Thoughts on the election, or, Confessions of a Wannabe
Now that the whole nausea-inducing spectacle is behind us, I feel comfortable talking about the state of American politics as I see it. My approach to this topic may surprise people who think they know where I stand politically, and at least a few people reading this are going to have seizures for various reasons. I'll try and give you advance warning.
I am a registered Independent and have been since I was 18. I don't like the two party system, with its loyalty tests and mind games. I have mostly voted Democratic, however, and am thought of by many that know me to be somewhere to the left of Bernie Saunders. On many social issues - yes, definitely - I'm so far left they need to invent a new dimension of space-time to label it, but, see, here's the thing. I'm not actually all that liberal in the traditional sense. I genuinely believe that more government is generally *not* the best solution to many problems we face. In no particular order and off the top of my head, I don't like affirmative action, commodity pricing regulation, and helmet laws. I'm mixed on drug criminalization, just because most of these drugs *were* legal at one time, and that didn't work out so good. But basically, in my heart of hearts, (Seizure warning #1) I'd rather be a political conservative in the purest "small government" sense. This includes government that stays out of our bedrooms and uteri, hence my use of the word "pure."
And yet, yesterday I voted for Obama. I wasn't planning to; for most of the election (S.W. #2) I had been leaning McCain. I have always admired and respected McCain, for his involvement in the Gang of 14, immigration reform, anti-torture legislation, and other moments when he showed an approach to politics that was simultaneously pragmatic and deeply felt. He was never an ideologue, and truly did defy his party when he felt it was necessary for the country. I voted for him in the Maryland Republican primary in 2000. After the divisive party nonsense of the last 8 years, the idea that the Republicans could finally nominate someone like that was encouraging to me. A few things gave me pause, mostly some of his stands on social issues. But given the choice, I felt that as an experienced moderate he was the superior candidate.
(S.W. #3) I didn't like Barack Obama because I don't like cults of personality. They make it far too easy to distort the viewer's perceptions and blind them to reality, until they're in a South American jungle downing Kool-Aid and don't even know why. The mind is clouded until it's too late. I also had some inside information from someone in an excellent position to know that what you saw on the surface was not what was under the hood, which worried me deeply.
While there were a couple of other factors, several things made me change my mind. First, McCain started pandering to the far right, using language that was both offensive and toxic, and throwing his previously stated moderate positions off the back of the wagon train. He was playing exactly the kind of party politics that made me register Independent in the first place. Then, he picked someone so deeply unqualified as his running mate my *cat* could probably outthink her. (And my cat? Not that bright.) Even worse, Palin is an ideologue and a true believer. There is nothing more dangerous than someone who has never had his or her beliefs challenged and demonstrated that they are able to respond in a thoughtful manner. Maybe once Palin had been around the block a few times and had to engage in actual debate and compromise at the national level she might have been ready. Right now? Nu-uh. What's that you say? Vice-Presidency is powerless? I'm sorry, but McCain is too old and too sick for me to take that chance.
Finally, the economy tanked as a result of the kinds of free market reforms McCain championed. This last one was the hardest for me, since it forced me to examine my wannabe conservatism and see if it could withstand the evidence before it. I am personally feeling the effects: I can't find a job. The absence of regulation, which I had generally supported, had caused this. So, I've been giving myself a crash course in market theory for the last few months. And I think I've come to a place that finally makes sense. To me anyway - y'all can feel free to judge for yourself. True conservative free market ideology is based on three fundamental principles. The first two you'll probably recognize; the third, maybe not so much.
First principle: A free market meets the needs of both producers and consumers, since if noone needs the producer's widget, it will vanish from the market place. Merit begets reward.
Second principle: A free market works best without intervention. Government intervention distorts the perfect merit/reward cycle.
Third principle: When the market maximally benefits all participants, society overall benefits. This idea actually traces back most directly to Karl Marx, who felt it was the economic structure of a society that determined overall social structure. (And wouldn't all those free market ideologues be shocked to find out they're Marxists! Let's tell'em... *teehee*) Communism was the product when Marx used this foundational principle to justify his design of a perfect society based on a perfect economic structure.
This logic broke down for me in two places. First, not all items available on the market are widgets. Sub-prime mortgages themselves are a widget, in the sense that they had utility to both the producer/lender and consumer/borrower. That is *not* why they were sold, however. No rational lender looks at someone with no verifiable income or assets and thinks "Woohoo! Score!" They were sold as a tool for sponging up excess capital that was flooding the market with no outlet. A particular change in market law, pushed through by McCain's economic advisor, allowed these poorly designed products to generate income from secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sources. Sub-prime mortgages were used to increase the value of money within financial markets. They were a tool to meet needs upstream in the market, not to make homeownership a reality for people who previously had not been able to afford it. The market was, ironically, distorted by the lack of safeguards.
