So, this isn't the first time we've asked this, and last time I answered that I haven't really changed, but the world changed around me and I just ended up being a lot more moderate because the world got so much more extreme over the past decade.
But, it seems clear I have changed since 2020 or so. As I said, in 2020, I ended up backing Sanders, but investigating the reasons for it, I probably am closer to Yang now.
The fact is, I have moderated a bit. In reality, it's not that my convictions are much different. I have the same priorities I always have, I've just become more flexible in how I accomplished them.
My current apparent shift to the center comes down to a simple reality: that while we can greatly expand the size of government, there are limits to how much we can expand it, and we have to pick and choose our battles. I know leftists think we can have a green new deal, medicare for all, UBI, etc., but in reality, we do have to choose. My current plans would basically make the US tax regime akin to a Scandinavian country. I mean, it's no small expansion. Median tax rates would probably be around 50% or so. Taxes on the rich would be 70% or so. And that's...as high as we can reasonably go. Like, seriously. If you go any higher, you start doing bad things to the economy. I know sticking it to the rich sounds attractive, but we do need some capitalism and incentives associated for it for the system to work. And for me, the limit is going to be, Scandinavian style tax rates.
Still, if 50% of our GDP went to the government, that's an $11 trillion budget. For the record, our current budget is around $6 trillion. And honestly, before COVID, it was more like $4 trillion. Around 1/5 of the economy. So I'm for massive expansions of our welfare state.
But...we have to choose. And given I decided to go all in with my ideology revolving around a universal basic income above the poverty line and NOT administered in an NIT manner, which costs $4 trillion, it does limit what else we can do. Can we afford Medicare for all, which expands our healthcare spending by $2.4 trillion on top of it? Maybe, maybe not, it's a hard sell. Can we implement a green new deal between $1 trillion and $2.7 trillion on top of that? Get out of here. Leftists can do what they do because they have dfifferent priorities. UBI is an afterthought for most of them. They support green new deals, and medicare for all, and without a $4 trillion UBI weighing them down, they can often fund their other stuff more easily.
But if you really support a UBI, and you want to pay for a $3-4 trillion program in that respect, what else can you afford? MAYBE medicare for all, that's actually hard, as that would be $2.4 trillion itself on top of existing spending. And then if you want free college and student debt forgiveness, that's $200 billion. And climate change is $150-250 billion if you wanna do it decently. And housing is like $200 billion.
And...it all adds up. And ultimately, being for UBI, means I have to be more moderate on other priorities. I could go full leftist, but I would have to abandon UBI. And I just refuse to do that. I believe in the idea too much. UBI is to me what socialism is for a "socialist". It's the big solution that really solves most problems and makes society better. It liberates peoples from the work force, it allows them to live as they want. Without it, while other programs may very well improve lives, they'll still be wage slaves. You can go all nordic theory of everything, but you still are forced to work.
UBI is just an idea whose time I believe has come, and I believe I must support it. If I leave any impact on this world politically, I want UBI to be that contribution.
Healthcare is my second priority, but, after 2020, I realize that if push comes to shove, I'd rather switch to a public option plan like medicare extra for all rather than give up UBI to support single payer. Much like Yang, I support single payer in theory, but I've become more flexible in how to accomplish it. And I wanna make that distinction. Biden and Buttigieg also support public options, but what separates me from them? Well, researching their respective plans, they are a bit of a mess. Biden wants to build off of an ACA framework and primarily wants to keep pumping subsidies into the marketplace to keep people buying insurance. he, and the rest of the dems by default, seem to think the solution to universal healthcare is something skin to the German or Swiss models, which I think are the crappiest approaches to healthcare. And despite Buttigieg supposedly supporting a glidepath to medicare for all, eh....some articles I read on his plan (since his plan has disappeared off the internet post 2020) seem to indicate it's very similar to the Biden approach.
I do support medicare for all. For me, it's just a matter of fast way or slow way. The public option I support would have automatic enrollment for all uninsured Americans and those who dont have private insurance. And costs would be tightly controlled and scale with income. That's significantly more progressive than what most democrats support. Sure, it's more moderate than straight up single payer, but I really just did the bare minimum to adjust to an alternate framework as a backup if single payer isn't feasible.
Beyond that, I still support Bernie's free college and housing plans. I could settle for yang style student debt forgiveness which would likely just overhaul IBR if needed. But honestly, I believe these plans are cheap enough to afford with a UBI.
I will say a lot of stuff progressives are pushing like paid family leave, free preK, and free childcare are priorities I don't emphasize super highly. The fact is, I just don't believe they're as important as my other priorities. I guess this does make me more moderate, but I really am more a left libertarian than a general progressive. I'm more in favor of providing the basics and leaving the rest up to people rather than trying to funnel people in a specific way. If I could fit these priorities in, fine, but I'm not gonna push it.
