In the three years since I began keeping this blog I have laid out my opinion on a number of issues, ranted and raved about this, that, and the other, and contributed for my small handful of readers my thoughts whether helpful or not. What I have not done is articulated my own positions and the philosophy that underlies them. I think it is important that I do so now.
My political views are underpinned by my social and philosophical views, which I think is important. Too many politicians, it seems to me, cannot articulate why they believe what they believe. Democrats and Republicans alike, I find, are more prone to spouting off talking points, but when pushed can never seem to explain the foundation upon which their view are built. They simply believe things.
So here is what I believe and why I believe it. I believe that people are born as more or less tabula rasa. Yes, our DNA plays an important role in who we will become, but our environment is just as important. If I grow up on a farm, I'm likely to be outdoorsy, perhaps inclined to agriculture. If I grow up surrounded by guns, drugs, and other vices then I'm more likely to find those things appealing. And if I grow up in a stable home with access to high quality education then I am more likely to value education and become a self-motivated and independent person who can support himself (and hopefully a family) when I get older.
My personal belief is that people are likely to identify more with the environment in which they grew up than adhere to different norms when they get older. At some point people must take responsibility for and be held accountable for their own lives, but if do not invest in them at an early age then we bear some responsibility for negative outcomes. We may find it easy to blame adults for being lazy, and admonishing them for not working harder to find a job or better themselves, but we cannot fairly blame a six year old. We can, however, invest in a six year old knowing that our investment is more likely to make that person a responsible adult.
Let's paint this in less theoretical and more concrete terms. When we talk about outcomes of different groups of people in the United States, we talk about the exceptions, not the rules. Barack Obama, for example, is an exception. He grew up as a poor black kid and became president of the United States. Marco Rubio, too, is an exception. As a first generation American born to immigrant parents, he was elected to the US Senate. We only talk about poor or minority Americans when they have beaten the odds. How many kids can you name on the South Side of Chicago?
Similarly, when we talk about white or wealthy Americans, we are often talking about people who have beaten the odds, but in the wrong ways. People who have squandered their advantage. Lindsay Lohan shouldn't be a drug-addict. She has money and an education. She beat the odds to fail. The rich kid who squanders his family fortune isn't the norm, he is the exception. No one talks about me because as a middle class white guy with a good education, I was expected to end up exactly where I am - "successful," that is having a job I like and supporting myself. Had I grown up a poor black male and ended up selling drugs or engaging in gang violence it is very likely no one would be talking about me, because the way our system works, that's where I would be most likely to have ended up. In other words, we laud or deplore the exceptions to the rules without ever questioning the rules themselves.
Thus Mitt Romney ends up condemning 47% of the country, many, if not most of whom never had a real chance to turn out much differently. Yes, those adults do need to be held accountable, but again, I maintain that the odds are stacked against them because of their childhood environment.
So the question to me becomes how to we go about fixing that environment and imbuing people with a sense of personal responsibility? I think this can and should be done. I do not think society realistically can or should hold someone's hand throughout life. Personal accountability is supremely important, but again, people are not born with that notion, they learn it. How?
Many of the attempts our nation has made to fix poverty and change life outcomes have been failures because they have not addressed this question. I cannot make someone rich by giving them welfare checks and food stamps. In fact these programs keep people at subsistence levels of living rather than helping them out of poverty. I don't figure Ronald Reagan knew very much at all about the size of welfare checks when he famously spoke of "Cadillac Queens." I also can't force people to be better parents; I can't make them stop using drugs; I can't really make people do anything. After all I believe in personal responsibility. So what can I do?
I can invest in people at an early age. I believe society can proactively provide an education and skills making retroactive and ineffective investments more uncommon. I don't propose to eliminate welfare, I propose to make it less important by giving people the means to provide for themselves then stepping back and letting them do so.
I firmly believe that when given an education and opportunities, people will grow into self-aware, self-motivated, and overall good human beings. Again, we see this is the case when people are afforded these opportunities. Why are middle class white people so often not in the news? Because the majority of us were given opportunities and took advantage of them. My "success" was preordained to some degree. I would have had to screw up badly to not end up where I am today.
So in order to create a more equitable and stable society, we must invest in education and opportunities. If we give children education, exposure, and opportunity during their formative years I believe they will internalize it and grow into responsible adults. This happened to me and almost everyone I knew growing up as a child, and I believe it can and will happen to almost everyone who is lucky enough to have the same opportunities I had.
Those opportunities are something society can and should provide. If we create equal opportunity through education, we will arrive at more equal - though not entirely equal - outcomes. We can do all this without babysitting people for their entire lives, and we can do it while still believing that people must take accountability for their own livelihoods once they have received our collective investment. It is possible to believe in the power of public investment and be libertarian; these ideas are not mutually exclusive.
