature of land title, a bastion of the capitalist system - Australians have willingly accepted such interventionist Government regulation of land use that it is now not far short of a communist system. Short of dictating which crops to grow (although Professor Garnaut's kangaroo concept was a step in that direction), planning rules dictate exactly what each parcel of land can be used for - unless of course you own a coal mine, in which case the Government will turn a blind eye to wherever you want to park it.
In Australia we have such a love of rules that libertarians lament the loss of personal freedoms.
But such regulations are exactly what is saving our banks from collapse where others have fallen.
Rather than finding a new ideology to solve the world's ills, the real challenge is finding the right balance between the counter-veiling forces of regulation and personal liberity.
As the saying goes, all things in moderation, even moderation itself.
Oh, and while we're dishing out the wisdom of proverbs, the bankers on Wall Street should have listened to my mother who liked to say you can't live on the never never, or you'll end up on Shanks's pony.
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