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republican,
united states
I'm sorry, but this is going to be a serious post. I apologize for that, and if you're not interested then please skip over it. Most of the content here should make you smile. But this one, unfortunately, is more interested in making you think.
of the Party, by the Party, for the Party
--political parties are less fun than they sound--
I want to clarify something. My conservative friends have disowned me while my liberal friends have wrapped their arms around me and given me huge smiles. Because of my recent political shifts, which have made everyone think that I (a former conservative) have become a liberal.
I have not. But I'm not a conservative either.
I think that "conservative" and "liberal" are inaccurate, off-target descriptions. Attempts to bundle often-unrelated political ideas into just two baskets. Which is a broken approach.The truth is, I call myself a moderate. And I see wisdom in both conservative and liberal ideas, often it depends on the issue at hand.
I tend to favor well-placed tax decreases, free trade, and (generally) a respect for life, but I'm also interested in protecting individual rights--and I believe healthcare is included on that list. I'm not interested in perpetuating "the war", and I am completely secular as far as policy and public education are concerned. (And I believe education is also a right.)
It all depends on what specifically we're dealing with, and the current state of our economy. Do we need a Keynesian approach? Do we need a classical approach? I don't think demand-side economics is absolutely superior to supply-side, and certainly supply-side is not always superior to demand-side. Again, for me, it depends on the issue.
But sometimes we are forced to pick a side in this dichotomy - and in November we had to vote and I voted for Obama. But not because I'm a liberal.
My opinion is that we need a demand-side approach to economic policy for our current predicament. Which is a philosophy that trends toward the democratic party. If this was the 70's and we were dealing with stagflation, I would be supporting the supply-side policies of Reagan. But we're dealing with a different bag. So I favor a different strategy.
I also found some appeal in having a young charismatic leader who is loved around the world. Our foreign policy and image has crumbled as of late, and no one can disagree that foreign relations has been a major weak-point for our current administration. So I picked the candidate who I felt would have the most positive impact.
I also chose the candidate who (I believed) would be tougher on lobbyists. I can't prove it, I might not even be able to count on it. But I picked the side I thought was most likely to do this.
I value healthcare and want it available for everyone. We remain the only industrialized nation to not provide this service universally. Yet we pay dramatically more (in terms of RGDP per capita) than anyone else. But millions remain uninsured. So I again chose the side I thought would address this situation best.
I also value our infrastructure. I want to see more and better highways. I want improvements on our roads, I want a larger availability of mass transit. More and better buses. More and safer trains. I want every person in our society to be mobilized, and able to travel. And I want it to be efficiently and inexpensive to use. So I picked the side that had the greater promise along these lines, and thus far plans drawn up have been very positive.
So I don't consider myself a liberal, or a conservative. I am simultaneously both and neither. And I don't find the terms particularly useful. In many instances something is arbitrarily labeled one or the other.
For example, wanting greater transparency in government is called "liberal" but I think we all want that. And wanting to improve our military is often labeled "conservative" but we all want to have a good national defense.
I think the real problem here is parties.
We let ourselves organize into these parties and we follow them valiantly, like cheering for sports teams. We wear the hats and the tee-shirts, we wave the big foam hands, and we applaud, boo, and hiss appropriately.
And the juice that keeps the machine going is our competitive drive to stamp out the other side, and assert our own agenda--whatever that happens to be.
Sometimes we don't even know what we're supporting. Just that we believe in the party ... whatever it happens to be, and we're loyal to it, but never stop to ask if the party is loyal to us.
And we forget what it is we stand for. And as the parties change, adopting new ideas and abandoning old ones, we scarcely notice. Letting ourselves become distracted with The Game instead of the details.
The "Old Democrats" are no more. And the Conservative Republicans have faded into the ashes. The agenda of the neo-conservatives reigns on high, and actual conservatism has vanished. Both parties want to grow larger, and the Republican party is now as spend-happy as the Democrats. And it becomes a question of ...
Would we rather increase spending on healthcare or on warfare?
Either way the debt will increase, and taxes will inevitably rise.
We never get to ask whether or not we should be spending the money. Instead it's a choice of where we wnat it to go.
And while I personally support an increased spending on healthcare, many of you don't, because you don't like big government. And that's fine.
But somehow the specifics become obscured. And we don't realize that our parties have left us and our values behind. We don't notice that. Because we're too interested in The Game.
We become blue states and red states, we become liberals and conservatives, we become Democrats and Republicans. And we do everything we can to slow down and block the other team. Always countering each other. And that frustration snowballs into a cycle of bad feelings.
And our government becomes of the party, by the party, for the party. Instead of letting it rest in the hands of the people ... where it belongs.
