I think TV shows are a good model for politic-infused writing. Shows like Battlestar Galactica or The 4400 keep you guessing. One week, you’re totally on the side of a specific character until something new is revealed that places their motivations into question. Suddenly, their nemesis seems like a more appealing character for a while, until the tables are turned yet again.

Based on this… a better way to portray politics would be to slowly reveal the dangers of all extremes, per character/faction and to put the main characters in the middle of all that somehow — forcing both the character and the reader to simultaneously wonder, “What IS right? What IS wrong?”

Utopists of any stripe are amusing or boring. There are no pure systems.

The Mongols, Huns and Visigoths were pastoralist anarchists. But soon enough, the appeal of settling down and having steady supplies instead of scavenging created the early Dark Age empires.

Libertarianism is not anarchism, and those who confuse the two, inside and out, are trouble.