So where do I stand on social issues?

So, for the most part, this blog is me discussing my own brand of economic progressivism. I don't really discuss social issues a lot, quite frankly because I find most of them boring, cut and dried, and of relatively minor importance. It's like discussing the ethics of laws against murder and stealing. Most of them are so cut and dried and should be widely accepted in society that I'm shocked we're still having these debates and discussions. And I seem to spend more time tone policing my own side's terrible marketing on these issues than actually ripping into the right wingers, which gives people the idea I'm some social conservative. While I am more conservative on SOME issues, I'd say ultimately, I'm a left libertarian who accepts most liberal positions on social issues, but sometimes for different reasons than liberals. That said, I'm going to go down a list of many social issues and give my opinions on them. 

Religion- Many social issues, especially pre 2016, come down to religion. This shift in mine in 2012, in which I left conservatism, in essence, began when I lost my faith in Christianity. I was an atheist for a while, but am now "spiritual but not religious." No, I will not be discussing my personal spirituality. It's very personal and I don't believe most would understand. Either you have an experience or not, and I don't think it matters either way because unlike Christianity I believe we all go to the same place anyway. And honestly? It doesn't affect my political views much at all. Nor should it, because I believe in separation of church and state and evidence based policy. That has not changed since my shift back to spirituality, not should it. Regardless of my personal views, I believe separation of church and state is sacrosanct in our society and exists for the good of us all. Violating separation of church and state leads to bad policy and authoritarianism, two things which I oppose.

Regardless, I still have a negative view toward religion and organized spirituality. I don't believe religions have really justified their views very well and regardless of an individual's personal spirituality and potential contact with the spiritual, I think that most religion does more harm than good. I believe critical thinking should be paramount in society, and we should encourage people to think critically. If you come to spiritual beliefs for the right reasons, so be it, but most who seemed to have done so, have done so on a very personal level and they should keep it there, quite frankly.

At the same time I'm also very big on religious freedom. You should have a right to believe whatever you want. You do not, however, have a right to impose such beliefs on others either directly or indirectly. No you should not be able to go to church during covid pandemics, and yes, you should have to pay for your employees birth control if we're sticking to privatized healthcare. No exceptions based on your religion. You're treated like everyone else.

Why do I start out with this and spend so much time talking about it? Because a good chunk of social conservatism comes down to a matter of a religious vs secular worldview. That said, I'll now approach some issues that are based on these principles in a rapid fire manner.

Abortion- Most arguments against abortion seem to come down to religion. More specifically they come down to a specific version of spirituality which may or may not (and probably isn't) true. Basically, it's the idea that people are people regardless of things like brain development and consciousness, and that killing a fetus is equivalent to murder. But this assumes a specific judeo christian interpretation in which fetuses have souls and that abortion is a moral crime against them that will be judged by a deity. You do not and cannot know this. From a secular standpoint, personhood is defined by consciousness and the whole "I think therefore I am" dynamic, and abortion is not immoral before 24 weeks. Even more so, after 24 weeks only a small percentage of abortions happen, and largely for medical reasons, so it seems screwed up to try to regulate the issue at all. I support full reproductive freedom on the matter. 

Gay marriage- If god in the bible didn't say this was bad, would anyone care? Probably not. Most conservatism either comes down to religion or some version of "this is how we always did things and if we don't keep doing things this way society will collapse or something". Let people do what they want.

Pedophilia- Some christians think if we allow gay marriage, what's next, pedophilia? No, not really. Because the moral issue with being against sex with minors comes down to consent and being mature enough to do so. There's too many issues with coercion, exploitation, and power dynamics where a blanket ban is a moral necessity in an advanced society like ours. We have age limits on alcohol, tobacco, etc., sex is just more of that, and it's for the childrens' own good. Do what you want above 18, but under 18 that behavior should be restricted in ethical ways.

Trans issues- It's their life. Once again, once we get rid of some moral idea that god made us a certain way and it's a violation of his plan to change, it makes less sense to be against it. Gender dysphoria is a real mental health issue and the best way to treat it is to let people do their things. Who are we to say people can't identify as an attack helicopter? If it makes them happy and doesn't harm anyone, so be it.

Prostitution/pornography- Should be legal assuming it is of consenting adults. However potentially regulated to stop abusive practices in the industry. 

Alcohol/drugs- Generally against prohibition of lesser drugs like alcohol and marijuana. Age restrictions okay though. Support decriminalization of hard drugs but not legalization. We should be discouraging the use of such drugs and going after distributors, but not users. Users should get help instead.

Teaching creationism- There's no evidence of intelligent design or biblical creationism and it should not be taught in a science class. Perhaps generic intelligent design should be taught in a philosophy class, but that's about it.

Prayer/religion in schools- I support the constitutional consensus in which it cannot be taught institutionally, but that people can do what they want on a personal level. 

Okay, now that I got more...religious type social issues out of the way, let's focus on issues of gender/race, etc.