So I would describe myself as a leftward leaning libertarian, someone who believes in the power of public education and investment, but who believes people, after receiving this investment, can and should be accountable for their own lives and livelihoods. I firmly believe that by making such an investment in children through education we will create a more equitable and stable society and that we will alleviate the need for many of the safety net programs on which too many of our fellow citizens currently rely. My goal for something like food stamps or welfare is to give a larger lump sum than is currently being received to a vastly smaller group of individuals, empowering many to provide for themselves while giving those who legitimately cannot an outcome better than subsistence living.
This is my vision for America: a prosperous and stable country in which people are still incentivized to work hard, but have been granted the skills and education necessary to turn their hard work into tangible rewards - better lives for them and their children. A nation in which we can shrink our government and make it more efficient because we have eliminated the NEED for many types of government programs, not just the programs themselves. Individual freedom therefore is connected with smaller government, but society as represented by the government has the responsibility to invest in individuals in order to help them become self-sufficient.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
They're Coming Either Way
Trying to explain to anti-immigrant factions that America is a nation of immigrants is somewhat akin to teaching calculus to a kangaroo. That is, it's impossible. Immigrants, of course, are people of color. They are subversive, usually poor, and almost always equipped with guns, drugs, or at the very least a nefarious plan to destroy the social fabric of our nation. The immigrants who first showed up on America's shores hundreds of years ago were none of those things. Well, maybe some. They were white and relatively wealthy, and there was no nation for them to subvert save the British monarchy. But they did have guns and nefarious plans to eliminate Native Americans and steal their lands. There are at least some similarities.
The more realistic similarity between yesteryear's immigrants and today's is that most of them are simply looking for a better life and a better opportunity. Many of today's immigrants are fleeing oppression just as the first European settlers did. Many are looking for jobs just as successive waves of immigrants have been over the 250 years of our nation's history. There are always going to be the bad apples, but of the 11 million people living in America's shadows, how many do we truly believe are rending our culture, subverting our laws, and leading to the destruction of our society? Have we really convinced ourselves that these people illegally enter America, risking their livelihoods and in some cases their lives because they hate this place and came to destroy it? Are they all bad people because they broke the law of a country of which they are not even residents, let alone citizens? There is no unclaimed land for these people to make their own as there was centuries ago, and Mars remains out of reach. America seems a very natural - and in my opinion - inviting place for these people to call home.
Of course, my opinion stands in stark contrast to the neo-Nativist movement, comprised of predominantly fringe right wingers who have somehow managed to make the term amnesty a negative one, and who seem to believe that illegal immigrants are the scourge of the Earth. Most of this is rooted in racism and bigotry, though the people who espouse these ideals will find slightly more opaque veneers to gloss over this criticism.
The real truth is that there isn't a valid argument for not reforming our immigration system, a system that we might generously describe as being broken. The other real truth is that whether we revamp immigration laws or not, immigrants are coming. Our founding fathers wanted freedom and opportunity so much that they waged war against the world's most powerful empire. Do we really think a fence along the Mexican border is going keep people out? Even that comparison trivializes the issue. People hear immigration and think Mexico as though that is the only country from which people emigrate to America. But the bigger picture is of course much more complex, and is intricately interwoven with a multitude of other issues. Fixing our immigration system will bring economic benefits and likely social and political stability as well as a bigger fence along the Mexican border, a path to citizenship for our shadow dwellers, and the ability to retain intelligent people from all over the world who have come here for an education and often want to stay but cannot.
A good immigration bill has already made its way through the Senate but is held up in the House of Representatives, where progress goes to die. My glee at the political suicide being committed by Republicans is more than offset by my sorrow about how these men (and the handful of women alongside them) seem to want America to move backwards. I'd love a better Republican party, but I have come to the conclusion that they will implode before they can move forward, so while I yearn for the day that Republicans can bring ideas to the table, I'll try to smile about the fact that the immigrants are coming no matter what Republicans do, and in the meantime they've probably just ceded their political fortunes for the foreseeable future.
The more realistic similarity between yesteryear's immigrants and today's is that most of them are simply looking for a better life and a better opportunity. Many of today's immigrants are fleeing oppression just as the first European settlers did. Many are looking for jobs just as successive waves of immigrants have been over the 250 years of our nation's history. There are always going to be the bad apples, but of the 11 million people living in America's shadows, how many do we truly believe are rending our culture, subverting our laws, and leading to the destruction of our society? Have we really convinced ourselves that these people illegally enter America, risking their livelihoods and in some cases their lives because they hate this place and came to destroy it? Are they all bad people because they broke the law of a country of which they are not even residents, let alone citizens? There is no unclaimed land for these people to make their own as there was centuries ago, and Mars remains out of reach. America seems a very natural - and in my opinion - inviting place for these people to call home.
Of course, my opinion stands in stark contrast to the neo-Nativist movement, comprised of predominantly fringe right wingers who have somehow managed to make the term amnesty a negative one, and who seem to believe that illegal immigrants are the scourge of the Earth. Most of this is rooted in racism and bigotry, though the people who espouse these ideals will find slightly more opaque veneers to gloss over this criticism.
