Attempting to grade Ilhan Omar's basic income plan

 Good news, everyone, Ilhan Omar essentially just wrote a bill to give everyone a guaranteed income. And being the policy wonk I am, I'm going to analyze it and give it a grade as per my existing metric.Without further ado, let's get into it.

Is this a real UBI?

...not quite. It's essentially a giant tax credit. It is granted to households from my understanding, and has a means tested income limit of $150k a married couple, $112.5k for a head of household, and $75k for a single filer. It also does a lot in order to facilitate income to those who are tax payers, even going so far to give it to illegal immigrants, and attempts to implement a federal banking system for those without a bank account. Still, it is a tax credit, and not a real UBI.

EDIT: according to the UBI center it applies to people with zero income. Therefore, I will raise the score slightly, but not all the way because it's still similar to an NIT. 

14/20

What about the amount?

Well, first there's going to be a pilot, with an implementation of the real UBI in 2028. It will be $1200 a month, or $14,400 a year. Children are also supposed to get $600 a month. Assuming inflation will raise the poverty like by 10% in the next 7 years, this will be above the poverty line, and around what I would expect my own UBI to offer in 2028. I'll give it a pass.

20/20

Is it regressive?

Well lets be honest, tax credit for anyone under $75k-150k? Score. Beyond that income level it phases out at a rate of 5 cents for every dollar earned. Sounds very progressive.

20/20

How is it funded?

So...is it just me or does this sound too good to be true? I think I read somewhere this plan is expected to cost $3.8 trillion or so, yet there's no talk of funding, just in disbursing the money. We don't know. If it comes out of thin air that would be disastrous, and we don't know what this will look like if we modify the tax code to account for these changes. 

That's the thing. You have this plan that just gives out money like crazy, and isnt regressive, and there's zero talk about how to fund it. At all. Too good to be true.

0/20

Does it guarantee the right to say no?

This is very unclear. But, given it's an NIT, with no clear discussion about whether those who do not file taxes are even eligible, we really don't know if it does or not? Let's just say even if people are allowed to claim the benefit without work, due to the structure of such a thing there's a lot of precarity involved and I doubt that feature will have staying power. i could see it being modified by a future conservative or triangulating neoliberal. Still, there's nothing saying someone in such a position can't, but whether this is intended is debatable. 

EDIT: People with no income can file for it, therefore I will raise the score a bit, but not all the way as it is still vulnerable to future policy reversals. 

15/20

Overall score: 69/100 - D+

Okay, seriously, discuss how to fund your plans and make them realistic, people. The biggest issue with this plan is it's too good to be true and it does not discuss funding at all. This plan would cost $3.8 trillion a year or something, and it seems overly optimistic and too good to be true. I can tell you from experience with my own UBI plans that Omar has not done the math, and that this is not a realistic policy and that is the biggest downfall leading to such a low score.

Beyond that, the other issue is that it is approaching this from a tax credit perspective, and I see that as a weak and inferior way to do UBI as it makes a weaker moral argument and is more vulnerable to policy reversals.

Still, I am happy to see UBI hit the mainstream, even if it is in such a flawed form. And maybe this can be negotiated into something workable, although I'm guessing it would end up becoming an even more flawed tax credit. Still, it's something. 

EDIT: I learned a bit more about it thanks to the UBI Center, and have adjusted grading accordingly.

Why I'm still afraid of COVID as a vaccinated person

 So, we've been hearing it for a while. If you're vaccinated, you can go about your life and go back to normal. But, despite that, I'm still, quite frankly, paranoid about COVID. And with this latest wave, I'm legitimately getting scared again. So, why is this? Should be be taking more proactive measures to protect yourself?

Well, let me put it this way. Imagine the COVID vaccine is like getting a bulletproof vest. If you get shot without a vest, you're screwed. But if you get shot with a vest, well, you'll probably survive. Does this mean you want to get shot? Not necessarily. It will still be an unpleasant experience, you can still face harm from bullets or even die if there's a chance your bulletproof vest fails. The vest helps a lot, but it's best not to tempt fate. Beyond that, let me just explain why, using statistics, and understanding how virus transmission works and immunity works, why we should still be cautious of the disease until herd immunity is reached.

We've heard a lot about vaccine efficacy rates. Against the original strain of COVID, the vaccines are very effective. 94-95% efficacy against any form of disease, and 100% against severe disease. That is about as strong as a bulletproof vest as you can get. No one is supposed to die, and "breakthrough cases" are supposed to be lower. J&J isnt as effective against getting any COVID, but its still effective against being hospitalized and dying. 

Okay, so, that's very good. THat means for every 100 unvaccinated people who would get the disease, only 5-6 of them will get it in any form with the vaccine, and no one will die from it. That's good.