Gender/race perspective in general- My views of race are a lot more nuanced than those on more religious based issues. I see those issues as cut and dried, but racial and gender based issues can be more complex and nuanced. I would say my base perspective is left. Gender and race critical theory is an offshoot of conflict theory. Conflict theory, sociologically, is grounded in marxism, and I use such a perspective regularly in my economic analyses. To sum up conflict theory, it's a sociological analysis looking at who gets what, and how different groups in society vie for control of resources. I use this all the time in discussing class based issues between the elites and the 99%, workers vs employers, landlords vs tenants, etc. I don't see a reason not to apply it to race and gender and believe that it can reveal some telling things about society and how things do tend to be unfair against women and some minority groups. The difference between me, and say, an SJW though, is that I don't let it define my entire politics. It's a lens. It's a valuable lens, but sometimes lenses have limitations and sometimes people get too ideological and lose sight of the bigger picture, which is an issue I've been emphasizing in recent posts on here. That said when I criticize sjws, it's more of an "in house" type criticism, where I tend to have similar views that they do, I just tend to express them differently and might be more moderate and pragmatic in practice. Just like I will scream like a socialist in attacking capitalism while falling on the social democracy side of that spectrum 90% of the time, I do something similar on these issues. That said...

Racism- Racism is bad. Outright racism is even worse. I don't have much respect for people who don't believe we are inherently equal regardless of skin color. I do believe racism is a spectrum though and that there are more subtle forms of racism that people hold. I do believe we should try to remove negative racist views from our perspective if we come across them, but sometimes they can be very deeply ingrained.

Colin Kapernick- This is more related to my economic left libertarian views in which I don't believe employers should have a right to impose on peoples' political views, but he had a right to kneel. If you don't like that, tough crap.  

BLM- BLM has a valid point. Police violence is endemic and disproportionately affects black people, and black people have every right to protest it. George Floyd and the like shouldn't have happened. Now, do I support riots? Not necessarily. Peaceful protests? Sure. Speaking of which...

Police violence- Honestly, while I certainly don't support the violent riots we've had earlier this year, I also don't support police violence against the vast majority of peaceful protests we've had. I think 93% of protests were peaceful, roughly? Yet I saw police constantly behaving like thugs against protesters, and that is wrong. Which brings us to another issue.

Defund the police- Absolutely. Police are way too militarized and to see them treating peaceful protesters like they've been is a travesty. Police should not have APCs and be geared up like they're going to war. Kind of makes you wonder what the real function of police is...

 Before I get into that though, I feel like I need to talk a bit more about defunding the police. Defunding the police isn't about punishing police. It's about cutting their budgets to reasonable amounts where they can't buy billions of dollars in surplus military gear to use against peaceful civilians whenever they decide to exercise their rights. It's also about not using the police as a hammer to solve every societal problem but instead diverting that money into social services that improve peoples' lives. Rather than using police to arrest homeless people for vagrancy for example, we should be making sure homeless people aren't homeless. Defunding the police is about limiting the scope of police and demilitarizing them in my views.

ACAB- No, not all cops are bad.  I actually have a very strong dislike of this statement. It's one of those things where SJWs go too far with the conflict theory and don't realize hey, police actually do serve a legit function in keeping the peace and dealing with crime regardless of their flaws. While structural and institutional problems exist within police, I don't support getting rid of police entirely. Just limiting their scope.

Prisons- While prisons should exist they should not be privatized as it just leads to slavery and exploitation in which there is an incentive to fill them for for profit cheap labor. Prisons should be reserved for crimes in which you pose a danger to society or others, or as a last resort when other methods of punishment and rehabilitation fail. Generally speaking prisons should be humane with a goal of rehabilitating people back into society, rather than treating them as sub human. At worst prison is about isolating dangerous people from society.

Death penalty- Should not exist. It's immoral to kill people given other viable options exist, for one. For two, there's an error rate and innocent people have been put to death before. Third it's racist and overwhelmingly impacts minorities rather than whites. Fourth, it's expensive given the legal process, fifth, there doesn't seem to be a moral method of killing people and even crap like lethal injection seems to go wrong. Give them life in prison, but not death penalty.

Hate speech laws- Look, just like I have a dislike of religion, but I don't support outlawing it, I have a dislike of racism but don't support outlawing that either. People have a right to be stupid, and a right to be wrong. And I view it as dangerously authoritarian to start punishing people for expressing...politically incorrect opinions. I actually am a free speech absolutist on this topic. 

Cancel culture- Strong dislike. Some SJWs like to act like it doesn't really exist but when you try to get people fired from their jobs for during express a bad opinion that's mob behavior that should not be tolerated. Essentially my opinion here is identical to the Kapernick thing. people should not be fired or punished financially just for having crappy views, and I dislike organized mob behavior to accomplish that end.  

Political correctness in general- While it means well it is ultimately an abrasive form of censorship that rubs me the wrong way and tends to come down to policing people over "microtransgressions" and flipping out on people for not adhering to constantly shifting standards. I dislike how extreme and morally pure people are on this subject and how toxic they are to people who don't conform. I tend to be fairly negative toward these kinds of things. I'd prefer to replace it with "try not to be a jerk."

Workplace discrimination- Laws against such things should exist and do exist. However, the problem with regulations in general is that sometimes they're hard to enforce or have loopholes. That said, African americans and the like are going to have issues in getting ahead. While some people support stuff like quotas and affirmative action, I see this as divisive as fudge. As long as the underlying system is crap you're pitting races against each other in a zero sum environment and inflaming tensions, making the problem worse and ultimately driving people to Trumpism. 

Sexism- Same as racism, bad. Should be removed when come across. 

Workplace discrimination for women- This is a LITTLE more nuanced if only due to the biological differences here. I believe men and women are largely capable of being equal, but childbearing is an issue that causes issues. Women get pregnant, drop out of the work force, the time off causes them to fall behind, and they dont break the glass ceiling as easily. Should we reduce discrimination where we can? Sure, but just like with race, it will end up being skirted. Should we try to enforce affirmative action type policies to fix this? No. Once again, divisive as fudge. I believe it's better to address such issues with better social services ensuring no one is poor in the first place than to pick a battle in a zero sum way between different groups in society not based on class. 