Second, and more importantly, I have yet to see the evidence that a maximally functional market maximally benefits society overall. I've never been a huge fan of Marx, mostly because oh.My.G-D did he need a good editor, but I also distrust *any* kind of uni-dimensional determinism. As I said before, I don't like true believers or ideologues. Failure to look at all potential contributory forces behind a phenomenon is both.
Where did this land me on regulation? I've come to the conclusion there there are two kind of market activities. One set should be set free, and the other needs to be regulated to hell and gone. The first is the widgets - practical, useful products and services that are intended to benefit all parties to their use. Sub-prime mortgages can even qualify here, provided they are designed to accommodate the realities of a sub-prime borrower and are marketed properly. Allowing someone to buy a house when they couldn't otherwise? Good. Convincing them they can afford twice as much house because you already have a buyer (who has a buyer, who has a buyer) lined up to take over the mortgage and don't care if they can pay or not? BAAAAAAAD. Food would be here as well. I'm for jettisoning the entire price regulatory structure and replacing it with a comprehensive labeling scheme that would hopefully allow producers and consumers to communicate across the rural/urban interface in ways that meet the needs of both groups.
The second class of market activities are the ones that only benefit highly specific small subsets of the population. The reason Wall Street and executive salaries were so ridiculously high was because all the monetary benefit from deregulation was staying there. The growing salary gap across all sectors, financial and otherwise, was the clue that the benefit from an unregulated market wasn't spreading out to the rest of society. And don't tell me they work hard and deserve it. I'm sure they do work hard, but farmers work twice as hard as some 23-year-old MBA who goes out and parties every night, and make pennies to the MBA's millions for their troubles.
Which brings us back to Obama, and my reluctant vote. I had a choice between someone who had lost a lot of my trust and someone who never really had it. I agreed with the second on social issues, and had to confront and reexamine what I believed on economic ones. While I definitely believe Obama will over-regulate by including practical widgets in his regulatory scheme, I also believed that McCain wouldn't know how to regulate at all, and doesn't know anyone who does. It was a choice between too much, and too little/poorly done. Once I added that back into the social questions that are important to me (because it's not all about the economy, dagnabbit!) I had to go with Obama and hope that eventually he will grow into his hype. A maximally healthy society is one where all groups at least have a chance to grow, change, and improve. If that means I have to give up a bit so others can have a bit more, so be it. I make this conclusion in my own self-interest. People who have nothing to gain from their positive actions also have nothing to lose from their negative ones, allowing them to be as violent and destructive as they want to be. While I still love the principle of small government and it will probably always be my first choice, it is simply not possible to remain committed to that ideal when so much of the benefit from the unregulated market is allowed to remain in so few hands.
Right. I'm all deep-thoughted out. Greatest new wave band hairdos of the 1980s: discuss.
I am a registered Independent and have been since I was 18. I don't like the two party system, with its loyalty tests and mind games. I have mostly voted Democratic, however, and am thought of by many that know me to be somewhere to the left of Bernie Saunders. On many social issues - yes, definitely - I'm so far left they need to invent a new dimension of space-time to label it, but, see, here's the thing. I'm not actually all that liberal in the traditional sense. I genuinely believe that more government is generally *not* the best solution to many problems we face. In no particular order and off the top of my head, I don't like affirmative action, commodity pricing regulation, and helmet laws. I'm mixed on drug criminalization, just because most of these drugs *were* legal at one time, and that didn't work out so good. But basically, in my heart of hearts, (Seizure warning #1) I'd rather be a political conservative in the purest "small government" sense. This includes government that stays out of our bedrooms and uteri, hence my use of the word "pure."
And yet, yesterday I voted for Obama. I wasn't planning to; for most of the election (S.W. #2) I had been leaning McCain. I have always admired and respected McCain, for his involvement in the Gang of 14, immigration reform, anti-torture legislation, and other moments when he showed an approach to politics that was simultaneously pragmatic and deeply felt. He was never an ideologue, and truly did defy his party when he felt it was necessary for the country. I voted for him in the Maryland Republican primary in 2000. After the divisive party nonsense of the last 8 years, the idea that the Republicans could finally nominate someone like that was encouraging to me. A few things gave me pause, mostly some of his stands on social issues. But given the choice, I felt that as an experienced moderate he was the superior candidate.
(S.W. #3) I didn't like Barack Obama because I don't like cults of personality. They make it far too easy to distort the viewer's perceptions and blind them to reality, until they're in a South American jungle downing Kool-Aid and don't even know why. The mind is clouded until it's too late. I also had some inside information from someone in an excellent position to know that what you saw on the surface was not what was under the hood, which worried me deeply.
While there were a couple of other factors, several things made me change my mind. First, McCain started pandering to the far right, using language that was both offensive and toxic, and throwing his previously stated moderate positions off the back of the wagon train. He was playing exactly the kind of party politics that made me register Independent in the first place. Then, he picked someone so deeply unqualified as his running mate my *cat* could probably outthink her. (And my cat? Not that bright.) Even worse, Palin is an ideologue and a true believer. There is nothing more dangerous than someone who has never had his or her beliefs challenged and demonstrated that they are able to respond in a thoughtful manner. Maybe once Palin had been around the block a few times and had to engage in actual debate and compromise at the national level she might have been ready. Right now? Nu-uh. What's that you say? Vice-Presidency is powerless? I'm sorry, but McCain is too old and too sick for me to take that chance.