So I don't consider myself a Republican. And I don't consider myself a Democrat.
I consider myself an American.
And that's how I want you to think of me.
of the Party, by the Party, for the Party
--political parties are less fun than they sound--
I want to clarify something. My conservative friends have disowned me while my liberal friends have wrapped their arms around me and given me huge smiles. Because of my recent political shifts, which have made everyone think that I (a former conservative) have become a liberal.
I have not. But I'm not a conservative either.
I think that "conservative" and "liberal" are inaccurate, off-target descriptions. Attempts to bundle often-unrelated political ideas into just two baskets. Which is a broken approach.The truth is, I call myself a moderate. And I see wisdom in both conservative and liberal ideas, often it depends on the issue at hand.
I tend to favor well-placed tax decreases, free trade, and (generally) a respect for life, but I'm also interested in protecting individual rights--and I believe healthcare is included on that list. I'm not interested in perpetuating "the war", and I am completely secular as far as policy and public education are concerned. (And I believe education is also a right.)
It all depends on what specifically we're dealing with, and the current state of our economy. Do we need a Keynesian approach? Do we need a classical approach? I don't think demand-side economics is absolutely superior to supply-side, and certainly supply-side is not always superior to demand-side. Again, for me, it depends on the issue.
But sometimes we are forced to pick a side in this dichotomy - and in November we had to vote and I voted for Obama. But not because I'm a liberal.
My opinion is that we need a demand-side approach to economic policy for our current predicament. Which is a philosophy that trends toward the democratic party. If this was the 70's and we were dealing with stagflation, I would be supporting the supply-side policies of Reagan. But we're dealing with a different bag. So I favor a different strategy.
I also found some appeal in having a young charismatic leader who is loved around the world. Our foreign policy and image has crumbled as of late, and no one can disagree that foreign relations has been a major weak-point for our current administration. So I picked the candidate who I felt would have the most positive impact.
I also chose the candidate who (I believed) would be tougher on lobbyists. I can't prove it, I might not even be able to count on it. But I picked the side I thought was most likely to do this.
I value healthcare and want it available for everyone. We remain the only industrialized nation to not provide this service universally. Yet we pay dramatically more (in terms of RGDP per capita) than anyone else. But millions remain uninsured. So I again chose the side I thought would address this situation best.
I also value our infrastructure. I want to see more and better highways. I want improvements on our roads, I want a larger availability of mass transit. More and better buses. More and safer trains. I want every person in our society to be mobilized, and able to travel. And I want it to be efficiently and inexpensive to use. So I picked the side that had the greater promise along these lines, and thus far plans drawn up have been very positive.
So I don't consider myself a liberal, or a conservative. I am simultaneously both and neither. And I don't find the terms particularly useful. In many instances something is arbitrarily labeled one or the other.
For example, wanting greater transparency in government is called "liberal" but I think we all want that. And wanting to improve our military is often labeled "conservative" but we all want to have a good national defense.
I think the real problem here is parties.
We let ourselves organize into these parties and we follow them valiantly, like cheering for sports teams. We wear the hats and the tee-shirts, we wave the big foam hands, and we applaud, boo, and hiss appropriately.
And the juice that keeps the machine going is our competitive drive to stamp out the other side, and assert our own agenda--whatever that happens to be.
Sometimes we don't even know what we're supporting. Just that we believe in the party ... whatever it happens to be, and we're loyal to it, but never stop to ask if the party is loyal to us.
And we forget what it is we stand for. And as the parties change, adopting new ideas and abandoning old ones, we scarcely notice. Letting ourselves become distracted with The Game instead of the details.
The "Old Democrats" are no more. And the Conservative Republicans have faded into the ashes. The agenda of the neo-conservatives reigns on high, and actual conservatism has vanished. Both parties want to grow larger, and the Republican party is now as spend-happy as the Democrats. And it becomes a question of ...
Would we rather increase spending on healthcare or on warfare?
Either way the debt will increase, and taxes will inevitably rise.
We never get to ask whether or not we should be spending the money. Instead it's a choice of where we wnat it to go.
And while I personally support an increased spending on healthcare, many of you don't, because you don't like big government. And that's fine.
But somehow the specifics become obscured. And we don't realize that our parties have left us and our values behind. We don't notice that. Because we're too interested in The Game.
We become blue states and red states, we become liberals and conservatives, we become Democrats and Republicans. And we do everything we can to slow down and block the other team. Always countering each other. And that frustration snowballs into a cycle of bad feelings.
And our government becomes of the party, by the party, for the party. Instead of letting it rest in the hands of the people ... where it belongs.
So I don't consider myself a Republican. And I don't consider myself a Democrat.
I consider myself an American.
And that's how I want you to think of me.