 Mens rights- I feel that the "mens rights" movement has been taken over by extremely toxic and sexist people, but if we use gender critical theory, they have a point. Men face issues too like child custody issues, problems like lack of financial abortion, they tend to end up doing more dangerous work, etc. I mean, these are also issues that should be dealt with. I find it so weird how "feminists" will be so high and mighty about womens' issues but then sound like right wingers when it comes to men. It's extremely hypocritical and comes off to me that their views are more about tribalism than deeply held philosophical convictions. Speaking of which...

Financial abortion- Look, I don't believe men should be forced into parenthood. Women have their own bodies and their own choices, I don't to take that away from them. I support their rights to choose and to abort for any reason. I'm extremely pro "childfree". But that said, it is a woman's choice, and the man shouldn't have to live with that. If a man doesn't want to be a father, he shouldn't be forced to, and trying to insist they have to pay child support or get involved in the kid's life in any way is immoral IMO. Yes the man chose to have sex. So what? So did the woman and pro lifers use that as an argument against abortion. If you recognize that for the regressive trash that it is, you should be philosophically consistent and accept the man's right to opt out too. After all it's just a holdover of patriarchical society in which a man is expected to take care of a woman. We live in an age of womens' liberation and norms for both genders should be changed. Again I feel like most people against this are hypocritical. Now, what about the child? That's the argument against it right? Well I support basic income, medicare for all, etc. The child won't be poor under my ideal system. These norms are based on the old conservative mindset of the nuclear family and personal responsibility. Progressivism is about breaking those norms. For both genders. Not just women.Speaking of which, something that should be addressed more directly...

Privilege- Privilege exists, sociologically. However it should not be used as an excuse to ignore a certain group's issues. I feel like there's a massive double standard where social justice people only focus on groups they deem underprivileged and then downplay the issues of the privileged. No, mens' rights issues exist too. And no, just because women and minorities have it worse economically doesn't give you an excuse to tell white males to check their privilege when advocating for economic progressivism. We should make the system better and I feel like too many times social justice issues get too hyperfixated on privilege to focus on actually improving society for everyone.

Transgenderism in sports- Eh, this is a weird issue. As I said there are some biological issues potentially here. What if you identify as female but are roided up like a male because you're basically trying to transition from male to female? Uh...identifying as a female and competing against them might be unfair. Why am I focusing on this? Because of Tulsi Gabbard getting crap for this view recently. I think she kind of has a point. At the same time, the social justice people also have a point in that forcing people to compete against their birth sex when they don't identify is a bad thing too. Honestly, I could probably use more research on this issue but I wonder if there's a solid science based conclusion that would resolve this issue. I'd just follow the science here and what experts think.

As you can tell I largely have left wing perspectives minus issues regarding free speech. Not sure why I'm labeled a right winger outside of de emphasizing these issues and insisting some fights arent worth having. Freaking purists...

Right wing identity politics- This is just as obnoxious as the worst of the left. These guys tend to hyperfocus on their weird conservative identities and how they're constantly under attack when in reality the world is just changing and the sky isn't falling. I dont really believe in upholding sacred cows in general and here's another place where I don't really feel sympathetic. If anything this crap is creepishly authoritarian. 

The idea of "America"/American exceptionalism- I find this crap creepy and dystopian, and even worse to go into my economic views seems to be gatekeeping what America is to force a right wing consensus. Basically people have this idea that America is somehow special and not like the rest of the world and we should be our own special snowflakes. While on issues regarding constitutional rights such as free speech and right to bear arms I kind of support this, I largely don't support it otherwise. The whole discussion about how we're amazing because we work hard seems like the whole "Arbeit macht frei" thing the nazis have where we just tend to tell people to work their lives away and work is what makes us free. Creepy. I also don't believe we should use this idea of "America" to stop us from having social services the rest of the world has, or to try to work our way through a pandemic rather than just shutting everything down and giving people checks like a civilized society. More harm comes out of this idea than good.

Pledge of Allegiance- When North Korea seems to worship Kim Jong Un or do its weird displays of hypernationalism, we get freaked out about how authoritarian they are. When we do it, we act like it's the most amazing thing on earth and how dare you not stop what you're doing to put your hand over your heart and recite the creepy words of loyalty. 

Flag worship- It's just a piece of cloth. Get over it. Stop acting like Colin Kapernick just spat in your mother's face because he wouldn't do the heart thing.

Support the troops/Thin Blue Line crap- While as I said, police, and by extension, military have valid roles in society and we shouldn't crap on them all as a group, we also shouldn't have this slavish devotion to going on about how great they are. Nothing sacred, but don't demonize people either. Shouldn't be that hard. People are people. Like, my dad is very much a support the troops rah rah America kind of person. But at the same time he's like that because he's a Vietnam vet and didn't like being called a babykiller in the 1960s for being in the military. I think not demonizing people is good but the entitlement I see from some on this subject seemingly expecting worship and acting like anyone who doesn't give it to them hates them is annoying to see too. 