But, now we're starting to hear about this delta variant. That's what diseases do if they dont die out, they mutate. They replicate in peoples' bodies and eventually one mutation comes along that actually improves the virus. That's why we cant eradicate colds. There are too many variants and its hard to keep up with them or eliminate them all. They just keep popping up. So, what's the efficacy of the vaccines against delta? Well, lower. Now, we're at 88% effectiveness against any disease, or 96% against severe disease. Now you have a 12% chance of getting it, and a 4% chance of getting really sick. Even if you get the shot. Because the shot isn't as effective against the new variant. And what variant is behind the latest covid resurgeance? The delta variant! And looking at the map for COVID cases and how it's going to spread, this does not look good. We were, through June, largely eradicating the disease, but now, in July, the delta variant is causing it to make a resurgeance, with much of the country increasing its COVID rate at an exponential rate in a relatively small amount of time. I was planning to go down south in a couple of weeks for vacation. But the rate down there might be as high as 40 cases per 100000 people per day, whereas we were at around like 2 cases per 100,000 people per day here at home. That is fundamentally dangerous and shows we're going in the wrong direction. Even worse, while most people with the vaccine are going to be fine, there are COVID breakthrough cases. Especially among older people. 

Now, people will say, yeah, but theres only been like 6000 cases, and 1100 deaths, out of like 160 million people vaccinated, over 99% of deaths are still among people who are unvaccinated. Sure. But that doesn't mean the vaccine is foolproof. Breakthrough cases are happening, and I wouldn't want myself, or my parents, in that 1%. If a disease killed 1000 people and it wasnt covid, which has already killed like 600,000 people in the US, we would be freaking out. But because it's COVID, and because it has already killed so many, we consider this a huge success. 

And this isn't even including all cases, just positive, documented ones. Many people can still get flu like symptoms from catching COVID before their body blows it off. And given how many side effects COVID can cause in the long term, I would not want myself or anyone I know to get ANY form of COVID. Long COVID is a thing. I dont know if vaccinated people can get it, but I wouldn't want to take that risk.

So why is this happening? Well, it's because people aren't getting vaccinated. In order to eradicate a disease, we need to get herd immunity. What's happening now is half the country doesnt believe in vaccines and wont get vaccinated, meaning only half the population has the shot, with red states being particularly bad at getting it, when we arguably need 70%, or even 80-90% to achieve immunity.

So what does this mean? Well, it means the virus continues to proliferate. Sure, the vaccine might protect say, 90% of vaccinated people from it. But that's not good, because 10% can still get it, with some still getting very sick and even dying from it. But, the vaccine also cuts down on virus transmission. If everyone had the shot, well, if I have a 90% chance of being fully immune, I only have a 10% of transmitting it to someone else. And if I only have a 10% chance of transmitting it, and person B who I come in contact is also vaccinated, they only have a 10% chance of getting it if I can give it to them. So that's a 1% chance of them getting sick. And if they come in contact with person C, they only have a 10% chance of passing it on, and so on and so forth. That's how vaccines are so effective, if everyone has them, then the chance of the virus infecting others goes down to 0 really fast, as it becomes increasingly difficult to infect people. None of them are 100%, but if they are 90-95%, and everyone has it, well, the virus struggles to find hosts to infect and dies out.

What's happening right now is only half the country is vaccinated. And the other half wont take the vaccine. And now there's a new deadly delta variant which is more contangeous, and the vaccine is less effective against it, leading to more people who are vaccinated getting sick and even dying. The virus is spreading out of control among the half of the population with no immunity at all, with the other half still having to rely on their vaccine to protect them against the virus. The vaccine needs to both protect you, but also others, in order to work. If it only protects you, it can still spread, and you can still get sick. To completely avoid getting sick, we need to starve the virus of hosts to infest. 

See the problem? If everyone had the shot, the chance of virus transmission would go like this:

10% -> 1% -> 0.1% -> 0.01%, etc.

But instead it's doing this:

100% -> 100% -> 10% -> 100% -> 10% -> 1% -> 100%

In other words, the virus is tearing its way through half of the population infecting everyone in its path, while the other half has to hope their vaccine actually holds. Which is why the south, home of the Trumpers, is turning into a petri dish. And it's going to make these places dangerous to visit, even for the vaccinated. And it might also make its way up north too, where you still have that stubborn 30-40% of the population that won't get the shot. It's just a frustrating situation all around. We should be improving and getting back to normal, but we're going in the wrong direction because people won't get the shot.

GET THE ####ING SHOT!

Why it's not un-libertarian to be for making people wear masks/get vaccines

 So, I've been seeing a lot of crap over the past 1.5 years from the right about mask mandates and now forcing the vaccine being "tyranny", and as a left leaning libertarian, I feel like I gotta weigh in.

Heres the problem with right wing libertarians. They're obsessed with negative liberty. Freedom is never being told what to do, ever. At least the government not telling them what to do as they believe you should still be oppressed by bosses, religion, and family members in a lot of cases. But freedom is a lot more complicated than that.

