Social issues: not much changed, but more skeptical of the social justice movement
I hate delving into these kinds of issues, but I feel like I'm forced to, because it's all most people have been willing to talk about the last 2 years. My core convictions haven't changed on this issue, but my opinion of some aspects of the social justice movement have soured a bit. By social justice movement, I dont mean all moves toward social justice, but specifically, the social justice warriors I mentioned previously. Now, don't get me wrong. Im STILL for social justice, still want equality of races, genders, but honestly, the people, man. You cannot express opinions on these subjects that dissent from their standpoint without being accused of being a racist, sexist, or bigot. Privilege shaming is used a lot, and they use empathy in order to manipulate people. You're not just expected to have socially progressive positions, you're expected to loudly and obnoxiously share your socially progressive positions all the time, and failure to do so or make those your number one priority get you shamed. They will call you "selfish", because it's like "how dare I decide my economic well being and not wanting people to be in poverty is more important than racial and feminist issues?" Not that those issues aren't important, but let's be honest, people in politics are attracted to different causes, and some people have pet causes they put over others. And that's okay. Not everyone is going to discuss universal healthcare or basic income as their top priorities. Likewise, not everyone is gonna prioritize eliminating racism and feminism. Not everyone is gonna focus on green policies that end global warming. People have different concerns, and what matters in the end is that we're all on the same side. That we can come together, with our unique causes, and cobble together a comprehensive progressive platform that addresses all of these issues, with all of us contributing to it.
But therein lies the problem. This isn't a reciprocal relationship, and hasn't been since 2015 or so. The social justice warrior crowd has been perfectly happy to say, you know what, screw universal healthcare, screw economic progressivism, you HAVE to support the democrats or else. They expect me to be fully on board with them, but they're not fully on board with me. Mainly because they've been trying to appeal to the Howard Schultz types who are now freaking out the party is moving left and threatening to leave themselves. They're perfectly happy to get on board with social justice as long as they can screw over lefties and keep their taxes low and their business priorities front and center. But they do so at the expense of progressive economic issues. My real opponent here isn't the social justice types. I'm perfectly willing to work with them and agree with them in principle. There is no real conflict in views, just a conflict in tone and attitude. My problem, is with the centrists allied with them who have had a choke hold on the democratic party for far too long. As long as those two groups are working together, don't expect me to be on the same side. Politics is about coalition building. I'm perfectly willing to work with these people on mutually beneficial goals. Heck I outlined my ideas on that a few years ago.
Anyway, back to the social justice warriors. The problem with these guys, beyond their apparent affinity with siding with centrist democrats, is the fact that they are a hive mind. it's almost like a cult of caring. They expect everyone to turn off their rational brains and just be in solidarity with various causes with no dissent. I find it creepy and manipulative. And they are being manipulated by the neoliberals in my opinion via the democratic party and two party system. It's fine to have empathy. You kind of need it to be able to understand how your ideas affect others. It's another thing to be ruled by it to the point you miss the big picture and discourage dissenting opinions.These guys are getting to be too much of a hive mind that witch hunts anyone who does any perceived sleight against them. And that's a problem.
Again, totally love social justice, and I will once again reiterate to anyone who is even thinking of pulling the racism/sexism/privileged card that you can be for social justice without being an SJW, and that I'm for social justice, but not social justice warriors. One is a set of ideas, the other is a group of loud, obnoxious people. Please get that straight to understand my position there.
The thing is, I highly value my independence and freedom of thought. I left religion and conservatism 7 years ago and set myself on a course of developing opinions based on reason, evidence, and various academic theories. I'm not perfect, but I try. What I will not do is shut down my rational thinking centers to conform to a group behaving as a hive mind, that is potentially being manipulated by a group of rich people who use their politics to divide and conquer the democratic party.
Economics: slightly more socialist, otherwise nothing has changed
I have shifted a bit on economics in the last 2 years. If you recall, around then I was investigating the concept of democratic socialism. Not the same kind of socialism that most people are afraid of by the way, a far more moderate variety that tends to revolve around reform rather than revolution, decentralization rather than centralization, democracy rather than tyranny, and libertarianism rather than authoritarianism. That said I have worked some of that in my views the last two years. On top of supporting just social democratic policy that regulates and compensates for capitalism's flaws, I now support worker cooperatives within a market economy. Yes, I did say I still support markets, you can put your pitchforks down. I support worker owned businesses within a market system. You can call this a version of democratic socialism or market socialism.