Immigration- Immigration is to me more an economic issue than a cultural one. Culturally I'm largely not anti immigrant. And I largely don't support ideas suggesting immigrants disproportionately cause crime and the like. At the same time I'm not an open borders guy. To me, someone whose moral perspective is based on the social contract and the idea that we should be giving people universal social services, I understand a lax immigration policy could cause certain disincentives like rich people fleeing to low tax/low regulation areas and poor people flooding in for free stuff. To some extent immigrants kind of end up taking one for the team as part of my ideology, but that's where I differ as a more progressive social democrat than a more centrist pro immigration neolib. I also have no issue with enforcing laws as long as we do it humanely. I don't support "kids in cages" but also do support deporting people who don't belong here. And I don't think it's much to ask to expect immigrants coming in to learn english as the alternative is for everyone else to learn everyone else's language. Controversial opinion on the left but that's how I feel. I'm more moderate here.

Guns- I am moderate on guns and consider myself a second amendment leftie. I believe most laws that would be effective involve strengthening existing regulations and closing loopholes that allow people who shouldn't get guns, to get guns. At the same time I don't support banning certain firearms more than we already ban (like AR15s with 30 round mags should be legal IMO), and think that's a very bad fight to pick and one that alienates people from the left. You'd be surprised how many times I hear people say that's support lefties if only they weren't so intent on taking their guns. Focus on smart, moderate regulation, stop picking the wrong fights. Largely respect the right to bear arms. Most gun violence seems to be done with illegal guns and the like anyway, so gun violence is largely an enforcement issue for me, not one that calls for more laws. 

COVID- Be like Madagascar in Pandemic 2 and shut down everything. You do not have a freedom to not wear a mask or go to church and crap when you're getting people sick. Stop being selfish jerks. No one actually likes wearing masks. We do it because we HAVE TO. To ensure that people don't get sick. We shut down stuff to avoid people getting sick. We tell you you can't worship at your church because you are getting people sick. There's nothing nefarious here. It's simple social contract logic. Laws are made to prevent harm. Pandemics cause harm, wear a mask until the pandemic is over.

And there you have it. With the exception of a few issues I'm unsurprisingly left wing. Still, i get a lot of crap because I'm not morally pure on social issues, put it at the forefront of all of my priorities at the expense of everyone else, and I to diverge from the left on issues surrounding speech, political correctness, immigration, and topics I deem too divisive to try to win. I largely feel like the social left has the moral high ground in this country. They just suck at leveraging it as their marketing is awful and so caustic it even turns most allies off. But still, I felt it was necessary to express my actual thoughts so people can stop accusing me of being a conservative already, when I'm clearly like 75% left and 25% moderate-right overall, with many of my "right" positions merely being a different form of left that just isn't neoliberal social justice warrior oriented left.

Imagine being so "progressive" you only want to help SOME people

 So, this is something that's annoying me on the left in recent years. As we divide into our own little camps with our own little philosophies, we end up with radically different ideas of who we should help, why, and how. It's said the left is like herding cats, as they end up dividing into various groups, and I have to admit, I'm also guilty in participating in this. However, this is something that annoys me among "progressives" as of late. It seems like whenever someone has a good idea, some other group starts attacking it and starts going on about how because it helps people they don't deem worthy of help, it isn't worth pursuing and isn't "progressive." This is especially common among centrist democrats, or people who are more mildly progressive such as those in the Warren camp, but I've also seen this behavior among hardline Bernie supporters on occasion too. 

Basically, part of the misunderstanding comes down to the word "progressive". Progressive is a term that, much like liberal in recent years, has been watered down to uselessness where no one knows what the heck it means when it is used in a conversation. I've seen people in the Biden administration referred to as "progressive" when that's a no from me, whereas I consider myself "progressive", and many people who support various center left to left policies consider them "progressive." That said it might be best to compare and contrast definitions.

When I use the term progressive, I mean it to mean attaining progress toward a certain goal or end point. The purpose of progressivism is to evolve society to help people more. To solve social problems and lead to a more just and more fulfilled existence. I see politics through the public policy model. I define problems, and then I solve them. Solving them is "progress." It moves society forward toward the end goal of being, well, better. Having fewer problems plaguing peoples' lives. Moving society forward is progressive, moving it backwards is regressive, and I'd argue keeping it the same is conservative. That said, I'd describe the left as largely progressive, the moderate left as conservative, and the right as regressive. The left is drive, the center is neutral, the right is reverse. Sound simple enough?

The problem is when people on the left or more accurately "center left" use the term "progressive", they mean it in a different light. They mean it more in the terms of decreasing inequality and helping the poor. While helping the poor and eliminating poverty are progressive goals in my definition, they seem to use the term more relatively, rather than absolutely. I am for an absolute shift in the well being of people in society, center left "progressives" are for only a relative shift among some groups, but not other groups.

I'll explain, and this gets to the heart of what I mean. Bernie had a proposal in 2016 and 2020 to forgive all student loan debt and make college free. Centrist democrats opposed this. They initially didn't want to budge at all, but political pressure from the left moved them to adopt some proposals. So they adopted a free college plan for those making under $125,000 a year, and student debt forgiveness is all over the place. Warren had a plan for $50,000 student loan forgiveness, Biden had a plan for $10,000 plus forgiveness for those who went to certain schools, like public colleges or HBCUs.

Here's the question: why not just forgive all the debt? To me, student debt is a problem that plagues millennials and gen Z. It also plagues older people too in some cases. It has stopped an entire generation from getting ahead, and has been a massive money sink for young people, stopping them from moving out of their homes and into ones they bought, having kids, and generally speaking having a life. I mean the entire student debt problem is an artificial one created by bad policies, and resolving it would be, by my very definition, progressive. Problem, student debt exists and is a burden on people. Solution, cancel it! Problem solved! 