When I say I'm a libertarian, I would say I like a relatively small amount of government intervention in peoples' lives, sure. But, I'm not an anarchist. Theres a difference between someone who wants relatively limited government, and NO government. Government has a valid reason to restrict behavior in some situations. And what is the standard? Well, I believe you have a right to live as you want as long as your actions aren't harming others. Now, harm can be a bit diverse and complex, and I do tend to take a more left wing approach of understanding my actions impacting others negatively in less than direct ways at time. Preventing the spread of a deadly disease is such a situation. 

Look, if you don't wear a mask, and you don't get the vaccine, and you don't socially distance, well, you're harming others. You're spreading the disease without even knowing it in many situations. The purpose of social distancing isn't a communist take over of the economy, or even a way for people like me to force our anti work ideas on people. No, the purpose of social distancing is to minimize unneeded contact between people to minimize the spread of the disease. The purpose of wearing masks isn't some weird cultish "mark of the beast" type thing or whatever, the purpose is to stop the disease from spreading. And vaccines, they are literally designed to prevent the disease. They give you immunity, stopping you from not only getting sick from it, but also from spreading it to others. All of these measures, are ways to stop the virus, and the government mandating such things are ways to achieve the chief, basic mandate for society existing at all, to protect people within that society from harm, and to enhance their physical well being.

If your society can't even guarantee such a thing, well then that society has no legitimate right to exist, which is where I get libertarian on this stuff. But as long as actions taken by the government are valid exercises of power to protect people, and informed by the best scientific evidence available to them at the time, and there's no reasonably less intrusive way to do such things, then that's what they gotta do to protect the citizens.

Your "freedom" to cough in peoples faces and get sick from what is, at this point, an easily preventable disease, does not outweigh my concern to be safe from your germs. It's literally the same principle as "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose". So I'm sick of the whining and the belly aching. Get the shot, and yes, given how delta is spreading like wildfire and given how it's burning through the unvaccinated like crazy and is even jumping back over at times to those who are vaccinated, I'm genuinely not sympathetic to the perspective on the right these days. Sorry, I'm not. Your freedom to get sick and spread your germs does not trump my freedom to not get sick and die because your stupidity and selfishness spreads a deadly disease. Get the shot, shut the heck up, and let's get back to normal. You guys have been whining for over a year about how you wanna go back to normal, we're not at a point we can go back to normal, and all it requires is getting the shot. So get it, and shut up, so we can all put this behind us. 

My pitch to the anti vax left

 So, while most anti vaxxers are right wingers, I have been noticing that some of them are also on the left. I have some exposure to these folks, both from the 2016 campaign since Jill Stein was a crank magnet to these kinds of people, and from the wayofthebern type people now.

Most anti vax sentiment on the left seems to be wrapped up in a cloak of anti capitalism. Well, the corporations in the pharmaceutical industrial complex wants to make us sick, dont take the vaccines! 

Uh, this is nonsense, but let's go through it as I can almost be sympathetic to some extent. Look, no one is denying that medical companies cant be scumbags. Insulin is hundreds of dollars a vial after all. However, most corporations do sell products that..work. I dont think there is a secret cure of cancer or something, the rich would use it on themselves rather than dying from it. The thing is, while a lot of businesses are satisfied with "disease management" or whatever, uh, to some extent that's all you can do.

Also, a lot of these sentiments dont make sense here. As I said, the whole vaccine denial thing on the right, is an extension of the covid being a problem thing I mentioned in my last post, and that's about money. The government doesnt really want the economy shut down. Because it hurts GDP. it stops people from working. The government, both the republicans, and the neoliberal democrats, want people working, to grow that pie. But democrats are at least sane and a little less sociopathic about it and understand we need reasonable restrictions on it.

But ultimately, now there's a cure to the problem, and it's called vaccinating people. And the government under Biden is so intent, on making sure people get this cure, so we can all get back to work, that they are actually giving it to people free. Yes, Biden, is basically turning the vaccine dispersal into a form of single payer. Rather than leaving people to screw off and die like we often do with healthcare in America, because the disease is so contagious and such a public health threat, Biden is basically trialling single payer in order to disperse it. Meaning the government pays for it, and you just show up and take the shot, whether you have the insurance or not. The government has such a stake in getting you to take the shot, they're giving it away free, against their own principles.

Yeah, just think about that. You can question how money grubby the system is all you want. i think you guys are whack jobs when it comes to skepticism of modern medicine, but I understand how stuff is greedy. But that's why they're offering you the shot. Because they want things back to normal. And they're willing to trial single payer for this specific thing, in order to get there. So please, claim your free single payer, get the freaking shot. So that we all can not die from this disease, and we can conquer it.

Also notice how unlike other ideologues I'm not using this deadly disease to force my anti work views. Im not insisting we all stay shut down to force the government to give people money, or healthcare. I dont really, on an ideological level, like normal. Because normal is wage slavery. But, I care about people not dying. I'm not a sociopath. So yeah, get the freaking shot, so we can go back to normal. But I will say this, if you learned anything about the value of having a UBI and single payer here, please don't forget it. Because y'all should know by now that Ive been right all along on this. But, I'm not gonna play politics with peoples' lives, I actually have principles there. For me to tell you to get a shot to go back to work, when I'm explicitly anti work, yeah, it's because I want people to not die.

