Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Lord J Esq on March 05, 2010, 07:29:00 pm
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A thread for the politically curious of all ideological stripes, from a bona fide liberal...
Q: Josh, what are the four most important things I can do to better the country without inconveniencing myself?
1. Join a union, or support the unionization of your workplace if none is available. There is not a single more significant act you can take to better the economic wellbeing of the lower and middle classes than joining a labor union. When you read history, you will understand, but until then you can still do the right thing without necessarily knowing why. To learn more, focus on the historical period between 1880 and 1940, and take a look at what working conditions used to be like and what industry and government used to do to defiant workers.
2. Read history. Yeah, you saw that coming. My great recommendation of the moment is The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, which finally came out in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Behind-New-Deal-Unemployment/dp/1400078563/ref=tmm_pap_title_0) last month. I know I can count on Thought's support for the reading of history, and he's not even a liberal. Up From Slavery, the autobiography of Booker T. Washington, is also worth a read. You can find it at your local library. Simply put, your ability to understand the nation as it exists today (and thereby change it for the better) is directly tied to your understanding of the nation's history, and to a lesser extent of world history. When George Washington turned over his sword and walked away from the chance to become King of America, that was a turning point in history--and he repeated the same show of humbleness by walking away from the presidency after only two terms. But why did he give up power like that? Read his farewell address (you may remember it from school), and go from there.
3. Vote, and vote Democratic. Okay, so this is "ask a liberal," yes? To make a long story short, the Republican Party is evil and the Democratic Party is incompetent. If you crunch all the numbers, you will probably find, as I have, that voting Democratic is the best way to change the country--better than not voting at all, better than voting for the Republicans to purify the Democratic ranks, and better than voting for a third party. But! There's a caveat: You must vote in primary elections as well as general ones. The key to everything is the primary election, when sucky Democrats can be replaced by better one. You must not vote for the incumbent unless he or she has explicitly earned your vote.
4. Read the news. It's hard for me to tell you in a short space what exactly you should be looking for when you read the news. Just read it with a critical eye, and you will eventually figure it out for yourself. Do not waste your time reading cable news websites (like cnn.com); read news websites that originate from print newspapers, the BBC, or international news agencies. These are where you will find "real" news. Note: News is not necessarily supposed to be entertaining. It is supposed to be informative. If you're reading a story about the world's largest cupcake, or the latest 5,000-person nude photo, you're not really reading the news. Also be sure to read your local newspaper, if you have one.
Q: Josh, have liberals ever met a tax they didn't like?
Yes. Liberals tend to oppose regressive taxes that disproportionately affect the lower classes. A sales tax, one of the major forms of taxation, is an example of a regressive tax, because material quality of life purchases (like groceries) consume a much larger percentage of a poor person's income than a rich person's, and thus the sales tax's relative rate becomes higher the poorer you are. A sales tax is also heavily dependent on the health of the economy, and is one of the weakest broad-base taxes during a recession, which is the worst time for tax revenues to become depressed. As such, liberals tend to disfavor the sales tax--although most will support it over nothing, as is the case here in Washington State, where in the absence of an income tax it is the most important revenue stream in the state. There has been some sentiment for Washington to replace its sales tax with an income tax, but the conservatives are against it and most everyone else doesn't understand the issue well enough to favor such a radical change to the system.
Q: Josh, do liberals hate America?
Some liberals do, yes. There is a great deal of guilt and contempt in the American ethos. Our history is a brutal one and even today there are serious injustices throughout the land. At the same time, our material quality of living is extraordinarily high by historical standards, which seems insensitive to generations past, to all those peoples who we displaced, and to the people worldwide who are still gripped by poverty or tyranny. Thirdly, ours is a very powerful nation--still the most powerful on Earth and in history--and has exercised that power over the will of other nations. Thus, to simplify it all down, we're powerful, we're brutal, and we live the good life...and we did it all at the expense of the weak. That, in a nutshell, is the nature of liberal hatred for America.
Of course, not all liberals hate America. Many if not most liberals don't hate it at all. All of these criticisms of America are valid, but one needn't conclude that hating the country is the correct response. Americans who go so far as to hate their own country tend to be conflicted people, filled with self-doubt, aggression problems, and fundamentalist-style thinking. They draw their hatred not so much from a reaction to America's injustices, but from a larger contempt for all existence. Of course, if you ask them, they'll usually say that they have a desire to fundamentally change the prevailing economic system.
There is room to legitimately hate America, however. There's an old saying, which goes something like "The real scandal isn't in what's illegal, but rather what's legal." If you a true lowercase-D democrat, or a true humanitarian, or a true populist, then the injustices committed with impunity by the wealthy and powerful are an abomination sufficient that I wouldn't stand in somebody's way if they decide that America warrants hatred. But I wouldn't be comfortable around that kind of person, because in America you can change the system without inciting a revolution, and that's impressive. In America you have opportunity: you get a K-12 education and the right to vote at 18. That's impressive. You can start a businesses and plausibly make money from the enterprise. That's impressive. Those three things--access to the law of the land, civil liberty, and economic opportunity--make it impossible for someone like me to hate the country so long as they remain operational, because they are the keys to progress, and if you give up on them entirely, on principle, then you are pretty much giving up on humanity.
It's worth noting that "America-hate" is not a liberal phenomenon. It transcends the political spectrum. One of the reasons patriotism was so highly regarded in times past is that it was an antagonist to the treasonous sentiments which naturally arise in a public body. Today patriotism is regarded as antiquated and childish, but it served an important purpose. Beyond the presently benign grousings of the left is the much more dangerous behavior coming out of the Tea Party right, among whom America-hate is rampant, and the rest of us no longer have the sword of patriotism to wield against them.
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Do liberals have sex with non-liberals?
I'm not sure what I'd be, probably 'lean' toward a libby though. I hate taxes, I embrace change, and all that stuff. Another site I recommend for the news is abovetopsecret.com.
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Q: What's your opinion of Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies as Governor of California? And should his alleged history of sexual abuse rule him out automatically as a candidate for a liberal's vote?
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Q: Wouldn't you say you gotta read W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls Of Black Folk if you read Up From Slavery? A little back and forth in the two reads. I can also attest to Harriet Jacobs' Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl, and more recently Honky by Dalton Conley. Sorry for gushing, I just feel that history gains more appreciation laid out like these works than ye olde textbooks of yore.
I agree with much. I have more questions, a little more detailed politically...the interworkings of politics is admittedly not a strong point. Know that it will more than likely call for comparisons, it works well for my brain when it comes to politics.
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Do liberals have sex with non-liberals?
Never. At least not without chemical showers. :lol:
Q: How is it that two liberals who seemingly have things in common butt heads every time they meet, when people from the Republican party can get together unexpectedly and be on the same page every time? Does it have to do with religion (or the lack thereof)?
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Q: What do liberals think of Ron Paul?
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Q: What's your opinion of Arnold Schwarzenegger's policies as Governor of California? And should his alleged history of sexual abuse rule him out automatically as a candidate for a liberal's vote?
My opinion of Schwarzenegger's governorship has been one of guarded optimism. It's so hard to find nationally prominent Republicans who aren't crazy or pro-crazy, and he's one of them. He is a socially left-of-center Republican, which is mandatory in this day and age for those who wanna avoid the craziness stigma. Economically I think his mind is in the right place, even if his perceptual framework is more conservative than mine. Yet the fact remains that Schwarzenegger has presided over a dysfunctional period in California's history and thus has been mostly a failure as a governor. I'm tempted to say that it was out of his control, but perhaps a better governor could have proved me wrong.
As for your other question, I find it hard to give a plain yes or no. First of all, an alleged history of any impropriety is hard to justify as grounds for disqualification. Second of all, I am always skeptical of broad-sweeping rules for "automatically" establishing something, especially if I do not develop them myself. Third, there is the complicating factor that Schwarzenegger may have changed for the better over time, and I think it is very important to keep vengeance out of one's judgment. Fourth, there is the question of the degrees of severity of these abuses. Fifth, to my chagrin, sexual abuse of one kind or another is common enough in humans (and males in particular) that to issue the kind of ban you are talking about would prevent an individual of good conscience from voting at all in many contests, short-circuiting the process of social change.
