Gee Ollie, don’t feel you have to hold
back!
You say I was “condescending … to
attribute expressed policy beliefs to the inner mental states of people you don't
know and have never meet.”
I’ve never met a terrorist, and you’ve
never met Obama (if you did, you’ve kept it to yourself). But we attribute
motivations to them and lots of other people we only encounter through second-hand
reports. The only way most of us can make sense of the social scene is by
attributing beliefs and wants to actors. And it’s a better explanation if the motivations
of terrorists, radical conservatives, you, and I fit into a single picture of
human motivation.
I’m only an amateur at this, and my
attributions of belief and desires are mainly speculative. But if we don’t make
room for amateur speculation, we won’t have much of a blog. We’ll bring to the
blog the virtues of amateurism: passion and unconventional thinking, but also
the defects: lack of specialized knowledge and occasional lack of caution. We’ll
expect readers to appreciate the former and forgive the latter. And, of course,
we expect each of us to keep the other honest, with gentle correction if we
stray too far from what is reasonable.
About your particular criticisms: I used
“Tea Party” and “radical conservatives” interchangeably. An oversimplification perhaps.
And I didn’t mean to be entirely critical of either. To the extent these
tendencies simply oppose tax rises, I’m on-board, sort of. I don’t know what
the proper level of taxation should be, but I’m convinced—as is every rational
person—that legislators waste an awful lot of taxpayer money, and that one way
to make them more thoughtful about spending is to cut their allowance. But I
don’t believe that government is always the problem. We should be suspicious of
government spending programs, but not automatically condemnatory (is that a
word?). If you’ll pardon me attributing motivations to people—legislators—I
haven’t met, I think it’s easy for people in power to think they fully understand
problems whose details they only vaguely grasp, and to think they can be heroes
by ginning up solutions with a lot of money that isn’t theirs. Both tendencies are
part of human nature. For the former, we have the evidence of these blog posts,
and for the latter, lots of history. We all want ourselves, not others, to be
the heroes of our own lives.
You also question my claim that radical
conservative positions are at least partly based on nostalgia for a partly imaginary
America of their childhood. For one thing, you say Democrats harbor the same
sorts of nostalgia, but for different parts of the past, such as a union-dominated
manufacturing sector. Too true. Fear of the future and the longing for a
simpler past is an emotion that transcends political boundaries. It tends to
make me favor gradual change that allows people (myself included) time to
adjust, and makes me suspicious of proposals for radical changes in social arrangements.
It’s a perspective I’ll bring to lots of these blog posts.
For our readers, it’s probably time I put
my political cards on the table. I often describe myself as a recovering
libertarian. “Libertarian” because I believe in minimizing government
intrusions on personal liberty. For example, I favor legalizing marijuana and
any other drugs that are no more harmful than alcohol. And I’m pro-choice,
perhaps because as an atheist I don’t trust theologically-based pro-life arguments.
I believe in free markets and free trade,
and am generally opposed to government interference in the economy (eg, farm
subsidies). But economic activities can generate externalities (eg, air and
water pollution) that can justify government intervention. I prefer that any
interventions proceed through the price system (eg, carbon taxes). However,
each government activity, and each intrusion, is different, and you can’t
justify or oppose them en masse simply
on ideological grounds.
When I say I’m “recovering,” I mean that
while I’m still a registered Republican, I’ve become distrustful of the GOP,
which now seems to be going through what I can only describe as a hissy fit. My
disillusion with the party goes all the way back to Clinton’s impeachment. As a
libertarian, I thought that Clinton’s dalliance with an intern was nobody’s
business but Mrs. Clinton’s. Yes, he lied about it, but everyone lies about these
matters, and sensible people understand that you shouldn’t ask those questions.
(My Congressman back then was Chris Shays,
the only Republican who voted against all five counts of impeachment. He lost
his seat in 2008 to Jim Himes, a thoughtful and capable Congressman, and in
2012 lost a bid for a Senatorial nomination to Linda McMahon, a political
lightweight soundly thrashed in the general election.)
Despite these misgivings, I voted for W in
2000. In 2004 I didn’t vote. I was dismayed by what seemed a near-pathological
response to the 9/11 attacks, most especially the Iraq intervention (about
which I was originally ambivalent), but unenthused by the Democratic candidate.
I voted for Obama in 2008, mainly because, while I felt closer to McCain on domestic
matters, I thought him very much a loose cannon on foreign policy. I still find
Obama’s instincts on domestic policy too leftish for me (there is something to
Republican complaints that he is a “class warrior”), but he seems generally
thoughtful and cautious, especially on foreign policy, and he got my vote in
2012.
In the coming weeks I’ll discuss
individual issues, and readers can judge for themselves whether I’m able to surmount
my ideological prejudices.
—Stan
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