The real truth is that there isn't a valid argument for not reforming our immigration system, a system that we might generously describe as being broken. The other real truth is that whether we revamp immigration laws or not, immigrants are coming. Our founding fathers wanted freedom and opportunity so much that they waged war against the world's most powerful empire. Do we really think a fence along the Mexican border is going keep people out? Even that comparison trivializes the issue. People hear immigration and think Mexico as though that is the only country from which people emigrate to America. But the bigger picture is of course much more complex, and is intricately interwoven with a multitude of other issues. Fixing our immigration system will bring economic benefits and likely social and political stability as well as a bigger fence along the Mexican border, a path to citizenship for our shadow dwellers, and the ability to retain intelligent people from all over the world who have come here for an education and often want to stay but cannot.
A good immigration bill has already made its way through the Senate but is held up in the House of Representatives, where progress goes to die. My glee at the political suicide being committed by Republicans is more than offset by my sorrow about how these men (and the handful of women alongside them) seem to want America to move backwards. I'd love a better Republican party, but I have come to the conclusion that they will implode before they can move forward, so while I yearn for the day that Republicans can bring ideas to the table, I'll try to smile about the fact that the immigrants are coming no matter what Republicans do, and in the meantime they've probably just ceded their political fortunes for the foreseeable future.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Trading Away Our Livelihood
There is no shortage of bad ideas about which to harp when it comes to discussing the sequester. It was a shot in the foot with an elephant gun. I've talked about - and suffered through - the more popular talking points about the sequester. Thank you, Congress, for an extra five hours in Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
As bad as all that is, today I read something truly pitiful: American trade is suffering because of cuts of as low as $5-8 million to The Office of United States Trade Representative. This bureaucratic leviathan has lost the money it needs to pay for overseas flights for trade negotiators, and as a result important trade deals may not get done. As boring as this seems, it has huge economic implications.
Right now, the United States is working on big free trade deals with the European Union and Pacific Rim countries. These deals could create huge economic opportunities for US exporters, but guess what...our negotiators can't fly to the meetings...that's worth repeating: the planet's wealthiest country cannot afford $8 million to send trade negotiators to meetings.
This is the state in which we find ourselves; the proponents of capitalism, the evangelists of free trade sidelined by budget cuts that are economically incompatible with the system we created and perfected (eh...perfected...?). We find ourselves in a position in which we cannot take advantage of the system we helped create and spread to the rest of the world because of action steps we took that are antithetical to that system.
I've said enough about the sequester, and any and everyone I know who has a basic understanding of economics and has thought about this issue agrees the sequester is a disaster, but that we can't fly our trade representatives to international meetings over a sum as low as $8 million is just pitiful. With all due respect, we're not Lesotho or Tajikistan here. We are the apostle for free trade, but we won't be engaging in as much of it over $8 million worth of airline expenses. Can't we get the Gates Foundation to fund this? Seriously, America? That America has been self-induced into this debacle is worth one more rant because it is unbelievably pathetic.
I titled this post "Trading Away Our Livelihood," but in fact, we aren't going to be doing nearly as much trading because we can't get our political act together. In fact, only recently, Ben Bernake again told Congress that they were the biggest obstacle to economic growth. Clearly, since they have, in their wisdom, grounded our trade negotiators over $8 million in public spending. Face-palm, fail, sigh. America needs fixing, and I'm unsure if anyone is up to the task.
As bad as all that is, today I read something truly pitiful: American trade is suffering because of cuts of as low as $5-8 million to The Office of United States Trade Representative. This bureaucratic leviathan has lost the money it needs to pay for overseas flights for trade negotiators, and as a result important trade deals may not get done. As boring as this seems, it has huge economic implications.
Right now, the United States is working on big free trade deals with the European Union and Pacific Rim countries. These deals could create huge economic opportunities for US exporters, but guess what...our negotiators can't fly to the meetings...that's worth repeating: the planet's wealthiest country cannot afford $8 million to send trade negotiators to meetings.
This is the state in which we find ourselves; the proponents of capitalism, the evangelists of free trade sidelined by budget cuts that are economically incompatible with the system we created and perfected (eh...perfected...?). We find ourselves in a position in which we cannot take advantage of the system we helped create and spread to the rest of the world because of action steps we took that are antithetical to that system.
I've said enough about the sequester, and any and everyone I know who has a basic understanding of economics and has thought about this issue agrees the sequester is a disaster, but that we can't fly our trade representatives to international meetings over a sum as low as $8 million is just pitiful. With all due respect, we're not Lesotho or Tajikistan here. We are the apostle for free trade, but we won't be engaging in as much of it over $8 million worth of airline expenses. Can't we get the Gates Foundation to fund this? Seriously, America? That America has been self-induced into this debacle is worth one more rant because it is unbelievably pathetic.
I titled this post "Trading Away Our Livelihood," but in fact, we aren't going to be doing nearly as much trading because we can't get our political act together. In fact, only recently, Ben Bernake again told Congress that they were the biggest obstacle to economic growth. Clearly, since they have, in their wisdom, grounded our trade negotiators over $8 million in public spending. Face-palm, fail, sigh. America needs fixing, and I'm unsure if anyone is up to the task.
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