Assuming the allegations against him are generally true, since there were multiple instances and Schwarzenegger's own tone seemed not to discredit it, then, on the whole, I would be disinclined to vote for him personally, because you know how I feel about sexual abuse. (And the Democratic candidate was better anyway.) But I don't know enough of the story to say that he should be automatically disqualified for a liberal's vote. It would depend on the truthfulness of at least some of the allegations, his rehabilitation by the time he ran for office, and the severity of the abuses.
Q: Wouldn't you say you gotta read W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls Of Black Folk if you read Up From Slavery? A little back and forth in the two reads. I can also attest to Harriet Jacobs' Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl, and more recently Honky by Dalton Conley. Sorry for gushing, I just feel that history gains more appreciation laid out like these works than ye olde textbooks of yore.
Well-said. Individual book recommendations should not be inferred as primers for expertise, but points of entry into the wider subject.
Q: How is it that two liberals who seemingly have things in common butt heads every time they meet, when people from the Republican party can get together unexpectedly and be on the same page every time? Does it have to do with religion (or the lack thereof)?
I am sympathetic to this question, but at the same time I have to point out that it is a loaded question. The answer comes in parts:
1. The Republican Party is ideologically homogeneous nowadays. If you say that two liberals have a lot in common on average, then you have to say that two Republicans on average will have even more in common. So, in part, the disparity is caused by definition: Your question could be rephrased as "How is it that two people who agree on some things will disagree more often than those who agree on most things?"
2. The Republican platform is manipulative more so than substantive. The GOP strategy to win elections is based almost entirely on changing the minds of the public, as opposed to winning them over without changing their minds by themselves changing to fit the people's will, which is what Democrats tend to try to do. Such a strategy, to the extent it succeeds, will promote the very homogeneity I mentioned in the previous point.
3. The Republican base has been indoctrinated by a hugely successful long-term propaganda campaign. A key goal of the manipulation I mentioned in the previous point is to rally people around a common cause. Republicans are united in their opposition to all things "liberal," and that unification tends to shine quite brightly. Republicans actually do argue among themselves a great deal if you can get them off the subject of their enemies, but they're very tenacious at spending their time and energy on vilifying the opposition, and so we we tend not to see much of their internal strife in the national news. There is, however, a Republican "civil war" underway right now between various factions.
4. Conservatism itself, by which the Republican Party has been dominated, is reactionary and mistrusts the unknown. Republicans rarely say "Let's find out" the way liberals might. "Let's find out" is a very easy invitation to argument and debate, and Republicans miss out on much of that.
Q: What do liberals think of Ron Paul?
They respect his honesty, mock his cult of personality, and despise his totally discredited ideology of "government so small it can't do anything."
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Q: In your opinion, what would be the best way for our government to mitigate the deforestation of the Amazon?
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Question the First: Josh, you stated that "the Republican Party is evil and the Democratic Party is incompetent." Short of imperial dictatorship, how would you, as a liberal, recommend that society move to a political system in which competency is the norm? (please list more than one but less than four specific courses of actions that the "common" citizen could undertake to achieve such a goal)
Question the Second: Are you secretly (or not so secretly) glad that Liberals are referred to as being on "the left," rather than the "right" (possibly on account of you being Sinistralian)?
Question the Third: Hypothetically speaking, can a conservative perspective ever be the correct perspective (specifically on a topic that conservative and liberal perspectives disagree)?
Lightning Round Question: Is modern society functional enough to be worth working to save, or ought we scrap it and start over?
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Q: In your opinion, what would be the best way for our government to mitigate the deforestation of the Amazon?
That's a good question, and unexpected. The first thing to do is lead by example when it comes to managing and protecting our own forests at the governmental level, and respecting and preserving their health the individual and entrepreneurial levels. Because America is so influential, American ideas are inevitably exported, so it does good to lead by example.
The best direct solution, in my opinion, would be to negotiate a treaty with the Brazilian government, either bilaterally or through a world organization, under which Brasilia would agree to preserve the most substantial portion of its forests in exchange for whatever incentives. The second-best solution would be to restrict the import of anything that is produced on the grounds of cleared forest--a sticky proposition, and guaranteed to light the free trade people's heads on fire.
Question the First: Josh, you stated that "the Republican Party is evil and the Democratic Party is incompetent." Short of imperial dictatorship, how would you, as a liberal, recommend that society move to a political system in which competency is the norm? (please list more than one but less than four specific courses of actions that the "common" citizen could undertake to achieve such a goal)
Civics and history should be taught in our classrooms more intensively than they are today. A non-military national service should be integrated into the public education system such that students in the middle to upper grades can perform practical work for part of the school year in lieu of classroom instruction. Elections should be publicly financed. In a reversal of my position in years past, terms should be limited in both the House and the Senate. The Senate should be reformed so that it operates more like the House (not in its inherent protection of small-state interests, but in its minority-protection mechanisms). Media companies should be broken up and all recent laws allowing mass ownership of the media should be reversed. The Fairness Doctrine should be reintroduced, and the government should set stiff boundaries on what can qualify as "news." Actual news operations should be subsidized so that companies do not continue to rely on them as a profit stream. Citizens should have their own account to vote their opinion and provide comments on pending legislation in a more streamlined fashion than is presently available today. And we as a nation simply must stop with the anti-intellectualism and faith-based judgment.
Question the Second: Are you secretly (or not so secretly) glad that Liberals are referred to as being on "the left," rather than the "right" (possibly on account of you being Sinistralian)?
Every -ian is another count against you, and I'll remind you that the Ides are on their way.
Question the Third: Hypothetically speaking, can a conservative perspective ever be the correct perspective (specifically on a topic that conservative and liberal perspectives disagree)?
By my philosophical working definition of conservatism, yes. I myself am conservative in a number of areas. However, by my much more commonly used observational working definition of conservatism, it is rather unlikely that a conservative perspective would be the correct or superior one. It does happen, though. When it does, it's almost always the result of ideological dissonance or flanking instabilities. (For instance, the mainstream conservative position on nuclear power is better than the mainstream liberal one, since mainstream liberalism is more concerned with pollution than energy production. However, this is not necessarily true at the individual level, as pro-nuclear liberals tend to have an even better stance than mainstream conservatives.)
Lightning Round Question: Is modern society functional enough to be worth working to save, or ought we scrap it and start over?
I would have a very hard time writing off any society with such a high material quality of life and so many civil liberties. While scrapping it would be my qualified preference, working within the system is eminently plausible for almost any desired change.
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mr j, are there any decent republicans out there? how can i tell the decent ones from the bad ones?
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mr j, are there any decent republicans out there? how can i tell the decent ones from the bad ones?
There are lots of decent Republicans out there! The trouble is that conservative ideology is disastrous for females, non-Christians, workers, liberals, the poor, gays, foreigners, nonwhites, and other classes of people. This creates malice or bigotry in many Republicans, which overrides what decency they might have, so that, if you belong to one of the suspect classes, you're going to be denigrated if not mistreated outright. But plenty of Republicans are better than that, such that even if they know that you belong to one or more of those suspect classes, they will not only treat you well in person but will sincerely mean to do so--as opposed to the Republicans who may treat you well in person but would do so insincerely.
Part of the tragedy of the GOP is that much of their fueled anger is, itself, only half-hearted. Many Republicans would be far more decent people if they weren't convinced that there is virtue in protesting reproductive health clinics or trying to ban atheists from serving in the government. This becomes evident if you get to know these people when they don't know that you belong to one or more of the suspect classes. (Liberalism, for instance, is easier to hide than femaleness or black skin.)
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Elections should be publicly financed.
I've considered this before myself. Elaborate on your own considerations, if you would.
Also: 'bona fide liberal'. Very good!
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Elections should be publicly financed.
I've considered this before myself. Elaborate on your own considerations, if you would.
