The political spectrum: Line or circle?

My earlier post about the composition of Democrat voters seems to have attracted a lot of email and argument, primarily because I use the straight-line political spectrum (shown below) to illustrate my point:

<================================+===============================>
Democrat...............................Centrist............................Republican

This spectrum, as I point out in the post, is totally useless. Moving to the left does not win Republicans elections, making a clear and distinct case for conservative policies does. Democrats can win using this strategy, but only because moving to the right makes them look less like socialists.

A more disturbing criticism of this straight-line political spectrum is that the spectrum should be a circle. The idea is that when you move too-far in either direction, you arrive at dictatorship.

This idea is total nonsense. Conservative philosophy suggests that the government should stay out of our lives unless we are hurting someone else without that person's consent. It also suggests that we should be armed and ready to overthrow our government if it becomes tyrannical. Liberals argue that the government should be used to redistribute wealth involuntarily, that the government should be used to force an end to discrimination through law, and that the government can ignore laws of supply and demand and pass rent control laws and declare "gun-free zones" and that these silly ideas will work. Which one of these ideas brings us closer to fascism? Limited government or the mystical state?

The only vague similarity between fascism and conservatism is that conservatives believe in the defense of their country. Carrying conservative ideas to their extreme results in more freedom, not less.

What we need is a Statism index. At one end you will find Republicans, anarchists and libertarians. At the other, you will find John McCain, Democrats, communists and fascists.