Please, America, get your ####ing shots.

Dear America: get your ####ing vaccines!

 So, I try not to curse on this blog much. But I'm very frustrated with this. This should not be an issue. Vaccines should be noncontroversial among most of the country. But, due to recent events with COVID, and the republicans exploiting reasonable steps at managing a deadly disease as "big government tyranny", apparently here we are.

Look, the vaccine is safe, and it saves lives. I got it myself. I had some nasty side effects where I was sick for a day, but guess what? That's because it was making my immune system do something, that's how that works. And now, Moderna, the vaccine I took, is looking to be one of the better ones, because it created such a drastic immune response in the first place. That's what vaccines do. Expose you to a weakened version of the virus, or in the case of MRNA vaccines, a protein that mimics the virus's proteins. This causes your immune system to go, "oh, well, that's not right, let's kill that", and because moderna in particular gives you such a huge load of MRNA, it can create a stronger immune response. But that response...leads to more protection against the real thing. 

That's how diseases work, that's how the immune system works, this should be something we all learned in high school. And I went to a fundamentalist christian school for high school and even I learned about this stuff (fundie school isnt bad outside of evolution, really), so you guys have no excuse. Why are people so hesitant to get the vaccine? They scream about microchips, which is ridiculous, but even worse, dude, you carry a smartphone around everywhere you go, they're already tracking you! And ironically, while claiming the vaccines are poison, they'll jump on fake cures that arent even intended for this disease like hydroxychloroquine and now ivermectin. Why?! These drugs arent even designed to deal with covid. 

Seriously people, use some common sense. This isn't that hard. Anyone with a basic high school education should be more than qualified to know what's what here. I genuinely don't understand how people can be this freaking dumb. More brainwashed, but yeah, same effect.

---

Speaking of which, it might be a good idea to lay out a brief timeline for how we got here. So, we all know conservatives, trumpers, they're in their own little world. At the start of the pandemic, Trump downplayed the virus, and knowing that emphasizing it would cause a panic and disrupt the economy, Trump wanted to do the bare minimum to address it, and he did even less than that. 

As the pandemic spread, there were two philosophies for how to deal with this. We could either shut stuff down, to stop the spread of the virus and limit its spread, or we could just pretend like nothing was happening. Democrats, being not total psychopaths, opted to shut stuff down. But republicans didn't. Why? I'll tell you why. it comes down to money. 

Republicans' big ticket to reelection in 2020 was the economy. Trump had a so called "strong" economy up to this point. Really, it was just a continuation of the lukewarm Obama recovery, but Trump was in charge so he spun it as a wonderful thing, and his party went along with it. He gave them mild tax breaks and everything. 

But, COVID threatened to unravel that. if Trump was honest about COVID, it would have caused a panic in the stock market. For someone like Trump, who lives or dies by the economy, that's a bad thing. Shutting down businesses would contract GDP, and cause unprecedented unemployment levels. 

It gets even worse, you know how I am with my ideology, where I'm like "gee the solution is to give people money?", okay, say youre a republican. You dont believe in government intervention in the economy. How do you keep America afloat while addressing the virus if you dont do anything? And the answer is, you don't. If you shut everything down to deal with the virus, you sign America's death warrant. Millions would be unemployed. They can't make rent, they can't pay for food, they can't pay for anything. And they have no way to make a living. Shutting down the economy REQUIRES some form of liberalism at the very least. You need to expand unemployment, give people checks. I thought it would've been the perfect time to try a UBI, but obviously the dems suck at political instincts with that, and given the political cycle by the time it took off, Biden was just wrapping up the primary as the moderate, do nothing candidate. So not wanting to upset his constituents, the dems did nothing. 

So during 2020, the response to the pandemic from the government was underwhelming, in part because of Trump, but in part because we have feckless dems who barely fight for anything anyway as they try to compromise with the right. So the dem policy ended up being a combination of shut downs to keep people safe, while doing the bare minimum if that to keep people afloat. 

Republicans and dems tried to compromise, largely didn't, and yeah. Trump did end up shifting left to do a couple things, but they were wholly inadequate. Now we get to Trump losing.

Trump lost in part because of COVID, his mismanagement, IMO, cost him the election. In downplaying the virus, and insisting everything was fine, he got a lot of people killed, and just enough people wised up to propel Biden to victory. Still, Trump came off a lot stronger than he really should have, showing support for his sociopathic "lets open up everything and pretend everything is fine" strategy. Given the political spectum between "lets close everything down and then not do anything" and "lets get people back to work and if you die you die", I cant blame some for voting for the conservative, but that's kind of the problem with liberalism a la Biden. It just ends up being this unattractive worst of both worlds. 