First, the simplicities. Money advantages the richer candidates. Sometimes the richer candidate is the better candidate, but this is, after all, a representative democracy and not a democratic plutocracy. I have observed in America the incredible correlation between a politician's voting record and their major donors' positions on the issues so voted upon. It boggles my mind, because in most politicians' cases it completely overrides their publicly stated positions most of the time. Now, it could be that some of this is a feedback loop: Donors will surely donate more to those who are already more likely to those who are sympathetic to their views. Given the absolute pragmatism of big-dollar donors, however--and I remember how they abandoned ship with the Republicans in 2006 and 2008, as voters would do, and gave money to Democrats instead--I must conclude that much of this is indicative of the character of most politicians, and not a tautology. I do not want money to be the decisive factor in politics. The theoretical advantage of public financing is that, ideally, the best-run campaign, not the best-funded campaign, would win, and hopefully "best-run" would include the candidate's actual virtues as a human being and would-be legislator, rather than marketing savvy alone. I know there's a lot of wishful thinking inherent.
Now, the complexities. Money advantages those who can raise the most of it, and can provide a powerful tool against incumbency. My solution: Eliminate the dangers of incumbency by imposing term limits. In fact, this is why I reversed my position on term limits: I did it so that public financing would be less naive. Public financing would also shorten the election season, which nowadays is preposterously long at between eighteen months to two years, with "crunch time" consuming one year for presidential elections and half a year for other federal elections. Public financing would give legislators running for reelection more time to actually legislate.
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The theoretical advantage of public financing is that, ideally, the best-run campaign, not the best-funded campaign, would win, and hopefully "best-run" would include the candidate's actual virtues as a human being and would-be legislator, rather than marketing savvy alone. I know there's a lot of wishful thinking inherent.
This seems to me to presume that all campaigns would be allotted the same campaign resources. Were this the case, this would mean that all campaigns (regardless of size) would receive the same resources. So we might have campaigns of sizes (in persons) of different orders of magnitude but that would still receive the same resources. Is this desirable?
That aside, I don't see that how well a campaign is run correlates with the preferability of that campaign. Perhaps you say this because of the renowned efficacy of the Obama campaign. However, this mustn't distract us from the efficacy of the Republican dogma; had the 2008 Republican campaign gone up against more typical Democratic opposition--Barry was a Democratic golden child, and Hillary seemed to be an uncommonly strong candidate too, even if not to the same level--it seems to me (based on my limited knowledge of U.S. Presidential Elections) very likely that the Elephant could've stomped.
That is: I don't think that there's a correlation between how well campaign resources are used and electoral success to which you could point as a theoretical advantage to public funding of elections.
The advantage I see to public-only financing of elections is simply that it avoids the problems caused by private financing themof.
Now, the complexities. Money advantages those who can raise the most of it, and can provide a powerful tool against incumbency. My solution: Eliminate the dangers of incumbency by imposing term limits. In fact, this is why I reversed my position on term limits: I did it so that public financing would be less naive.
You mean that public financing is presently naive because it automatically favours the incumbent, not giving a fair shake to challengers?
Also, how would you reconcile term limits with your own political ambitions?
Public financing would also shorten the election season, which nowadays is preposterously long at between eighteen months to two years, with "crunch time" consuming one year for presidential elections and half a year for other federal elections. Public financing would give legislators running for reelection more time to actually legislate.
Although, would there not also be a lot more government work created to ensure compliance with the rules governing use of campaign resources and to ensure that private funds weren't used? The latter could only be done by accounting for the government-allotted funds, which would have to be done, for the most part, well before elections would end (so that any anomalies could be investigated and dealt with before the election would conclude). This would mean that a lot of people would either have to be diverted from their usual government work or hired (I presume hired) from outside during every election cycle.
But yeah, I reckon such bureaucratic concerns would be minor, far from insurmountable.
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Ah, MsBlack! I knew I wouldn't get away with just that from the likes of you! I was on deadline and didn't have much time to spare, but now deadline is over and the work is finished, so allow me to reply in turn...
This seems to me to presume that all campaigns would be allotted the same campaign resources. Were this the case, this would mean that all campaigns (regardless of size) would receive the same resources. So we might have campaigns of sizes (in persons) of different orders of magnitude but that would still receive the same resources. Is this desirable?
If you're talking about the difference between, say, a House district election and the presidential election, then, no, there should be different levels of funding. A presidential race is decided by a hundred million people. A House race, more like a hundred thousand.
If you're talking about giving a slice of the pie to any old schmuck who decides to run for office, we can impose a few simple barriers to entry, petition signatures being an obvious choice, since that is already widely used in state initiative processes. Also, it would be unnecessary to place more than a few restrictions on volunteer work.
That aside, I don't see that how well a campaign is run correlates with the preferability of that campaign.
You misunderstood. I was simply covering my bases--always sound practice with you! A well-run campaign is no indication that the candidate is preferable, although the two can correlate.
You mean that public financing is presently naive because it automatically favours the incumbent, not giving a fair shake to challengers?
Among other things, but that's the big one. It favors the incumbent, or anybody who goes into the race with superior name recognition. It's also naive on account of how money can be spent on behalf of a campaign, but not actually by a campaign, and it turns out that that kind of political spending is very hard to limit without infringing upon freedom of speech. A recent decision by our conservative Supreme Court enshrined into permanent law the right of corporations to spend money freely on behalf of political campaigns, as actual human individuals can. Only a Constitutional Amendment or another Supreme Court decision can change that now.
Also, how would you reconcile term limits with your own political ambitions?
Well, all of this pertains to liberal democracy, not the imperial meritocracy I prefer at the philosophical level. But, I will say this: With time, I have begun to appreciate power's corrosive influence on even the incorruptible. In an ideal society, nobody would want the burden of it, and would strive to discharge their obligations and move on. I have come to admire those who knew when to walk away from the stuff, like Washington, whose Farewell Address was poignant in this regard. One of the things that's wrong with politics is that it attracts not only people who want the job, but people who want the job and want to keep it till they keel over from old age. I have a different view of political power, which is that it is a public service. In this narrow but crucial sense, I think democracy is essentially correct. We should strive make the offices of political power fairly austere, with no opportunity for politicians to amass wealth while in office, and as little incentive as possible for the wealthy to enter politics for the purpose of eventually increasing their wealth. If an officeholder were given a stipend from which they would have to pay all of their non-catastrophic living expenses for the duration of their term of office, and were disallowed from using private wealth to supplement that life, I think we would attract a few fewer freeloading plutocrats. Much of this would translate over to the meritocracy, although in an ideal meritocracy the use of term limits would be unnecessary.
Although, would there not also be a lot more government work created to ensure compliance with the rules governing use of campaign resources and to ensure that private funds weren't used?
There would need to be a considerable expansion of the FEC, or perhaps even the creation of a whole new body. This is certain. But consider the money that is lost on elections now. It's in the ten figures in America. That's crazy. That money does not increase economic output. It does not increase standards of living. People would still get elected even if no money at all were spent on campaigning. To spend billions instead of a few million is extravagant. Also: All of the time that people spend fundraising and volunteering...that's a tremendous opportunity cost to the nation, on top of the directly lost money. Compare that with the expense of overseeing publicly financed elections, and I think the numbers would work out favorably with room to spare.
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If you're talking about the difference between, say, a House district election and the presidential election, then, no, there should be different levels of funding. A presidential race is decided by a hundred million people. A House race, more like a hundred thousand.
If you're talking about giving a slice of the pie to any old schmuck who decides to run for office, we can impose a few simple barriers to entry, petition signatures being an obvious choice, since that is already widely used in state initiative processes. Also, it would be unnecessary to place more than a few restrictions on volunteer work.
I meant how funding would be allocated in light of differences in campaign sizes within the same race. I can't find any figures for it, but I suppose that the size of McKinney's campaign (in units of persons), for example, in the 2008 Election was at least one order of magnitude less than Obama's or McCain's. In such cases, should all the campaigns receive the same absolute resources--on the understanding that the smaller campaigns could be more 'extravagant' pound-for-pound--or should there be a more complicated function for allocating resources?
Then there is also the question of whether or not these funds are allocated from an election kitty to each campaign at the start of the 'race', or if they are handed out to particular campaigns as their campaign grows in number.