Finally, the economy tanked as a result of the kinds of free market reforms McCain championed. This last one was the hardest for me, since it forced me to examine my wannabe conservatism and see if it could withstand the evidence before it. I am personally feeling the effects: I can't find a job. The absence of regulation, which I had generally supported, had caused this. So, I've been giving myself a crash course in market theory for the last few months. And I think I've come to a place that finally makes sense. To me anyway - y'all can feel free to judge for yourself. True conservative free market ideology is based on three fundamental principles. The first two you'll probably recognize; the third, maybe not so much.
First principle: A free market meets the needs of both producers and consumers, since if noone needs the producer's widget, it will vanish from the market place. Merit begets reward.
Second principle: A free market works best without intervention. Government intervention distorts the perfect merit/reward cycle.
Third principle: When the market maximally benefits all participants, society overall benefits. This idea actually traces back most directly to Karl Marx, who felt it was the economic structure of a society that determined overall social structure. (And wouldn't all those free market ideologues be shocked to find out they're Marxists! Let's tell'em... *teehee*) Communism was the product when Marx used this foundational principle to justify his design of a perfect society based on a perfect economic structure.
This logic broke down for me in two places. First, not all items available on the market are widgets. Sub-prime mortgages themselves are a widget, in the sense that they had utility to both the producer/lender and consumer/borrower. That is *not* why they were sold, however. No rational lender looks at someone with no verifiable income or assets and thinks "Woohoo! Score!" They were sold as a tool for sponging up excess capital that was flooding the market with no outlet. A particular change in market law, pushed through by McCain's economic advisor, allowed these poorly designed products to generate income from secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sources. Sub-prime mortgages were used to increase the value of money within financial markets. They were a tool to meet needs upstream in the market, not to make homeownership a reality for people who previously had not been able to afford it. The market was, ironically, distorted by the lack of safeguards.
Second, and more importantly, I have yet to see the evidence that a maximally functional market maximally benefits society overall. I've never been a huge fan of Marx, mostly because oh.My.G-D did he need a good editor, but I also distrust *any* kind of uni-dimensional determinism. As I said before, I don't like true believers or ideologues. Failure to look at all potential contributory forces behind a phenomenon is both.
Where did this land me on regulation? I've come to the conclusion there there are two kind of market activities. One set should be set free, and the other needs to be regulated to hell and gone. The first is the widgets - practical, useful products and services that are intended to benefit all parties to their use. Sub-prime mortgages can even qualify here, provided they are designed to accommodate the realities of a sub-prime borrower and are marketed properly. Allowing someone to buy a house when they couldn't otherwise? Good. Convincing them they can afford twice as much house because you already have a buyer (who has a buyer, who has a buyer) lined up to take over the mortgage and don't care if they can pay or not? BAAAAAAAD. Food would be here as well. I'm for jettisoning the entire price regulatory structure and replacing it with a comprehensive labeling scheme that would hopefully allow producers and consumers to communicate across the rural/urban interface in ways that meet the needs of both groups.
The second class of market activities are the ones that only benefit highly specific small subsets of the population. The reason Wall Street and executive salaries were so ridiculously high was because all the monetary benefit from deregulation was staying there. The growing salary gap across all sectors, financial and otherwise, was the clue that the benefit from an unregulated market wasn't spreading out to the rest of society. And don't tell me they work hard and deserve it. I'm sure they do work hard, but farmers work twice as hard as some 23-year-old MBA who goes out and parties every night, and make pennies to the MBA's millions for their troubles.
Which brings us back to Obama, and my reluctant vote. I had a choice between someone who had lost a lot of my trust and someone who never really had it. I agreed with the second on social issues, and had to confront and reexamine what I believed on economic ones. While I definitely believe Obama will over-regulate by including practical widgets in his regulatory scheme, I also believed that McCain wouldn't know how to regulate at all, and doesn't know anyone who does. It was a choice between too much, and too little/poorly done. Once I added that back into the social questions that are important to me (because it's not all about the economy, dagnabbit!) I had to go with Obama and hope that eventually he will grow into his hype. A maximally healthy society is one where all groups at least have a chance to grow, change, and improve. If that means I have to give up a bit so others can have a bit more, so be it. I make this conclusion in my own self-interest. People who have nothing to gain from their positive actions also have nothing to lose from their negative ones, allowing them to be as violent and destructive as they want to be. While I still love the principle of small government and it will probably always be my first choice, it is simply not possible to remain committed to that ideal when so much of the benefit from the unregulated market is allowed to remain in so few hands.
Right. I'm all deep-thoughted out. Greatest new wave band hairdos of the 1980s: discuss.