But, enough sane people caused Biden to win. ANd now he's rolling out the vaccines, and while I cant agree on his specific actions toward covid (honestly he shouldve done a lot more, but hey hes the moderate status quo candidate, he aint gonna do much), and now the trumpers...are questioning the vaccines.

Okay, you guys wanna go back to normal right? You wanna go back to work? GET THE VACCINE. if we achieve herd immunity via the vaccine we can go back to normal. And for a while it looked like we were on the trajectory to do so. Through may and june covid started receding and case levels dropped. But now it's getting bad again. Especially down south. Where people are unvaccinated. GET THE FREAKING VACCINE, PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU. 

These guys are just so entrenched in trump's denial of the problem they wont wear masks, they wont take vaccines, and they think the very idea of the government mandating such things is tyranny. YOU MOTHER####ERS, WE'RE TRYING TO HELP YOU! 

We shouldn't be having this conversation in 2021. We shouldnt be debating vaccines and masks. I can almost, kind of, respect the idea that you wanna go back to work and go back to normal, even at the cost of anyone vulnerable. Okay, respect is a strong word, but I said almost. Taking my own feelings for how disgustingly sociopathic that is, I at least understand the argument. But being so anti reasonable covid measures you wont even take precautions is just, stupid.

These guys would take the kool aid if Jim Jones told them to, I swear. That's how stupid these Trumpers are. Heck, let's be honest, given the hydroychloroquine and ivermectin debables, let's be honest, im pretty sure some morons literally would inject themselves with bleach of their fuhrer told them to. If only he would ask them to get the ####ing vaccine. 

But yeah, after ripping this, I just felt like it was necessary for me to take a stab to explain how we got to this point, and that's basically it. Trump didn't want to hit the pause button on the economy so he denied the problem existed and doubled down in discouraging mask use and weird fake alternative treatments. And now his supporters want to deny the virus is a problem to the point they won't take simple measures to protect themselves from it. Which puts us all at risk. Thanks America, y'all are dumb.

A brief discussion of what socialism is

Okay, so I watched the latest Yang Speaks, which didn't actually have Yang speaking, and they discussed socialism. It was cringey. I swear, no one in America seems to know what socialism actually is. They seemed to be conflating social democracy a la Europe with socialism, then conflating that with Cuba, then pointing out that the word means different things for different people and some people freak out and think you're talking Cuba when you're really discussing say, Denmark. And yeah. It's cringe. Not to mention, the whole thing seemed to be a circlejerk of right wing talking points against socialism and even social democracy, at times, and ugh, it was just cringe. But I digress, I wanna focus on socialism, since when I use the term I have a more narrow, specific meaning.

When I talk about socialism, I'm talking about some sort of system where workers own the means of production. I also, presumably, talk about systems with command economies in them since many socialist systems end up being command economies, but I recognize there is some middle ground. More on that later. 

Most socialist countries will have the government controlling the economy in some ways, like you see in the USSR, Cuba, etc. I would call this more the pure forms in practice. They seek to abolish all forms of market economies. 

However, there are forms of socialism that are more moderate. Some are more democratic, and support the government being managed democratically. Some are market socialists and want worker owned coops within a market economy. Some want mixed economies. There isn't even a really solid delineation between capitalism and socialism in this sense, and as you enter social democracy and to the left of that, the line can often be blurred. I would largely say social democracy is a capitalist ideology, as in workers own the means of production but theres generous social services and a large welfare state. but they still have a privately owned market economy. Democratic socialists on the other hand end up supporting almost the exact same policies as social democrats, but long term they would like to transition to socialism via more reformist means. Bernie Sanders may or may not be that. Socialist at heart, but social democrat in mind. Hard to read that man sometimes.

This is why I myself have flirted with "socialism" before. I certainly oppose the more extreme versions, but market socialism vs worker coops or democratic socialism I could be more amenable though. Still, despite having anti capitalist vibes at times, I really dont have any desire to push "socialism" on people, and am quite agnostic to the distinction. My ideas could work within social democracy, they could work within market or democratic socialism. It doesn't matter. As I said, I view socialism as highly overrated and believe more can be done with more social democratic measures or a UBI or something, than socialism itself. 

Honestly, I could see us shifting toward socialism long term if we get a UBI. It depends though. If things keep going as they are we can theoretically maintain capitalism forever, if job opportunities remain common. But if only a small proportion of people work as more jobs are automated, what is the point in having private ownership of companies, especially if they evade taxes? This is why I've flirted with socialism in the past, but I admit that I'm probably thinking 50-100 years in the future, well beyond my life span here. 

The fact is, for now, I really don't see a need for socialism, and don't see any specific benefits of going socialist over another system like social democracy or human centered capitalism. I like social democracy, I like Europe, but I despise communism as its practiced throughout the world. And I know socialists will point out these Zapatistas living in southern Mexico as socialist and how wonderful that is, but yeah no...I'm just not that interested. Like really, left, right, same crap overall. 