Climate...well...here's the thing. Jobs are a means to an end, not an end in itself. The left is abusing the climate emergency by framing it as more dire than it is so it can provide the alternative to my preferred program, green new deal. Basically, bringing back FDR for the 21st century and promoting a jobs program. Because we can't afford that on top of a UBI and it directly competes with my UBI, I have endorsed more moderate frameworks like Build Back Better or Yang's 2020 plan. As you can tell I like Yang a lot. He does have based ideas when he sticks to his guns. And the fact is these programs will, to my knowledge, save the planet just as a green new deal would. They just cost less and work slower, but the left misinterprets the IPCC deadlines anyway to make them more extreme, and more moderate frameworks don't work.
As for socialism....outside of me flirting with some mild forms of socialism in the form of workplace democracy via worker coops and codetermination, I've never really been a socialist. I've always considered hard socialism a gamble, potentially leading to dystopia. Even Hawkins is a bit too extreme for me in retrospect, although I may or may not support him going forward. Depends on the alternatives. I'd still support someone semi close to my priorities over someone nowhere near them.
But yeah. Socialism has always been overrated to me. Socialists act like socialism is some magical goal that will solve all ills, and for me...no, UBI is the closest thing to that for me. Socialism is just snake oil. For me, the power to say no is more important than workplace democracy.And I've always thought that.So I'm not really moderating as I shift away from the left, I'm more learning what I actually stand for and following through on the logical implications.
Sometimes to find out who you are, you have to find out what you're not. I've been doing that a lot in recent years when dealing with lefties. I compare myself constantly to the various branches of left. The moderates, the SJWs, the progressives, the socialists, even the Yang Gang, and at my age my core convictions are so entrenched most learning takes the form of finding out what I am not.
I'm not really a moderate. Moderates kind of just want the status quo. They support incremental changes at best, and ultimately want nothing to change. I want a lot of change, I'm just choosing my battles in deciding what priorities to pursue. Given my priorities differ from progressives, I'm simply going in a different direction than them. They think unions and socialism and jobs programs are the way to do things. Rather, for me, UBI serves as an alternative, and I tend to support a more social libertarian perspective. Again, for me, progressives are jobists who just want to make sure wage slaves are treated better, whereas I want freedom from being forced to work in the first place.
I have an explicit anti work streak in my politics not present in much of the left. Much of the left glorifies work. They just think that capitalism is evil and exploitative, but if we had a more democratic workplace it would be better. For me, I'd rather opt out of work altogether. Leftists will sarcastically portray UBI as "the bourgeoisie paying workers to F off". But yeah, I wanna F off. I don't CARE about owning my work place. I just wanna show up, get paid, and go home. Honestly? Social democracy focusing more on reducing work hours and long vacation time will do be far better than workplace democracy. I like that adversarial relationship with management, because I DONT REALLY WANNA BE THERE. I just wanna get the most out of the arrangement and go home. And ultimately, i'd rather control my own life, by leaving if I don't find the arrangement acceptable. I don't care about dignity of work, or being able to democratically decide things. because I dont even get along with people. I'm one of those autistic outcasts who doesn't really fit in and hates playing the social games. The less I have to deal with people the better, so less forced interaction is preferable over being able to democratically decide with a bunch of people I don't agree with anyway.
As I always say, I'm both radical and moderate. Really, I might side with moderates sometimes, but it's really simply because leftists and progressives tend to mismanage their priorities relative to my own ideology in my view, and I just go in a different direction. So sometimes I can accept moderate solutions when they want extreme. but in my eyes they tend to moderate when I want to go extreme. I mean, wow, I get to work 40 hours a week but get paid slightly better and get to decide my workplace, whoopie.
Really, capitalism, socialism, it doesn't matter to me. A green job isn't gonna make my life better. Better paid jobs with more regulations might help things somewhat, but I'm still unfree. While the left might think I wanna pay workers to F off without changing the system, the left seems intent on keeping me a slave by another name.
So yeah. Am I actually moderate when I think about it? No, not really. I just have different convictions and prioritize different things.Any moderate shift is done so out of practicality in order to advance goals I prefer more. I don't like moderation for moderation's sake. I'm still left of the democrats, just not as extreme as progressives.
Basically take Yang's ideology and actually have someone committed to it. That's me.
On noneconomic issues, am I more moderate? Yeah. These days, I am. Then again, in retrospect I was never extreme.
On social issues, my views have always been a variation of humanist libertarian. I shifted on abortion, gay marriage, etc, because I believed in freedom and no longer had a reason to want to regulate those issues having left religion. I've always had a libertarian streak. On the right it was a more "small government" approach to things, but as I became more secular, I just shifted left.
But on some issues I've always been moderate. Guns I shifted left, but always felt cognitive dissonance about, and in recent years became more pro gun, which feels more philosophically consistent anyway. I support background checks and keeping guns out of mentally ill peoples' hands, but don't like the left's call to ban guns or limit mag sizes, etc.
