All labeling and pigeonholing is a prelude to class warfare. It's the critical foundation to the "Us vs. Them" edifice, which itself is the false front to simple tribalism.

The enduring appeal of tribalism is reflected in the popularity of team sports, which is nothing much less than stylized warfare with most of the violence removed.

Tribalism is also apparent in the process of political identification. Your uneasiness here with labeling has prompted you to come up with a new system, rather than persevere with your inkling that something is amiss with the whole process, and pursue more consideration in that direction.

The impetus to form up into tribes appears to be almost irresistable to the human masses. It also has irresistable appeal to those who have learned to control the symbols to which the masses respond. Hitler was one such man, the ultimate demogogue, whose impassioned hystronics enraptured the german nation, sent powerful armies off to the field of battle and eventual defeat, and set in motion the construction of an enormous Jew-killing apparatus whose ultimate goal was the extermination of the Jews as a class, along with Bolsheviks, Gypsies, commissars, homosexuals, the sick, the deformed, and anybody else who fell into disfavor with the Nazis, the self-styled political force of the Aryan tribe.

The Nazis even had diagrams detailing physical characteristics of Aryans and other races, most particulary Jews, and the ultimate label was probably the yellow Star of David.

The evil legacy of WWII is everywhere, and it was all about class warfare.

The point I would make here is that while there may be much which unites us with this tribe or that, membership in the tribes may carry a price - relinquishing the right to think for yourself, draw your own conclusions, and arrive at your own stand on the various issues is one, and another is a potential vulnerability to being swayed by demogogues, those impassioned champions of this cause or that who are sometimes able to control masses of people by manipulating symbols and other fetishes which leverage tribal instincts among them.

When the need to belong is too strong, men arrive at illogical conclusions and do irrational things.

sp