Sadly, for most progressives, it can't be that easily. The thing is, they don't want everyone to get loans forgiven. A common talking point among the center left is that only upper class people have student debt and people who go to school are statistically better off than those who don't, so therefore it isn't progressive to forgive it. Progressive to them means only helping the destitute, which is part of the reason they have such broken piecemeal plans. Forgiving $10,000 or $50,000 of student debt for example would forgive people who had undergrad loans, but if you went to grad school, or law school or med school? You're on your own. I'm sure you have a great six figures job and can pay it off, right? Right? That might be true in a lot of cases, but people do fall between the cracks. But to these people, this mediocre policy that does less good is more "progressive" because it only helps the right people. If everyone gets it it ain't fair. As Hillary said in 2016, "I don't want to pay for Donald Trump's kids!" in reference to free college. Um, I actually do want to pay for Trump's kids' college. Because college should be free like K-12 is, and that is a progressive stance. All these centrist democrats want is to throw a band aid on a broken system and call it "progressive" because it helps those they deem worthy of it while ignoring those who don't. It irks me, as a former conservative who describes myself as a progressive now.

It's the same thing with HBCUs. Biden's student debt plan would forgive people who went to historically black colleges and universities. But not if you went to a regular private college. What is the point in this? I'll tell you what, identity politics. In these faux-progressives' eyes, only those they deem poor enough to require help deserve it. African Americans have been historically crapped on and struggle to get ahead. That said it is progressive to forgive their debt. However, it's not progressive to forgive the debt of people they deem "privileged", ie, white people like myself. Even though the plan is less progressive by my definition, because it helps fewer people, these guys see it as more progressive, because it helps underprivileged people but not people they deem worthy of help.

Now, don't get me wrong, I definitely wanna forgive black peoples' college loans. Don't mistake my intent. But, I also wanna forgive everyone else's and solve a large scale societal problem, not just play favorites which lead to bitterness and division. I'd argue that this mentality among democrats is actually why we are such a far right country. Because all those white working class people look at policies like this and see it as race baiting. And it creates bitterness and falls into the trap of the dog whistle politics of the 1970s and 80s. That whole mentality is based on "well they get help but I don't, why is that fair and why should I pay for their college? I bust my butt working 40+ hours a week and no one ever helped me." It actually drives the people excluded from these policies to the right, where they end up embracing race baiting demagogues like Trump. All this divisive crap does is hold society back from getting real progress. Yes yes yes you helped a few people with a few milquetoast policies, but you didn't solve the problem. Even worse you turned public opinion against solving it. That's the problem with these fake "progressives". Their framing of issues and policy goals is so divisive it makes the right gain strength instead. 

It's the same with basic income. And I see criticisms of this both among the fake progressive center left, and the Bernie camp. As you guys know, I support basic income. I believe it both fundamentally solves the problem of poverty within capitalism, and the coercion that poverty causes. It's one of the most radical non far left ideas you could implement to fundamentally transform the economy in a progressive way. It doesn't solve every issue, and I believe that policies like medicare for all and free college are needed to supplement it. But basic income faces challenges from these regressive fake leftists who only want to help some people. Once again, basic income is perceived as not helping the poor poor. Because they have welfare and UBI ideally replaces welfare. It's seen as a giveaway to the middle and upper classes, and the taxes are deemed "regressive" to pay for it. 

Now, I feel like I've discussed UBI enough to have made my point previously, but for a refresher. First of all, the taxes to fund UBI may be regressive if they're flat. By this, I mean the rich pay a lower overall rate than the poor. This is because the rich are adept at dodging taxes. If you have a VAT, the rich don't spend their money but invest it so they don't get taxes as much for it. if you have an income tax they could still invest it and pay a lower rate as a high rate on investment taxes discourages investment and has a negative impact on the economy. It's true, the upper class would pay less. However, these people ignore that everyone would be getting $12,000 a year. If you make $0, you get $12,000. If you make $30,000, you'd pay, say, $3-6,000 depending on tax rate and plan but get $12,000 back. If you make $120,000 a year, you'd pay $12-24,000 and get $12,000 back. if you make $1 million, you'd pay $100-200,000 and get $12,000 back. UBI is progressive as fudge for most people actually. But this is ignored because apparently it doesn't punish the rich enough. Gotta stick it to them or this entire scheme which raises millions out of poverty without preconditions is bad.

On the welfare thing, I get it. Welfare is, in some cases more generous. my own UBI plan tries to account for that and only eliminate small programs. Yang would have people choose between the schemes they want, with most people gravitating toward UBI mostly due to lower restrictions and the fact that welfare doesn't help people as much as they think in the first place. Edge cases who make more could stay on their more generous plans, but those generous plans often have downsides. That guy making $1,500 a month on disability is punished if he works for example. Someone on welfare might have someone breathing down their neck constantly to make sure they aren't smoking weed and they're looking for a job. Section 8 has a waiting list that can take years to get on. Millions of homeless don't even get help. All of these welfare programs have cliffs that keep people in poverty, where if they try to better themselves the rug is pulled out from under them. These are all downsides of welfare. Welfare is trash. UBI would give people dignity and freedom, as well as a paycheck. It would allow people to take control of their lives. That's all these schemes do. Give people more choices, more flexibility. But because UBI replaces welfare to some extent rather than operating on top of it, it's bad. And because it benefits people they don't deem worthy, such as lower middle class and working class people not on welfare because they surpass some arbitrary earnings number, it's suddenly bad. Despite all of those guys voting Trump because they feel an economic pinch and they aren't being helped. The same applies with the ACA vs say, medicare for all. The medicaid expansion in ACA helps people below a certain percentage of the poverty line, but people above that still can't afford health insurance or care. They're bitter, pissed off, and oppose the ACA on the basis of insurance mandates. We could solve the problem for everyone but because some people who aren't deserving get help, that's bad apparently.