I feel like this is a necessary step in expanding my ideology. Say in the future we automate all of the jobs, and we compensate with this for basic income. Okay, where do we get the money? From the people who own the means of production, the business owners. Okay, as we know that requires MASSIVE taxation. How do we accomplish that? By taxing businesses at exorbitant rates. But wait, if we do that, won't the rich just hide their money and go overseas? Dang it, they got us there. How do we solve this? We solve this by broadening the ownership of businesses. If workers own the businesses, you're not gonna have a handful of rich people moving the wealth overseas. Because they will also own the wealth. When their jobs are automated, they won't be let go and told to find another one or starve, they will own the business and share in its profits. We can still have UBI, universal healthcare, etc. This is still NECESSARY in my opinion, but honestly, the only way we can truly get to a post work world is one where ownership of businesses are shared by the people who work at them. Note this is different from the STATE owning businesses which happens in the communist dystopia everyone fears.
So how do we accomplish this? Well, Germany has something called codetermination where the board of directors are partially elected by workers. Their version still allowed for private control even among the largest businesses, but if we made a version that is more aggressive, we could accomplish majority worker control for large businesses while still allowing small scale startups and entrepreneurship to create new wealth and incentivize people to create new businesses.
I think this fills a necessary hole in my ideology that was previously unaddressed, and it seems like a fitting and necessary evolution from my views 2 years ago.
Foreign policy: much more skeptical of interventionism
So, in becoming more socialist, I've also come to the point where I think US foreign policy isn't just bad for the US, it's bad for the world. I read a book recently called "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. It's a book about the history of the US from a socialist perspective. And let's be honest, when I read this, I have to wonder, are we the baddies? We get involved in foreign wars not really for good reasons, but to expand our own interests. We act in an imperialistic way not caring about people on a humanitarian level like we claim to, but we get involved to expand our access to natural resources.
This isn't to say said book is always right. It is heavily biased and leaves out more noble motives for our behavior, and tends to see us in the worst possible light possible. But it does make me think and makes me far more critical of our interventionism across the world. I am all for us using our military to defend ourselves and our allies from potential, but I am coming down far harder on the concept of regime change and interventionism than I previously did.
Another area in which I have shifted on foreign policy is my opinion of patriotism. Much like with my grievances against parts of the social justice movement, it's come to my attention that often times appeals to patriotism are used to suppress discussion and rational thought. Howard Zinn's book discussed how back during World War I, people were arrested and jailed for daring speak out against the draft. I find this to be scary. I also find the concept of Mccarthyism scary in which people with certain views are deemed unamerican and witch hunted. Speaking of McCarthyism, the democrats seem to be doing a lot of it these days. To them, anyone who doesn't toe their party line, whether on the left, or on the right, is with Russia. Trump is with Russia, Jill Stein is with Russia, "Bernie bros" are with Russia, if you're not with them, you're with Russia.Yeah no. To once again preserve my independence of thought, I'm gonna flat out say those appeals don't work on me. You can be critical of the democrats, or even the country, without being aligned with a foreign power. You should not be pressured to change legitimately held positions, because of a threat by a foreign power. This is tribalism intended to oppose freedom of thought and should be vigorously opposed.
Honestly, my views of patriotism are closer to Al Franken's:
We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world. That’s why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well.
I don't buy into mindless symbolism and "America is always right" rhetoric. I support freedom of thought, rational discussion, and being free to criticize the country or organizations with it without being accused of being some "useful idiot" to Russia. Rather, I support identifying issues with our country as is, and fixing them, to make us better. This is true patriotism. What the democrats want seems to be closer to mindless jingoism.
Overall: Still the same person more or less, just slightly evolved
My views have been relatively stable since 2014 or so. I have mostly evolved since then not in my core convictions by in responding to major events and letting my internal moral compass evolve and build on my previously established views. I have become, arguably, slightly more left wing. I take political compass now and am closer to -7, -7 rather than -6, -6 like I was in 2016. But ultimately, my views haven't changed much, it's more that the world around me has changed and I've acquired more information and I've been forced to adapt to it. So going forward, expect more of the same more or less.
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