If it's more politically advantageous, and I believe it is, I could be fine with maintaining capitalism if UBI works. We don't need socialism. And while I could see my ideas working with moderate socialists like demsocs, and I could consider them political allies on paper (hence why I can support Bernie or the greens), I'm not really hard line on it.

The truth is, I just want UBI and medicare for all, and believe those goals are agnostic to the whole divide. I'm probably closer to social democracy than socialism overall. I've flirted with market/democratic socialism but other than that, eh. 

I bring this up in part too because I take pot shots at socialists on here and wanna say what I mean. I have no problem with social democrats, other than their paternalism and bureaucratic welfarist solutions. When I bash "socialists", i mean people who literally want workers to own the means of production and take pot shots at my own ideology for not putting that front and center. You know, the people who scream yang is a right libertarian trojan horse and blah blah blah. To be honest I dont feel like this podcast helped that impression, although yang himself didn't discuss anything. It was his cohosts. But yeah. Just reinforcing that divide.

The nazbol vortex largely does not exist

 So, something I notice among certain elements of the left, such as the SJW types, is this concern for a so called "nazbol vortex", which is used by SJWs to attempt to police discussions even more and ensure people remain loyal to their little cult. But, what is it, and is it a concern?

The "nazbol vortex" is the theoretical idea that a bunch of lefties who are not social justice conscious can flip and basically become like Trumpers. Essentially, "nazbol" is short for "national bolshevik", which encapsulates the idea that people are going to become socially conservative, while being economically socialist. Again, it's that weird "strasserite smear" I discussed a while ago. But ultimately, is it a real concern? Uh, no really, and I'll explain why.

If you've been following left wing youtube drama, you'll know about Jimmy Dore, and his lashing out on the rest of the left. There's another youtuber named Vaush, who is extremely SJW on social issues, who believes the rest of the left wing community, like Kyle Kulinski, should distance themselves from Dore, formally. Vaush is an interesting fellow, and someone who I would have to say tends to hit all of the wrong notes for me. He's a socialist, he's an SJW, but then he wraps around to being one of the most obnoxious Biden bros in the left wing youtube community. He's bashed UBI several times before, because he's a socialist at heart, he is basically a bleeding heart SJW, but then he will switch gears into pragmatism and bash Bernie or busters.

Now, if you know my politics you can see how we would not mix. I'm like the "anti vaush" in terms of my politics. I'm anti SJW by this point, a full on progressive or buster, and I really think socialism is one of the most overrated economic systems ever. Quite frankly, while I criticize the "Jimmy Dore left" for purity, I criticize the "Vaush left" for just being wrong on virtually everything. And they're the ones who seem to push this narrative of a "nazbol vortex".

Now, admittedly, American history does have a history of something similar to this. The New deal coalition vague is similar to what he's talking about. These guys were socially right wing, but on economics, they flipped left. But because of the southern strategy and the rise of Reaganism, and then idpol forming on the left, the democrats became a bastion of social liberalism and economic moderation, while the right became a bastion of social and economic conservatism. 

And as we know, we are heading toward a new alignment. And I see it going one of two ways. We will either see a cultural realignment, where economic issues remain largely the same, and the right remains right and the left moderate, but with diverging views on social issues, with the SJW left becoming dominant on the left and Trumpism becoming dominant on the right, or we will see a shift in terms of economic issues, where the democrats become more left wing, perhaps social democratic or socialist lite, and the republicans become more moderate.

As far as the democratic party goes, you're either talking a mix of social moderation with economic progressivism, or social progressivism with economic moderation. So far the nightmare cultural realignment is happening, as the democrats shift more and more toward centrism while becoming more and more "woke", while the republicans become more and more nationalistic. 

But here's the thing, on economics, we're largely remaining the same. Trumpers are populist, but they're right wing, they're anti left. They're the ones screaming democrats are "socialists". There's no way, at this time, that the right will abandon economic conservatism any time soon. The democrats are moderate. They "triangulate". They seek to win over moderate conservatives and the left at the same time, which leads to a lot of divisions between the factions of the party and the current dissatisfaction. Still, does that means dissatisfied parties (like me, or Bernie or busters), are going to join the right? For the most part, no. 

While I have seen a disturbing trend among the Jimmy Dore left to become conspiratorial and repeat anti science talking points regarding stuff like COVID vaccines, on actual issues, most are a far cry from the right. Most lefties who are anti SJW are not really right on most issues. They don't hate minorities. They don't hate gay people. They're not pro choice. They have no interest in being on the right, ideologically. And given how purity testy they are, and how openly fascist the right is these days, there's no reason to believe that they would shift right and become conservatives on issues.

The problem with the right is they're too right. The problem with the democrats is they're not left enough, outside of social issues which are cynically used to bully progressives. Which is what we're really getting at. 

SJWs, especially those who collaborate with the democratic party and its message, are bullies. They are bullies. They are hostile to economic progressives a lot of the time, and work against them because social issues are more important. They discourage people from making a big deal and making a ruckus over the democrats' inaction on favored issues. And just as the 2015 dems seemed to see trouble on the horizon with people Bernie or busting in the first place, these guys seem to be preemptively trying to stop these guys from leaving, and joining the republicans.