To go back to UBI though, it's baffling to see progressives fight UBI because they want to defend welfare. I can understand defending welfare against the right wanting to repeal it and have literally nothing. Same with the ACA and whatever other broken half measures that come out of the democratic party. These solutions suck. We shouldn't be afraid to say they suck. They suck. But they're better than nothing, which is a low bar. But why defend them against what I deem actual progressive ideas? We could be solving these problems and transforming society to be more fair and just and free. Why settle for broken half measures? To some extent it isn't just pragmatism. Something is seriously broken in these guys ideology where they seem to adopt the same old watered down moderate conservative philosophy I discussed last night, where they ultimately believe the system as is is just, they just want to solve problems in incremental ways with band aids. It sickens me.

Sadly the socialists sometimes aren't much better. The Bernie crowd is the one I see constantly attacking UBI. They see UBI as a neoliberal or right libertarian plot to destroy welfare. Which to me is part of the point. They also add in all of these crazy inflation boogeymen and when I ask them about what policies they want, they either have insane unrealistic standards ($3k a month UBI along side welfare and all the other stuff they propose, or literal socialism where the government runs the entire economy). And yeah, debating those guys turns into a crapshow too. As I said last night, I might be far more progressive than the fauxgressives in ideology, but at the same time, I'm not some flaming revolutionary socialist with unrealistic ideas. I support ideas I believe work. Canada has medicare for all. Many countries have free college and no student loan debt. UBI hasn't been tried in full but has a lot of academic data suggesting it would. Even then I can see how it would work and I believe it would be a great boon to society. These ideas are grounded, and down to earth. I'm not trying to completely reinvent the wheel, just replace the old beat up tire with holes in it with a good one that works. There needs to be a demand for change between patching up holes in old tires and wanting to replace an entire car with some new tech that hasn't even been road tested and could explode when you try to drive it. 

I just get frustrated. As I said, I see problems, I try to solve them. I don't go with more incremental solutions because it might help someone I don't deem worthy of help. And I don't propose unrealistic crap that will never work either. I try to balance my ideals with pragmatism, aiming for the stars, and trying to get what I think will work. I look at large portions of the left these days and feel like they have very foreign epistemologies I struggle to wrap my head around. It just seems irrational to me. I mean, shouldn't you want a society that solves problems without having complex labyrinths of bureaucracy to deem who deserves help, causing the problems not to really be solved in the first place but for there to only be a few band aids masking the extent of the problem? To me, that's what progressivism is. Solving problems. Not simply taking the edge off for certain groups I deem worthy of help.

Why my views are both radical and moderate

 So, recently I posited the idea that I don't fit in anywhere. I'm, to sum things up, too radical for liberals, and too liberal for socialists. And considering how the political landscape on the left seems increasingly polarized into the two camps, at least in online discussion, where most people are either a neoliberal biden loving shill, or they're so far left bernie starts looking like a compromise, I really have trouble fitting in. I really don't feel like my views have changed much since 2015, which is part of the problem. Back then, people like me were the vanguard of the progressive left. We wanted social democracy and we wanted it now. And Bernie seemed like a good candidate for that at the time. But as the 2016 and later 2020 elections unfolded, people split into two groups. Either you loved the establishment and would compromise all ideals to vote blue no matter who, or you ended up radicalizing. Most people ended up radicalizing and being introduced to political theories like marxism. I had already had exposure and grappled with such ideas, but insisted on a more moderate approach. While I have integrated some of the more positive aspects of marxism and anti capitalist thought into my views, I did it in a more controlled way, where I was able to formulate my own ideology before the modern crapshow of politics began. That said, let's look at my views.

My views in a nutshell

To summarize years of blogging on here, I'd describe my views as left libertarian. Now, as you can tell, left libertarian is a very broad ideology. It ranges from anarchism, to georgism, to forms of social democracy. I'm basically among the "UBI left", for lack of a better term. This can be summed up best by thinkers like Phillippe Van Parijs and his "real freedom" or Karl Widerquist and his "indepentarianism". That said, I would actually say a big basis of my views is Karl Widerquist's book "Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom and the Power to Say No."While I won't profess every single doctrine of any thinker as I'm my own thinker and merely incorporate ideas from others into my perspective, these lines of thought represent my views well.

My views start with a state of nature. Much like Hobbes, I view a state of nature as "nasty, brutish, and short". I don't have a positive view of anarchy. So I believe that we come together to form societies for mutual benefit. However, the social contract cannot adequately represent everyone, and much like Widerquist with his justice as pursuit of accord, I believe that the state has the obligation to stay out of peoples' lives and preserve their freedom as much as possible. However, not being an anarchist and seeing the benefit to certain rules and social structures, I believe that rules are necessary at times and if implemented to serve the public good and improve their well being, or ironically, increase their freedom, these rules can be justified. That said, my left libertarianism isn't necessarily anti state, but rather seeks a balance between the benefits of state action and the inherent benefits of freedom. I also believe governments can create rules to ironically increase freedom. To me, that's what the purpose of rights is, to put rules on how we make rules so that we preserve peoples' freedoms. I don't believe natural rights exist. Rather, rights are a special form of rule intended to further well being, with freedom to act as one wants without harming others being a form of well being. For example, people don't have a right to free speech in nature. In nature, if you offend the wrong person, they can kill you. You don't have a right to anything in nature. Because to me the opposite of society is darwinism, where you live a life that is nasty, brutish, and short. All actual protections and the like actually come from society.