I would suggest that each campaign should be promised specified amounts of resources for every milestone. For example, the first thousand people might have the campaign given very roughly a million dollars (with consideration of start-up costs); the next ten thousand another ten million and so forth or something. (This would be quite complicated due to all of the considerations of qualitative differences in campaign size progressions (a complicativity for which I offer no proof other than its very name--'qualitative differences in campaign size progressions'. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.))
This is because this seems superior to giving out resources at the start of the race, because such a system would be overly naive. Such an allocation would have to go on campaign size predictions, which would be based on precedent. However, I would guess that a small campaign could change in size by a significant fraction between elections, meaning that their allocation could be a significant misestimate. Big campaigns could change by smaller fractions between elections but, due to their relative enormity, even a small misestimate of size could lead to a substantial disparity in allocation. And the size of newcoming campaigns would be very hard to predict.
This would also seem to rule out just having an election kitty, because the size of this kitty would have to be based on campaign size predictions.
And then a third question that occurs to me is whether this would actually be done in terms of campaigns or if it would be done in terms of parties (presumably with independent candidates being an individual party for the purposes of this system). I don't know enough about the merits and demerits of having parties in the fist instance to have a strong position, but I would probably lean towards what seems to be the more idealistic approach, and try to break from parties and therefore do it on a campaign basis, as opposed to a party one.
And then there's the question of whether it should be done on campaign size or something else...
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A non-military national service should be integrated into the public education system such that students in the middle to upper grades can perform practical work for part of the school year in lieu of classroom instruction.
While I am not sure about the "in lieu of classroom instruction," I must say that I absolutely love the idea of non-military national service. If you are not saying that such service should be required, then I will: such service should be required. Perhaps a "year of service" after high school. Ooo, this just makes my fingertips tingle with excitement. And not the single from the Zelda games, either.
The Fairness Doctrine should be reintroduced, and the government should set stiff boundaries on what can qualify as "news."
Alas, here my enthusiasm for your response must waver. As this is not an "Ask Whatever-it-is-that-Thought-should--be-politically-identified-as" thread, I will not argue the point but rather simply say this: if in order for truth to be free society must also suffer the slander and sludge of a thousand falsehoods, then it is a fair price and one I would gladly pay.
Every -ian is another count against you, and I'll remind you that the Ides are on their way.
Haha, avoiding the question I see!
As a side note, I've always found the Kalends to be far more worthy of caution than the Ides.
Money advantages the richer candidates.
To note, money provides more of an advantage to richer candidates than just in the election itself. As riches provide ease of living, and ease of living can be capitalized in terms of intellectual pursuits, the richer the candidate the more likely they are to have had governing experiences of some sort before. While publically financing elections, to create equal coffers, might help, to be fair we also need to improve the experience opportunities of poorer individuals, so as to help overcome the experience-bias between the classes.
My solution: Eliminate the dangers of incumbency by imposing term limits.
What if there weren't term limits per say but rather bans against consecutive terms? No incumbent could ever run, then, and so it seems like this would also eliminate the dangers of incumbency while preserving the possibility of the government capitalizing on the experience of competent and skilled "statesmates."
If an officeholder were given a stipend from which they would have to pay all of their non-catastrophic living expenses for the duration of their term of office, and were disallowed from using private wealth to supplement that life, I think we would attract a few fewer freeloading plutocrats.
Such a turn of events! Paid government positions started as a way to allow the poor to participate, and but this function rarely comes into play.
Perhaps a need-based stipend might further help this cause? If you're poor, the government actually will help you out. If you're not poor, you still can only use so much of your money on living expenses, but the government's not the one footing the bill.
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J, there's one thing you considered a "flaw" in your argument that wasn't really a flaw. You claimed that public financing would favor the incumbent. This is not so. The incumbent in pretty much any election(except in that very rare case were the incumbent or the party thereof is despised) will get more money through "private financing" than his or her opponent. Public financing would knee-cap the monetary advantage that the incumbent has.
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, I think democracy is essentially correct. We should strive make the offices of political power fairly austere, with no opportunity for politicians to amass wealth while in office, and as little incentive as possible for the wealthy to enter politics for the purpose of eventually increasing their wealth. If an officeholder were given a stipend from which they would have to pay all of their non-catastrophic living expenses for the duration of their term of office, and were disallowed from using private wealth to supplement that life, I think we would attract a few fewer freeloading plutocrats. Much of this would translate over to the meritocracy, although in an ideal meritocracy the use of term limits would be unnecessary.
Making elected offices worse jobs will (I strongly suspect) improve the character of those who seek it. Or rather, those who seek the office when it is a poor job rather than good job will be more likely to use their power for good than in our present situation.
How harsh a job should elected office be so as to maximize the quality of the individuals seeking it, but not so harsh as to make it a job entirely for masochists? I have considered freezing assets and a lower salary (no greater than the median income of ones constituents) as basic and simple changes that would be a step in the right direction, in addition to the stripping of all benefits, including health insurance, including a freeze on whatever private insurance they may have purchased. Is this going too far? Not far enough?
Also, what are your thoughts on corporations being granted personhood?
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Q: In your opinion, what would be the best way for our government to mitigate the deforestation of the Amazon?
That's a good question, and unexpected. The first thing to do is lead by example when it comes to managing and protecting our own forests at the governmental level, and respecting and preserving their health the individual and entrepreneurial levels. Because America is so influential, American ideas are inevitably exported, so it does good to lead by example.
The best direct solution, in my opinion, would be to negotiate a treaty with the Brazilian government, either bilaterally or through a world organization, under which Brasilia would agree to preserve the most substantial portion of its forests in exchange for whatever incentives. The second-best solution would be to restrict the import of anything that is produced on the grounds of cleared forest--a sticky proposition, and guaranteed to light the free trade people's heads on fire.
I'm not sure that would be enough. Granted, I do not disagree with anything you have said, I simply feel it is incomplete.
Consider that, things like exportation of hardwoods, bribery of government officials and police, and slavery are already illegal and are still as prevalent as if there was no law against them. I would say that these problems are wrapped in more complex social issues--mostly due to distorted national policy over national debt and the massive division of wealth. The division of wealth is itself, a consequence of the government paying off national debt, and not investing in law enforcement to prevent things like slavery/exploitation, land exploitation and bribery (which allows all of this to happen).
Speaking of which. A couple years back (I'm not sure what it's at now), Brazil ranked 80 out of 180 countries on the Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index. While it's not the worst, it's pretty bad to make the top 100. Further, it's no coincidence that quite a few other South American countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay) scored in the top 100 as well, as their situations are not too far from Brasilia's.
That said, it is my take that we should also forgive, in part or whole, their national debt to us so that they can focus their funds on internal issues of social justice and most importantly, the preservation of the rainforest. As it stands now, more of Brazil's GDP goes to paying off national debt (nb limiting exportation would only exacerbate this) than it does for law enforcement. So I feel it is an important stroke of mercy on our part.
Do you agree with this addendum?
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J, there's one thing you considered a "flaw" in your argument that wasn't really a flaw. You claimed that public financing would favor the incumbent. This is not so. The incumbent in pretty much any election(except in that very rare case were the incumbent or the party thereof is despised) will get more money through "private financing" than his or her opponent. Public financing would knee-cap the monetary advantage that the incumbent has.
You didn't exactly phrase that as a question, but, hey. You're right that the incumbent is inherently the favorite in most election dynamics, but what you overlook here is that private financing can give challengers the opportunity to money-bomb the incumbents; historically that's been an important mechanism of seat-changing in U.S. elections.
How harsh a job should elected office be so as to maximize the quality of the individuals seeking it, but not so harsh as to make it a job entirely for masochists? I have considered freezing assets and a lower salary (no greater than the median income of ones constituents) as basic and simple changes that would be a step in the right direction, in addition to the stripping of all benefits, including health insurance, including a freeze on whatever private insurance they may have purchased. Is this going too far? Not far enough?