Now, will they join republicans? Not given the current party. I mean they're objectively worse than the democrats, and the democrats' big problem is they try too much to pander to conservatives and those demographics. The only way that they could possibly join any sort of actual nazbol vortex, is if the democrats totally abandon the left economically, win over conservatives on economics, and leave progressives forced to form a coalition with what's left of the Trumpers. Which is a worst case scenario I really don't want either. But good news, there's a way to stop that from happening, STOP APPEALING TO LINCOLN PROJECT PEOPLE! Seriously, if this happens, it's because the democrats angled to bring over economic right wingers and abandoned the left. They will have caused this by their own hubris, trying to expand their big tent, without realizing the tent is already too big for an ideologically cohesive movement. 

I think ultimately, what the future of the political parties is going to look like, is in the hands of the democrats. And they can appeal to one of two groups. They could tone down the SJW nonsense and win over social moderates who just want a UBI, free healthcare, green new deal, etc. Or, they can keep going with their hyperbolic SJWism mixed with ignoring progressives. In which case they bring economically moderate people into the party, who are more socially liberal. 

Really, that's what it comes down to. Do we bring in Joe WorkingMan from Wisconsin, who wants unions, healthcare, but might not be totally cool with BLM, or do we bring in Jesse Aristocrat from Texas, who is totally woke and thinks #blacklivesmatter, but doesn't want their taxes to go up? It's up to the democrats. But that's what the divide is. Either way I don't see the parties completely abandoning their current positions in the sense that they'll flip. it's more a matter of what will they focus on in the future, and how they will shift. And the problem is, the democrats seem to despise the Joe Workingman types for not being woke, but seem totally okay with an aristocrat who is, but isn't willing to fight for economic changes that hurt their bottom line or "fundamentally change" the system as Biden would say.

So, we focus on cultural issues. While people like me, or Jimmy Dore, get dunked on for not caring more about black people or something. Never mind the fact neither one of us are actually racist or support policies that harm them. We just don't share all the twitter hashtags or obsess over it constantly, and we might not be totally okay with reparations or social programs with an explicit racial bias in them. Screw us for wanting to help everyone, right?

This might come off as a bit...dog whistley, but brutally honest, as an ex conservative who became an economic progressive, but never really got into the woke stuff, I really don't think democrats want us in their party. Like, they tend to despise working class whites. I mean, really part of the reason I feel politically homeless is explicitly because of my complex political journey. I was not raised a democrat. I was raised a republican. I listened to Rush Limbaugh. I was a Bush fanboy during the 2004 era, I voted for McCain. I even initially supported the tea party until I realized they were insane. It wasn't until later in life I shifted and built up my own ideology, and I've talked a ton about that. And my ideology just never meshed with the democratic orthodoxy very well. I'm not the kind of person who democrats really cater to, and they just write people like me off as a lost cause. And the few people they do get in their party, they treat us with contempt. Remember the Bernie Bro smears. It's like they're actively trying to absorb us into the cult of liberal guilt, or they wanna push us back toward the GOP. But then they act like an abusive partner when they do push us away, calling us horrible for daring to have the courage to leave, and fearing of some weird nazbol vortex that isn't a thing due to fundamental ideological incompatibilities. Honestly, if they're that concerned about white progressives leaving and joining the republicans, maybe they should put more effort into trying to retain us, rather than screaming at us when we threaten to vote with our feet. We're only threatening to vote with our feet because we're clearly being ignored in the first place. Idk, they tend to lose a lot of whites to the Trumpers, but then when they leave, rather than trying to correct it, they whine about it. It's just weird.

Really, I aint going to join the GOP as they're antithetical to virtually everything I believe at this point, but honestly, it seems to me like democrats, and Vaushites, and SJWs, really dont understand how offputting they are to my demographic. The only way you guys will ever make a nazbol vortex is if you guys make one, buddy. Really, the existence of such a thing would mean the democrats failed so hard at appealing to white progressives that they ran them out of the party and the republicans were accomodating enough, due to losing their own fiscally conservative voters to the democrats, for that to actually be a viable strategy for them to try.

Again, if democrats want to retain their economically progressive voters, maybe they should, you know, retain their economically progressive voters by not pissing them off and alienating them. And honestly, SJWs, Vaushites, VBNMWers, etc, do a terrible job in helping their own cause. Because they're so smarmy and self righteous and insist on bullying and antagonizing people who just want crap like UBI and free healthcare. So give them UBI and free healthcare, or shut up already. I'm sick of hearing all of this whining. Work on your voter retention, if you want to retain voters. That's all I have to say. It's not that hard.

Discussing principle vs pragmatism and how it relates to voting

 So, I want to discuss a common disagreement among the left, between the bernie or busters, who votes their conscience, and "pragmatic" liberals who vote blue no matter who. As we've seen in recent months when there was tension between Vaush's community, and Kyle Kulinski's, there's a huge difference in value systems among the left.