I also believe social programs like basic income and medicare for all increase economic security of people, while preserving their freedom. Property rights are, in my mind, a coercive social construct of the state, not a natural right. However, property is necessary as a concept for the governance of the use of resources within civil society, so I believe property rights are functional. However, property rights also create excesses that can negatively impact others. If you get one guy own all the land, for example, he can just hold it hostage to force others into servitude to gain access to it. That said, the right to own land should be curtailed enough, so that everyone has access to what they need to survive. Ultimately, I believe ideas like UBI and medicare for all, as well as other social democratic ideas, are necessary ultimately to the economic security and well being of people in society. And I believe that using taxation as a curb on property rights, or in some cases modifying the social contract to be more "socialist" (as in collectively owned property) can actually be in the public interest there, to maximize freedom and well being. 

As you can see I differ from right libertarianism a lot. Right libertarians believe in natural rights as per Locke's theory. I don't accept Locke's theory. As I said, rights don't exist in nature, they come from society and are social constructs. I especially believe the right to property is contentious. While right libertarians believe in it as a god given natural right...I see it as a social construct with a lot of negative consequences. And I kind of believe the state needs to implement rules and further constructs on it in order to iron out the problems with it in the first place. That said, I don't see taxation as evil, at least no more evil than the existence of property to begin with. Rather, taxation, with the intention to fund government programs, can sometimes be the necessary evil to accomplish a result. A small imposition (in terms of freedom, when implemented correctly)  on a person that evens the playing field and makes the "game" of economics more balanced and fair to everyone. The moral costs of taxation can easily be paid back with benefits that make the populace more free and economically prosperous and secure. 

At the same time, as far as capitalism vs socialism goes, I'm fairly agnostic on the matter. Capitalism has arguably improved the lives of many, and the concept of markets seem to be the way, in most economic domains, to provide a diversity of products of people while also preserving their freedom. In a lot of cases, markets do a better job than a one size fits all government program imposed on people. Capitalism and markets are, to me, the default position in our society. At the same time, I believe some industries, like healthcare and education are terrible when left to markets and sometimes they should be left in control of governments. Privatized everything isn't a good thing. Some things don't work when left to for profit industries, as they devolve into power relationships that exploit people. That said sometimes government run programs create more freedom than the natural state of capitalism. At the same time I don't support a centralized economy where the government does everything. As I said, markets are the default, whereas government controlled industries are a solution to industries with market failures.

As far as the ownership question of capitalism and socialism, I think socialism, insofar as it's market socialism, is ideal. However, I don't believe worker cooperatives and the like would magically free people from the tyrannies of the market or aspects of our culture such as the protestant work ethic. Just because businesses are owned and controlled democratically doesn't mean people are free. It just ensures a tyranny by majority rather than a tyranny of one. And while that is an improvement, much like governments should create rights to regulate themselves, people need a right to say no and not participate in the system at all, and that can only be provided by UBI and other government programs as market failures occur. Socialism does not guarantee that and is sometimes just as crappy and tyrannical as capitalism is. As Karl Widerquist would point out, it just replaces the unavoidable big casino with the unavoidable big collective, where you still got an oppressive system that doesn't allow people to minimize their participation, it's just operated under different principles.

I could go on and on, but these are what I think are the most relevant points of my ideology. To summarize.

1) Humans live naturally in a state of nature, where they are guaranteed nothing, not even life, and live lives that are nasty brutish and short.

2) Humans come together in social contract theory to make rules to improve their well being and standards of living. Freedom is, in my opinion, an inherent part of this.

3) Governments make rules to improve peoples' lives, as well as create rights to limit their own power to avoid dictatorship.

4) Some rights such as property rights can actually be oppressive in excess, in order to balance these rights, government action which right libertarians might have an issue with is needed.

5) While socialism (as in worker ownership of the means of production) is a noble goal, I believe that it is not necessary to accomplish these goals and too much emphasis is placed on it. 

That said, let's look at how my ideas are both radical and moderate.

Why I'm too radical for most liberals

Liberalism in the US generally refers to the ideological tradition associated with the democratic party. It is shaped by the historical factors that have made the democratic party what it is today, and is inherently tied to the party. Because the democratic party suffered setbacks in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to the rise of Reaganism, it has moderated its ideas significantly on economics, often seeking to compromise with the right and its capitalist purism. Being constantly afraid of moving too far left and offending the right wingers it tries to appeal to, American liberals embrace corporate neoliberalism. This ideology tries to triangulate between the social democratic position of FDR, and the right wing economic position of capitalist purism. This leads to a center right ideology, as FDR's social democracy was intended as a compromise between capitalism and socialism. This "third way of a third way" tends to largely accept the right wing capitalist consensus on economics with some zeal, while recognizing that some moderation is needed at times. Corporate neoliberals might recognize maybe we should have SOME safety nets, but ultimately, because the terms of debate are framed by the right and they sell out to the right on an ideological level, they often only propose mild safety nets with the effort of forcing people into the work force, because that's what the right wants. Instead of guaranteeing a standard of living to people regardless of effort or position in society, they simply want the barebones minimum to prevent the people they deem worthy of avoiding poverty to barely avoid it, temporarily. 