I think we're in the same neighborhood on this question. For me the overriding concern is not necessarily that we punish officeholders, but rather that we make elected office be conspicuously non-profitable for those who would occupy it. I like your salary and wage-freezing proposals, though I imagine legislation would be required to close the inevitable spate of loopholes. I would also propose a ban on elected officials holding positions in lobbying firms for a significant period of time both before and after their term in office. Again, the overriding concern is that would-be candidates not see public office as a means of advancing or enriching themselves personally.
Your healthcare stipulation is too specific to be agreeable; besides, I'm not against good healthcare for anyone--even those who would vote against it for the rest of us.
Also, what are your thoughts on corporations being granted personhood?
I am totally against the concept of legal personhood as it presently exists for entities which obviously do not possess a sentient will, because of the abuses which so easily follow, and would prefer that a completely different concept be used to summarize the legal status of these entities. In particular the word "person" rubs me the wrong way, because of its implications. However, I approve of most of the key individual elements contained in legal personhood and would support those statuses being reconstituted in another form.
Consider that, things like exportation of hardwoods, bribery of government officials and police, and slavery are already illegal and are still as prevalent as if there was no law against them.
This ("as prevalent as") is not the case in America, and reflects upon the effectiveness of the Brazilian government (if indeed that is the perspective from which you are coming) rather than the inherent functionality of law.
That said, it is my take that we should also forgive, in part or whole, their national debt to us so that they can focus their funds on internal issues of social justice and most importantly, the preservation of the rainforest. As it stands now, more of Brazil's GDP goes to paying off national debt (nb limiting exportation would only exacerbate this) than it does for law enforcement. So I feel it is an important stroke of mercy on our part.
Do you agree with this addendum?
Forgiving debt en masse should generally be limited to urgent emergencies, due to the risk of serious economic repercussions that exists when creditors are made to be unable to recover their loans. However, I am also aware that certain nations have exploited and indebted other nations to a virtually irrecoverable degree, and that this is a significant factor in the perpetuation of poverty and disorder in the developing and undeveloped world. Additionally, I understand that many governments do not or perhaps even cannot contain the exploitation of their interior resources. Lastly, many of the economic-based solutions to these kinds of problems tend to lose sight of the real prize, which is the protection of flora and fauna.
My preference, when faced with some combination of an incompetent or intractable government and / or national population vis-a-vis an environmental catastrophe, is physical intervention in the country's affairs. Because that is not a practical position, my second choice is to continue to focus intensively on treaty negotiations and ventures with landowners and entrepreneurs inside the country in question. Loan forgiveness would be ineffective in the short-term, and would provide no direct incentive (and only one indirect incentive, in the form of the availability of more money) to address the environmental problem.
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What's your opinion of libertarians and fiscal conservatives who are quite frankly not the fundamentalist nutbags that most of the Republican Party caters to?
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What's your opinion of libertarians and fiscal conservatives who are quite frankly not the fundamentalist nutbags that most of the Republican Party caters to?
Fiscal conservatism is more subtle than social conservatism, but its effects are comparably deleterious. My general opinion of fiscal conservatives is that they are either ignorant or malicious. Of course there are exceptions--there always are--but generally any ideology which promotes hunger and homelessness as a punishment for those who do not try hard enough, or, alternatively, discourages any systematization of welfare and prefers that it remain purely dependent upon the goodwill of the well-off, to say nothing of the double-faced charity of the churches, on the grounds that nobody should be obliged to have an interest in the welfare of others, is an ideology guilty of senselessness. It is my conclusion that all the dead weight in our society should still have food and shelter, always, and that if this is not fulfilled then we will continue to have Americans living in third-world conditions. So long as that remains the case, we cannot truly think of ourselves as a developed country: for they are our countrymates. It is this liberal's opinion that it is the responsibility of an "enlightened" society to guarantee a minimum material quality of life to all its denizens. We are rich enough to do that, and we should; and we should absorb the cost of it gladly, as the ticket price of being humane. I should also note that a "minimum material quality of life" is not such a disincentive to work that everybody would quit their jobs and live on the dole; thus conservative fears are baseless.
"Small government" may be as popular as ever as a conservative principle, but in the crucible of reality the concept of a small government presiding successfully over an advanced society has been thoroughly discredited. Conservatives lament government waste, and there is definitely waste in the execution, but when it comes time to naming actual programs that are inherently wasteful, that turns out to be hard to do. You have to start saying things like "It's okay if nobody inspects this drinking water for quality," and "Who really uses a weather radar, anyway?" That's a problem because people have come to rely upon the services which government provides or regulates. Public services would generally not exist were they not provided by the government, and if they did exist they would certainly not be accessible to the general public. Government-regulated services provided by the private sector, meanwhile, would become unstable and exploitative were it not for that regulation. We have seen all of these things before our very eyes, right here in the present day. We have refused to pay for a universal healthcare net. We have refused to demand that government oversee the banks which control our money. Where did that get us?
I was never a fiscal conservative, but I used to be fiscally moderate. That has changed over time as I have learned more about how a society works. I am very, very keen on that Ayn Rand extollation of the individual. I really like to see it when people rise up and need no government assistance. But many people never will rise up; what of them? Let them suffer? And those who do rise up to greatness..wouldn't have been able to do it without the government here to expand the possibilities curve of economic success. That's why, folks like Carlos Slim Helu and the Sultan of Brunei notwithstanding, great wealth arises overwhelmingly in individuals who are themselves the product of successful countries.
Libertarianism is another story. The label is too broadly used to be very useful. A large segment of "libertarians" consists of conservatives who don't like the Republican Party. Those aren't really libertarians. Real libertarians often complain about the government protecting people from themselves...and then are left completely speechless when presented with endless stories of people undermining themselves. Libertarians never recovered from the simple fact that seatbelt laws save lives. We don't like to admit it, but we often need to be protected from ourselves. To the extent that government can and sometimes does overstep its powers here, I make common cause with libertarians. But, on the underlying principle as to whether or not government should actually intervene in the fashion of, as its detractors would call it, a "nanny," I think libertarians are wrong.
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I am totally against the concept of legal personhood as it presently exists for entities which obviously do not possess a sentient will, because of the abuses which so easily follow, and would prefer that a completely different concept be used to summarize the legal status of these entities. In particular the word "person" rubs me the wrong way, because of its implications. However, I approve of most of the key individual elements contained in legal personhood and would support those statuses being reconstituted in another form.
I also asked a libertarian friend of mine his thoughts on this topic. You may be amused to learn he considered it similarly absurd. Speaking of which...
Libertarians never recovered from the simple fact that seatbelt laws save lives. We don't like to admit it, but we often need to be protected from ourselves.
To what extent do you think that the government has a right to override the individual's right to make decisions harmful to themselves?
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To what extent do you think that the government has a right to override the individual's right to make decisions harmful to themselves?
That's a good question. What I would like is for people to have wide latitude to endanger themselves (but not necessarily others) if they do so in full knowledge of the risks and potential consequences. When people do not possess this understanding, I would prefer they have much less freedom, so as to avoid inadvertently causing themselves some kind of harm.
Seat belt laws are a decent if not ideal example: Many people who reject them do so in ignorance of the benefits seat belts confer--or, to look at it another way, in ignorance of the tremendous extra risk that comes from not using or misusing them. And no one, regardless of their level of pride or indignation at the thought of a "nanny" government butting in, should die or maim themselves from falling down the stairs due to a lack of hand-railing.
I find it difficult to imagine how the government could efficiently test for an individual's knowledge, however. Most safely laws and other protective laws, rules, and policies apply to the general population without discrimination and with few exceptions or exemptions, many of which are laboriously acquired. One possibility is that we could computerize the entire process, but that would get the privacy people all atwitter and thus deserves more thoughtful consideration than I have yet given it.
Additionally, regardless of the level of understanding involved, I would favor limitations on risky behavior with ghastly expensive social, economic, or environmental consequences. This concern would conceivably apply to cases like tobacco products, and to the operation of Hummer-type land-hulks in a suburban environment.
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A law mandating the installation of handrails is not equivalent to one mandating the use of seat belts. No one has to use a handrail, after all. And if people only use them to catch themselves, that's fine. The trouble with a seat belt is, by the time you need it, if you aren't already wearing it, it's too late.