Immigration I've never been really gung ho on. While I understand it's not as harmful as the right thinks it is and Im not gonna scream about how we need to deport everyone, honestly, I never got on board with open borders and the postmodernist "no human is illegal" sentiment either. I always kind of believed to make my economic ideas work, we needed closed borders and some level of nationalism. And before Trump, that was a common position on the left, with even Bernie Sanders endorsing it. It's only been in recent years you absolutely had to be super postmodernist to be accepted on the left.
But that's actually the problem. Postmodernism. While given my academic background I can be sympathetic to that stuff to some extent, the obnoxiousness of it in recent years has put me off majorly. I've never been big on the stuff myself, but in my more early days as a leftie, I kind of felt like I should work with these people to achieve mutually beneficial goals. But they really don't wanna play ball. Too busy lecturing me telling me I need to check my privilege and sacrifice the stuff i do care about (my economic agenda) on the altar of liberal white guilt and be like "you see you white progressive, you're sexist, you're racist, you don't get black people, blah blah blah", and yeah...no. I'm done.
The fact is, they kinda pissed me off, and I've shifted to the right on them mostly out of spite and being unable to really reason with them or work with them. Either you agree with them or cave to them 100%, or they hate you and act like you're a fascist, there's no middle ground. Even on an issue like abortion where it's like "I'm 100% pro choice", I'm on your side, they still find reasons to get mad simply because I'm a man with an opinion on an issue that affects women and ain't sorry for it. It's maddening. I mean, if they're doing this crap to their allies, how can I reason or work with them. I can't. So screw them. If they aren't reliable allies to me, I have no use to work with them, and given their hostility, I'll be just as hostile back. Let them think I'm racist, misogynistic, or some variation of homophobic, I don't care. Because I'm really not, I just have my own priorities, and they're loud screeching obnoxious people who like to push others around. Screw them.
But yeah. As I said, finding out who I am by finding out who I'm not. In this case it really is a case of "yeah, I'm not that, therefore I'm this." Understanding the Times, despite being a right wing book, helped me understand where I stand here. Marxism, postmodernism, and secular humanism might have some overlaps, but they're distinct ideologies and you don't need to accept all of them just because you accept one. And I decided that yeah, I'm more humanist than marxist or postmodernist. If anything, postmodernists and marxists can be just as crazy as the Fundie Christians i shifted left to get away from.
And on foreign policy. I guess Ukraine really helped me figure out where I stand. I mean, for most of my life, the War on Terror defined my foreign policy perspective. And the result was a shift toward isolationism and the idea that US intervention is bad. But is it always bad? No. I mean, we need to protect ourselves and allies against Russia and China. They themselves have different worldviews and ideologies and they are scary. If we don't control the world, they will, and that's worse, not just for us, but for all the people involved. A world where Russia expands into the middle east and Europe and China into the rest of asia and pacific is bad for us, and bad for other countries who think like us. It's literally a clash between liberal democracy and authoritarianism. And whatever issues I have with the US are comparatively minor compared to my problems with those countries. When I criticize the US, i typically do so in the context of other liberal democracies and how they do stuff better. Leftists are like "but but aren't Russia and China the good guys?" LOL NO. Yeah, lefties being crazy and hating America for its own sake is dumb. You cant hate the US so much you end up supporting authoritarian regimes. Criticizing the US is good and valid, but again, the standard is other liberal democracies. And same with my economics. I don't wanna be socialist. I don't glorify the USSR or China. I'm looking at countries like Norway and Sweden and Denmark and the like. Even the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.
That said, while I have shifted more moderate in some cases, my core beliefs are still the same, again, I just ended up shifting in the context of facing other ideologies. In reality, my shifts in the past 2 years, while shifting me somewhat right, seem to be an overcompensation for shifting so far left in the first place. After moving left in 2012, I had it right around 2014ish. But then Bernie came along, shifted me left, and I went left along with that movement. But then, as I stated the other day, yang shifted me back right to where I was. Really, I just shed "leftism" and returned to the human centered capitalism I've supported in the first place. And while that may make me seem more moderate, most of those shifts were made for good reason. On economics, I researched policies and decided to make the compromises I had to make to make my ideology work. Supporting UBI may inevitably lead to shifting to the center on secondary priorities to compensate.On social issues, I simply shed postmodernism and shifted back to a more humanist framework, where increased hostility from SJWs caused me to be more hostile back. On foreign policy, shifting away from the War on Terror toward dealing with aggressive actions from authoritarian regimes like Russia made me realign my thinking along those lines. Perhaps 2001-2021 was an era of its own, and now in 2022, we've realigned into a new era of foreign policy that may look more like the 20th century than the rest of the 21st so far.
And yeah, I guess some changes happened, but mostly, I've just been shifting to better practice what I've believed for most of the past decade, simply realizing that these other ideologies were never me at all. Once again, circumstances around me change more than I change I think. Although I will say I've changed somewhat too.
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