And this is where I have problems with them. My views, when I think about it more recently, are actually quite radical. Like I'm clearly on the left, the actual left, and my position on institutions like work sound a lot like what anarchists say. Liberals do not question the regime of property rights in this system, they largely support the right wing consensus. They do not question the value of work. Much like a leftist, I do. I'm willing to get in there and ask the hard questions about whether these systems are just.

That said, while I might perceive the capitalist system as is, as inherently unjust, as it deprives people of a minimalistic living standard and coerces them into participation in markets, much against their own benefit, and I support solutions intended to fix that, mainstream liberals don't see anything wrong with the current regime. At best they'll understand it's cold and heartless to have total social darwinism so they'll propose some out of touch band aid solution, but they won't actually see the full extent of the injustice of society as I see it. They don't propose grand solutions to problems, because much like right wingers, they don't recognize those problems exist. 

In some ways I actually do have more in common with the radical left on a pure ideological level than I do with liberals. Which is why I tend to find a lot of outright anti capitalist content entertaining. I agree with it. Capitalism, at least in its raw forms, as fundamentally evil in some ways. It exploits the vast majority of people, leads to insane wealth and income inequalities, and reduces most people to de facto slaves who can't say no to the system because they need to participate on the terms of the rich just to survive. 

At the same time though...I don't agree with the radical left either.

Why I'm not a radical leftist either

 While it's hard to sum up the radical left in its entirety as there are so many different schools of thought, most radical leftists seek to abolish the system as it is. They may seek to abolish the state, they may seek to abolish the current state, they may seek to abolish capitalism. They might look at capitalism and the liberal democracy captured by capitalist interests and see the only solution to tear it all down. This is dangerous.

For as radical as my ideas are, I am, in essence, a pragmatist. Not in the way liberals are. Liberals treat pragmatism in the form of selling out to the right and talking down any reasonably progressive proposal to nothingness as a way of life. I treat pragmatism as actually getting in the trenches and making change. How do we get from point A to point B? Burning it down does not compute. I see things via the public policy model. Basically, you have a problem, you solve it. You generally do this without abolishing the system. The system does a lot of functional things. I might not like how many rules politics, but I wouldn't support abolishing the constitution to fix that. You do that and there go all of those nice "rights" we have and everything is fair game. We might end up with a new system that doesn't even have elections. We might not have free speech and you might be thrown in jail for speaking ill of the government. These things have happened in revolutionary leftist states before, like Cuba or Russia or China. I see many many flaws with our system, but I support changing it in incremental ways from within, not just throwing the entire thing out and hoping for the best.

Same with economics. Capitalism, ie, markets, are functional. I believe they produce the best results for most industries and that the solution is giving people money and other social programs. Socialists see UBI and similar solutions as preserving the capitalism they hate. They want to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. Whatever that means, it varies depending on the socialist. They put all their eggs in one basket and seem to want government run everything. They want massive jobs programs with an obligation to work and contribute attached to them. Or, if they're anarchist, they might want nothing at all where we all live in communes like the anti capitalist factions of "The Outer Worlds" video game. All of these ideas have tradeoffs. Lower standards of living, less freedom, replacing one form of tyranny with another, etc. Even market socialists tend to get too gung ho about it. I support market socialism in theory too but I don't treat it like an end all. It's just one piece of a much larger progressive package.

That said I end up not agreeing with the radical left because I'm not radical enough. I might agree with them vaguely insofar as anti capitalist sentiment goes, but when it comes to solutions I ultimately start sounding like a liberal compared to them, wanting change from within a system rather than a full on abolishment of said system. I support reasonable paths from point A to point B without being like "let's throw everything out." I'm even willing to compromise my ideas as practically necessary. For example, some people might wonder with my anti work stance, well, if people weren't forced to work, would everyone work? Well, if no one worked, we would need to arguably force people as a necessary evil to do so, but we should take the least coercive path to doing so. Thankfully I believe we can have a UBI and a basic minimum standard while arguably having enough of a work incentive to survive. But say it doesn't work out, well, I would reduce the generousness of my programs until we had enough workers to do what needs to be done. Not that I think we need a ton done. Certainly less than "full employment" levels. Look at COVID and this recession. We just decided 1/3 of our work force is "nonessential" and are forcing many of them to stay home. The more enlightened of us even wanna give them checks. And you know what? Society still functions, mostly. So I believe that it is possible to balance freedom with our societal needs. Just bringing that up to show that I believe my views are functionally feasible. As far as how to pay for it...well...I've written articles about that. Look them up. 

That said, where does this leave me? 

 Well, as I said, it leaves me in an awkward spot politically. I'm too extreme for most people who like the democratic party, who seem insistent on incremental change and band aid fixes while largely being diet republicans ideologically. I question the system and insist on large scale changes to make society more just and free as I define justice and freedom. Many people might think I'm a radical leftist.

At the same time radical leftists hate me because despite my ideological extremeness and willing to question aspects of the social contract, I still largely support large portions of said social contract. My ideal society would be a liberal democracy similar to our own, maybe just with some different voting and representation mechanisms. Economically it would support ideas closer to social democracy or market socialism rather than full on socialism, communism, or anarchism. I still insist on working within the system and don't want to burn things down or think all problems can be solved by socialism. 

Because the left is increasingly finding itself in these two camps, I'm being left in an awkward spot.