Public use of tobacco products and pretending that trucks are acceptable (sub)urban commuter vehicles aren't quite analogous either; as they are both activities that harm others. If I don't wear my seat belt and wind up suffering great harm because of it, I am harmed by my own choice. If you smoke next to me, I am harmed by your choice. Likewise, driving a large truck or SUV makes driving all the more dangerous for those around you, because of their lack of ability to avoid accidents, and greater destructive force in an accident.
Your knowledge requirement on taking risky behavior is an interesting one, and I think a good one. But it can be dealt with, at least in the seat belt case, using existing processes. We have driver's ed and driving knowledge tests that are required to get a license to legally drive on public roads already. Just make a question about the effects of seat belts on injury and survival rates, and if someone gets it wrong, they don't get a license.
This notion can be expanded, in a society such as ours, which has a free and compulsory education system. You can essentially have a "free to fail" test, which when passed, provides license to engage in risky behavior so long as one only endangers oneself and other freely consenting "free to fail"ers. Of course, that's from the assumption that people don't have a right to fuck up in the first place.
I agree that it is tragic when people come to grief through ignorance of the consequences of their actions. But I still feel that ultimately education is a better method to prevent such tragedies than proscription of risky behavior. Saying "Action X is too dangerous; you may not engage in it" is far less useful to the individual considering taking that action than saying "Action X is very dangerous due to the following properties and potential consequences..." This equips them to deal with Action X, specifically, and contributes to a general knowledge base from which they can more accurately extrapolate the risks of other actions as well.
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There is a good amount of distance on which I could move toward your position, although it would be ground riddled with asterisks. Ultimately, though, we of course disagree. You can read more about it when I launch my philosophy project.
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Would you prefer a more communistic, welfare state sort of system (I do not mean to use welfare state in a negative manner, though I realize some people understand it that way)? Or maybe I should ask, to what degree do you think that the State should support people who are just not contributing/producing?
I'm not so draconian that I think people with genuine problems aren't deserving of help (people who are actually disabled, for instance), but I see problems when the people who are alcoholics (who choose to drink, whether or not they are predisposed genetically to becoming dependent on alcohol AFTER they choose to drink) earning disability and social security checks. But do you draw a line where you say, "We cannot collectively support Group X."
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To formulate a statement in the spirit of this thread:
Josh, would you, as a liberal, support and encourage Radical Dreamer in the creation of an "Ask A Libertarian" thread, as this discussion between you two has been most interesting and his stance being one that individuals might eagerly desire to know more about? (it is here acknowledged that a "Discussion on Libertarianism" thread already exists, but the nature of that thread and this seem different enough to make this a genuine inquiry.)
Radical Dreamer, please see above.
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Would you prefer a more communistic, welfare state sort of system (I do not mean to use welfare state in a negative manner, though I realize some people understand it that way)? Or maybe I should ask, to what degree do you think that the State should support people who are just not contributing/producing?
I see it as an obligation on the part of a mature industrial society to provide a basic quality of life to all its denizens, including food, water, living space, clothing, healthcare, education, utilities, and transportation. These things, in their basic form, are necessities, for they eliminate material need (which, where it exists, overrides all other concerns) and they create the first layer of opportunity upon which further opportunity and success are built. What we are talking about here is the nature of a society--specifically a society united under a common political entity, such as a city, state, country, and so forth. Is a society responsible for its denizens? How so? To what extent? I have found many different ways to approach my position; in other words it is a position with a very broad base of justification.
For example, the obligation of a society to provide its inhabitants with these basic necessities and opportunities is described within the framework of humanism: It is unreasonable for material need to exist in a society which has more than enough wealth to satisfy it. It is unreasonable for curable physical suffering to persist purely for a lack of food and services. These are unreasonable because, as a prerequisite, they are physically resolvable now, and, in the main, because they detract from a person's opportunity to be physically comfortable, to forge significance and purpose in their life, to cultivate their interests, and to pursue their ambitions. It wouldn't matter if the person in question were economic dead weight; humanism requires a society to provide for everyone who needs provision.
For example again, the obligation of a society herein is also described within the framework of social justice: A good portion of poverty, wretchedness, and ignorance are the result not of lazy individuals, but of injustice. The lingering stigma of race, of sex, of religion, the inter-generational persistence of poverty, the lack of proper local developmental and cultural facilities, the dominance of a poisonous social atmosphere, the exploitation by corporations and by laws, the expenses of a decrepit and unsafe physical environment, the inferiority and unfitness of parents, the debilitating effects of drugs, the cultural incoherency among previously displaced peoples like blacks and natives...all of these things and many more will influence a person's development and outcome. When it is not an individual's own fault, but the society's, a society is obligated to make amends--including, but hopefully not limited to--what we call welfare. While some people seem born to fail in a society like ours, many more fail because society failed them.
For example yet again, the obligation of a society to provide its inhabitants with these basic necessities and opportunities is described within the framework of socioeconomics: It is good for society vis-a-vis being good for the economy to invest in eliminating material need and providing opportunity. On one hand, there is the good of prevention: It is greatly beneficial to a society for its lowest and weakest members to have a lifestyle comparable to, rather than vastly different from, that of the lower middle class. It is much harder to participate in a revolution when your belly is full, when you have property to protect, and when you perceive your government as a responsive institution capable of and willing to address your most serious problems. On the other hand, there is the good of growth: It is greatly beneficial to a society to invest in the earning power of its citizens, and earning power is a function of, among other things, satisfied material need and education. Perhaps some people will turn out to be dead weight anyway, despite all the help, but also some will not. Those people will go on to generate value for the economy. In the aggregate, these people offset the cost of the social nets which helped them. I would go farther and say that they actually exceed that cost entirely, meaning that contrary to appearances public spending is actually profitable. However, the way of counting the dollars is open to debate, so I'll not rest the larger point on that particular detail. But my reasoning is this: America's penchant for producing economic success stories is a function largely dependent upon the physical and social infrastructure which is in place to empower people with opportunity, as well as the legal system and civil governance in place to provide safety and stability. Microsoft could never have gotten started in a country like Somalia. Our courts, our roads, our education system, our energy production, all of these things enable further heights of success. And they are made possible by taxes. Without taxation, life as we know it could not exist for humans. The social nets, welfare spending, entitlements, and civic infrastructure...these are just another kind of tax-based investment in the prosperity of society. Their returns may not typically be as direct, nor as lucrative, and it is very hard indeed for some folks to grasp how a person with no income who consumes welfare resources could possibly be a net positive to the economy, but, if you take into account the social unrest avoided by helping people in need, and the success stories of those who use welfare as it is intended to be used, you can imagine how such a possibility is plausible even if not definite.
I could actually go on, but those three different frameworks are the cream of it. All of this is but a preamble to my reply to your question. My answer is "yes," although there is nothing inherently communistic about anything I have described here, and I reject the word. I also don't tend to use the word "welfare" in this context very often, even though it is a widely popular concept. However, unlike "communist," I'll humor you with "welfare" and say: Yes, I would prefer a stronger welfare system which strives to help people eliminate their material need, relieve their suffering, and provide them with cultural, economic, and philosophical opportunity. One of the great evils in contemporary Republican ideology is that all people who use welfare are sponges and leeches who are lazy and amount to no good. Even if that nonsense were true, which it most certainly isn't, the fact remains that if all that Republican talk about "personal responsibility" were made policy, America would find itself suffering under booming rates of starvation, illiteracy, disease, crime, poverty, and class divisions. And you don't have to take my word for it; if you have an open mind, it doesn't take much to research the status of other countries in the world today and compare those statuses ("stati" for you, MsBlack) on the basis of countries' social nets. You will never find a strong negative correlation. Strong welfare systems always correlate positively with every measure of "prosperity" that makes sense to use. This means they're either totally neutral, or a net positive. Either way, they directly help people with the basics of life. I'm all for that.
Perhaps that's where I differ from easy-bake elitists. I resent mooks. I resent cynics. I resent sponges. I oppose those fibers within myself wherever I catch them trying to take root, and I cultivate friendships based on other people's will to strive to rise above those human pettinesses as best they can given the hand they've been dealt. Yet, despite all this, I have no desire within me to contribute to other people's suffering simply because they are not elite. I want the best for everyone. Social nets provide this on two levels: They provide opportunity for those with the spark, and, to those who have lost their dreams, they provide a warm bed and a hot meal...which counts for a lot, in the grand scheme of things. In my mind, there is no doubt whatsoever about the importance of robust social welfare.
Josh, would you, as a liberal, support and encourage Radical Dreamer in the creation of an "Ask A Libertarian" thread, as this discussion between you two has been most interesting and his stance being one that individuals might eagerly desire to know more about? (it is here acknowledged that a "Discussion on Libertarianism" thread already exists, but the nature of that thread and this seem different enough to make this a genuine inquiry.)
This kind of a thread is something of an ego exercise, in addition to its primary desire to be informative. I don't know if Radical_Dreamer has the time or interest to talk about his ideology. If he does, then of course I would support him by asking him questions as they occur to me. If he does not, then I would encourage you to make use of the existing libertarianism thread.
But if you want something less wishy-washy than that, here you go: Radical_Dreamer, I support and encourage you to consider doing as Thought says.
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Unfortunately, I cannot take the action Thought requests, for two reasons. The first is practical: I simply will not have the time to give such a thread the attention that it needs. The second is ideological: I cannot claim to be a libertarian at this point in my life without some fairly substantial caveats, and thus it would be disingenuous for me to portray myself as a reliable resource for libertarian thought.
I am flattered that the two of you would want me to host such a thread. I suppose if you have any questions for me, you can ask me, but I cannot promise a swift or libertarian response.
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Wah hah! The frigid might of Bolshevism claims another freethinking libertarian patriot!! Come, Komrade Radical_Dreamer--you who shall now be known by your user identification number, 12--let us go forth and topple the Statue of Liberty!
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Lord J, I happened one day upon this interesting opinion letter to my local newspaper. Since the health care bill has passed, this opinion piece struck me as very interesting:
"There's no doubt that Republicans would rather the status quo than pass health care reform" [editorial March 20] exemplifies statists who believe the federal government has a solution to all of our problems.
Republicans want to reduce health care insurance costs by free enterprise and free market principles, including competition, to maintain individual and business economic freedoms, and not by federal mandates to control the health care industry. In America, of all nations, maintaining individual liberty should be the status quo!
Republican reforms include: strengthen Medicare and expand Medicaid, existing programs in need of more money; no new taxes on individuals and small businesses, which increase their costs passed on to consumers; open markets in all states to health insurance companies to bring policy prices down and more individualized choices; create pools for small businesses for the same discounts as large corporations; encourage further use of health savings accounts; pass tort reform laws to control frivolous lawsuits against health care providers and corporations, decreasing defensive medicine and lowering liability insurance costs; eliminate insurance policies which deny buyers with pre-existing conditions; reduce costly fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid and ways to do it.
These are American solutions!
I know this woman meant well, but there were just some things about this letter that rubbed me the wrong way in how she interprets our Republican platform for improved health care.
What exactly are this woman's most convincing and least convincing arguments, and how are they reinforced or refuted? The floor is yours.
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What exactly are this woman's most convincing and least convincing arguments, and how are they reinforced or refuted?
Many of this person's desired healthcare reforms are actually in the reform legislation that just passed!! Her statement of principles is also exactly reflected in this reform, which is market-oriented. She is so clueless that I am embarrassed for her. She also fails to offer an argument on behalf of her position (or perhaps the editors edited it out), which makes your question impossible to answer. Lastly, some of her positions (specifically on Medicare and Medicaid) are in direct opposition to conservative orthodoxy and only became "Republican" positions in an act of obscenely transparent opportunism. This person is a piece of work, just like all the other conservatives out there who get their talking points from the right-wing noise machine.
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This is by far too wonderful a thread to allow it to remain entombed in the annuals of ages past.
If you are still willing to answer questions, Josh, I have another for you. There is an unfortunately hindrance to the creation of a perfect society in that not everyone has the basic capabilities for it. That is, not everyone will have the intellectual ability to make proper decisions, nor will everyone be well informed enough to be able to make them, nor, indeed, will everyone be sane enough to do so. As such, how should we, as agents wishing to improve humanity, deal with such flaws in humanity? That is, how can we try to construct a better world that will include such people?
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That's a really big question--which you probably knew. It's on the leading edge of my philosophy; the shortest answer is that I don't have a policy answer for you yet. I have guidelines in place (the usual ethical boundaries), but for definitive substance the matter is awaiting my full consideration at a later date.
First of all, I hold to the position that it is unreasonable to expect that 100 percent of our species can escape the outcome of "total failure," and that's true regardless of the context. No species is 100 percent successful at the individual level at survival, procreation, and (where applicable) socialization. And how much more difficult a challenge are the standards of civilization itself, above mere survival. Quite apart from the fact that civilization requires thinking and behaving and is therefore hard in any case, the specific shapes we have given to our civilization guarantee that it will be a particularly irreconcilable match for some people. Some people can't be civilized. They're either mentally impaired or maladjusted (and sometimes both). In modern societies, these people often land in jail or institutions. In primitive societies, they tend to wind up dead. Sometimes they are cared for by family or friends, especially when their dysfunction is brief, but those caretakers who have the option usually end up transferring their charges to a professional facility.
An enlightened society, as I consider it, has three imperatives it must follow in accommodating these people. It must prevent causing them undue suffering, and it must alleviate undue suffering where it reasonably can. The third is that it must help dysfunctional people toward their aspirations where it is reasonable to do so. For humans, "mere" subsistence is rarely sufficient, and that extends into many people who are not able to function in society. The search for purpose applies to many of them, too.
For one thing, we need more and better institutions, funded better, and held to better standards. There are, thankfully, people who are better-suited and more willing than I am to work with the severely disabled. Given the title of this thread, now is a good point to note that conservatives don't understand and resent these kinds of social expenditures. What we're looking at is a monstrously expensive proposition--not on the order of welfare entitlements like Social Security, but up there with, say, roads funding. I would probably favor a dedicated "humanitarianism" tax that could be spent only on the welfare of those who are unable to function in society by themselves.
For another thing, we need to shed our social aversion to euthanasia so that we may supply assisted suicide to those who seek it for themselves. Many of these people have a desire to continue living, but many do not. We should let them decide this question without putting our fingers on the scale--either by mores or by laws.
The obvious next question is what to do about those who are so badly impaired that they have no quality of life at all, the people whose minds are infantile or whose bodies permit few or none of the sentient pursuits of life, or both--and who, in any case, cannot declare their intentions to the rest of us. My natural inclination is to say that, barring developments in medicine, we should euthanize them as well. But involuntary euthanasia is a policy I am always reluctant to support--and certainly never without excellent reason. The only alternative is to care for these people much like we would care for a laboratory specimen. Either way, there's no dignity in it. I suppose the deciding question for me would be whether these people possess personhood. Those who don't, probably should be euthanized. Those who do, but just barely, are the hardest to contemplate, because they fall into the uncanny valley and we do a lot of projecting and anthropomorphizing with regard to them. In the case of obvious chronic agony, I would lean toward euthanasia. In other cases, I have no opinion.
Now, so far I've talked about the people who can't function in society. First of all was them. But that's a very small slice of your question. There are also the people who can or could have functioned in society, but do not. And there are the additional requirements imposed upon the qualifier of a "perfect" society, which you imposed. So, second of all, I'll consider these elements in combination.
Many people have a hard enough time staying civilized even in a society as primitive as our own. This is and was true of every society. And, because such people are not typically outright dysfunctional so much as merely barbaric, they often acquire positions of power and corrupt our culture. This has been going on for as long as civilization has existed, and goes back even farther into our animal past where no blame can be assigned.
At the center of your question is this philosophical dilemma of the chicken and the egg. What is a perfect society without perfect people? What are perfect people without a perfect society? That's why I wouldn't use the word "perfect" like you did. I prefer qualifies such as "enlightened," "civil," "mature," or perhaps "Illuminated" if we're being orthodox in our adherence to Joshalonian philosophical precepts.
It begins with children. Children are like wood sculpture. We can shape them into almost anything, but they have an underlying grain and other physical characteristics which predispose them to being shaped a certain way. To be blunt, an enlightened society would not raise children the way we do it now, because too many grow up to become pigs or ants or sheep or vultures or dogs or lions. The odds of civilizing a child are vastly better than rehabilitating an adult whose ways are set. Most humans possess the cognitive toolkit for enough critical thinking to get them by in an enlightened society which places a premium on critical thinking. Nearly all humans possess both curiosity and ambition, the two of which must be encouraged healthily.
All children are born feral, with the same genetic instructions that our ancestors possessed before the first wooden plows ever dug in the dirt. The act of raising a child is literally the process of grafting our civilization onto them. (You might prefer a less negatively connoted word, such as "infusing.") Any and all flaws that exist either in the cultures themselves which are being grafted onto the child, or the people doing the grafting, can show up in the child. And children feel that genetic pull...to form social hierarchies, to become packs--or herds. The challenge is to satiate their restless energy without allowing them to evolve into barbarians. Despite the magnitude and exactitude of the challenge, we have the physical capacity to do it today. No further technology is required, although it would certainly help.
An enlightened society must raise children in accordance with Joshalonian ethics, which, after all, are not ethics created by me so much as humanistic truths expressed through me. We could as well say that an enlightened society must raise children humanistically, but that leaves open the question of what humanism entails. I prefer my brand, which is an open-minded brand that admits failure well and wears success well. But, whatever the brand, the sorts of things we need to be teaching children are critical thinking, factual knowledge, thoughtful behavior, resourcefulness, etc., etc. Schools as they exist now focus primarily on academics, often to the exclusion of other, pragmatic areas relevant to a child's life. I suppose it is assumed that parents are supposed to be the teachers of those qualities, but parents today are falling short even worse than schools.
An enlightened society, I think, must fulfill three basic obligations in the education of a child, each of which is a prerequisite to that child becoming civilized as an adolescent and then an adult. The first is that children must learn to become independent and resourceful, and must value so being. This positive mindset inoculates people against the victim mentality which is so expensive on our social welfare system and so detrimental to our cultural development. Children need to understand that they need to live and act for themselves, that they shouldn't wait for somebody else to do it all for them, that they are significant and can become powerful in the ways they want to become powerful. The second is that children must learn the importance of humane behavior toward all beings capable of suffering, and stewardship over all the Earth. There's a lot of cruelty that comes naturally to us because of our heritage, which is then reinforced for many kids because of their specific upbringing. Children need to come to fear, and eventually abhor, the infliction of needless destruction upon anything. The third is that children must learn civilization itself--our technology, our history, our art. We are alone in the voyage of human history, separated from those who came before us and those who will come after us. Our only companions are, by chance, those who were born with us in our own time. Our experience of the social aspect of civilization will exist through them. They are our fellow travelers on a ship whose ocean is much vaster than we will ever see. No one can fully comprehend the legacy of the great human enterprise without understanding where we have already been, where we are now, and, therefrom, determining where we should like to go. Every generation gets its chance to touch the wheel. If you are invested in the human future, as I am, it is of the utmost importance that we teach our children to navigate well. They must know the ship and know the sea, and know their company. A society's great challenge on this point, then, becomes the distillation of vast quantities of history, science, technology, humanities, mathematics, and art into a useful factual education.
I was thinking about that last night: Maybe I should compile a reference for that, myself. It would be the work of years, and I think you would be well-suited to help. Thankfully, a lot of salvageable work has already been done for us, but the rest is up to us--or else somebody else will do it. Shudder.
When children grow up defective, they can be expected to misbehave. This is another point conservatives (and most people) do not understand. Their misbehavior is only partially their own fault. It is hypocritical to punish them but not their corruptors. And, really, "punishing" them ought to be reserved. A strong penal system must consist of rehabilitation, deterrence, and punishment. Our American model focuses on the last part to the near exclusion of the other two. Our incarceration rates are disgusting when compared with those of other countries. These are people who are being permanently ruined in our overcrowded, dangerous prisons where every bad culture from which we would protect our children thrives. If you rob a liquor store, you ought to be on the hook for the property you destroyed or stole, and for the injury you caused--if any. Much of the time, I don't see how that reasonably translates to letting somebody rot in prison--probably joining a gang, getting raped, becoming an addict, and being denied the pursuit of self-enrichment along the way.
When it comes to children who have fallen through the nets and have become troublemakers in their adolescence or adulthood, an enlightened society must strive to discourage them from making further trouble, and rehabilitate them from that which motivated the troublemaking in the first place. Only rarely is a crime so heinous that we ought to kill a person for it. Sajainta's revelations tell us about such people. More controversially, we can anticipate that some people who have not yet committed such crimes eventually will, if given the opportunity, and we should treat them more severely than ordinary scofflaws. But as for the majority of fallshorts, those whose crimes are beneath the mandate of severe or prolonged punishment, I think everyone should get the chance to reclaim their freedom speedily.
Many people who are set in their ways do not have the willpower to resist a change of worldview imposed from without. I'd like to see a new kind of schooling emerge, one which teaches to lapsed adults that which they did not learn as children. With one-on-one attention, we could probably cure most people of their destructive political views or religious fundamentalism, as well as more primitive failures such as misanthropy and gang mentality. The "how" of it would vary greatly between individuals, but most people's obstinacy can be cracked. Christianity has taught us that much, with its potent system of rewards and punishments. Every person has things they want and things they don't want (not counting all those things from either category of which they are not yet aware). A lot of criminal behavior stems from the mindset that one is immune to the social order, above it, or is mistreated by it. The first two mindsets can be counteracted by humility, and the latter by kindness. It's an obvious next step to bring these two ideas together, and shape people's behavior by tempting them with what they want and threatening them with what they don't.
When dealing with misfits, the first chapter of rehabilitation is not to groom them for Illumination, but to kindle their respect for the social order. Some people will answer to fear. Others will answer to opportunity. Others still will answer to plain old compassion. And, of course, combinations abound. Criminals are rarely philosophers. They can be forced, manipulated, lured, and enticed into a more positive worldview, and with the right approach their resistance will usually falter. Then, later on, looking back, they may be able to appreciate the good that it did them to be cajoled away from their old views. I suggest that we should reserve the power to treat these kinds of people like children, where their behavioral problems are the result of childish thinking. Separately, many people can be brought back from the brink simply by showing them that the world is not as bad a place as they thought. An enlightened society could do that much more easily then ours can, because our society often does push people into lives of crime and misbehavior.
And an enlightened society will improve upon itself, so that its failures become fewer and fewer.
An enlightened society must not impose upon all its denizens the obligation to excel, for by definition few can, but merely to succeed. It's okay if some people live lives of mediocrity, so long as they were given the opportunity to pursue their ambitions and were able to taste some victories along the way. Even the greatest among us can not hope for much more than that, excepting that the scope of their victories would have been grander. One reason so many fictional utopias are strawmen is that they hold their denizens to unrealistic expectations. A truly enlightened society will have Homer Simpsons in it and should offer those people their own slice of the pie. Aesthetically, artistically, recreationally...the ideal society will look very different from person to person. Such a society must become transparent in these ways, allowing individual interpretation to dominate, and materializing only to make sure that we are all well-accommodated.
To summarize, then, my answer to your question:
1. I don't have specific policies yet because my philosophy has not yet given full consideration to the issue.
2. The severely disabled must be treated humanely and given opportunities to pursue life within their limitations, or be euthanized.
3. Children must be taught how to prosper in an enlightened society.
4. Those who fall short, misfits and maladapts, should be reeducated, rehabilitated, and shown compassion and opportunity.
5. Society must improve upon itself so as to better accommodate all individuals.
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Since it is taking me longer than expected to read and digest this, it seemed prudent that I say thanks sooner rather than later, with a proper reply coming later.
So, thanks for the wonderful reply.