Some people are more principled. I fall in this camp. We vote our consciences, regardless of the consequences. The pragmatic camp acts like we're stupid and irrational, but as we see it, we believe in democracy, and we believe we are responsible for what we vote for. There's a common saying, suggesting you cant complain if you didnt vote, but if the choices are bad, and you chose one of them, aren't you the one who can't complain, as you put them in office? Another aspect of the whole distinction is the fact that a lot of us who vote our consciences are voting within a system captured by malevolent interests who perpetuate the system of bad choices onto us, and the only way out is to refuse to play their game. This plays a huge part in my thinking. I understand that the American democratic system is captured by two parties, who basically act like internet ISPs. They have de facto monopolies, they're isolated from competition, and they have little reason to listen to voters. The only way to make them listen is to sabotage them by refusing to support them, and if they still don't, ultimately replace them. This is difficult to do, but necessary if your views are poorly represented by the system as it is. The trade off of whether a principled vote is worth it is up to each individual, but it is our choice to make, and "pragmatic" liberals are best to heed that.

On the flip side, it can be argued that rather than look at voting for a principled framework, we should look at voting as simply choosing the best choice to get us where we want to go. And that's the democrats. We might not like the democrats, but the democrats are going to get us to where we want to go far more than republicans will, and since one or the other is going to win, you should choose the one closer to what you are, in hopes that it leads to positive changes. You'll never get what you want, but you'll get something closer to the other option.

Here's my problem with this idea. While it makes sense in isolation, it ignores the larger context of the duopoly I pointed out. It ignores how captured the American system is by different interests. It ignores how, if you do the above, you'll never get what you want, because that party closer to you isn't on your side. On the contrary, they're controlled opposition designed to screw you. Yeah, I will cede that its better in theory to eat a half a bowl of crap rather than a whole bowl as nina turner would say, but if we eat the half a bowl of crap, how are we ever gonna move toward a system where we don't eat crap at all?

Obviously, all choices must be contextualized, and VBNMWers ignore all context. They try to force a choice on you in isolation. A or B, that's it, and if you dont choose A over B you're stupid and hurting your own cause. You're not supposed to look at the man behind the curtain manipulating this little puppet show in the first place. You're not supposed to have principles. Youre supposed to be so scared by the immediate consequences of the other choice that you fall in line. It's a shock and awe campaign designed too manipulate you through fear into choosing inferior alternatives, rather than fiighting to build better ones in the long term. 

In all fairness, this is where I have to argue with myself. I made this exact argument in 2016 with Hillary vs Trump. And while Trump won, I may have miscalculated a few things. I thought the democrats would be forced to change in light of trump's failure, the just waited until democratic morale was lower to try the same scam with Biden. And admittedly, I did not exapect Trump to gain as much popularity as he did. Trump IS seemingly realigning the parties, which is bad news for everyone. People actually like the dude, despite him, in my opinion, being objectively the worst president we've ever had (and I did a tier list too, it's no competition). That's the scary thing. Republicans, rather than being horrified by the guy, are dying on their sword for him. They're refusing to take vaccines, they believe the election was stolen from them, and Trump himself is almost Hitler like in his temperament and ability to manipulate the public. A trumpist republican party may very well be fascism on the rise, with January 6th being our beer hall putsch. 

Could I vote blue to stop Trump if he runs again in 2024? maybe, no promises. But, Trump does seem to present a unique existential threat to American democracy in my opinion, and while I believed many of these claims were hyperbolic for the most part, looking at how 2020 turned out, and then the insurrection kind of changed my opinion a bit. The election should not have been so close, and I think 2020 demonstrated 2016 was not a fluke or simply a reaction to HRC being bad (although that was part of it). People genuinely like the guy, and those people are susceptible to fascism. They're authoritarians, and the party has been leaning that way since Nixon. But, with Trump saying the quiet part out loud, and so many people enthusiastically eating that up, uh, that's scary. So, maybe I would consider voting for a lesser evil just to stop Trump from winning again, since the dude does seem to pose an existential threat to the country no other individual does at this time, and realigning the parties around him in particular seems like the worst case scenario. Keep in mind, the next 40 years are what's important to me, not just the next 4. And we could be in for a world of hurt for the next 40 if Trump is venerated in the same way as Reagan. 

But other than that specific case, is it healthy to vote blue no matter who? Not just no, but hell no. It is putting the blinders on, focusing on the immediate consequences out of "pragmatism", and showing a complete disregard for long term planning and aspirations. As you can see with the Trump winning in 2024 case, I am showing long term planning and acting in accordance with principles, not simply focusing on the damage of the next 4 years, but playing the long game.

 But that's what separates me from a "pragmatic" vote blue no matter whoer. "Pragmatists" seem to have no concept of long term planning, delaying gratification, or pushing back against a system hostile to their interests. They'll vote for scraps, virtue signal about how everyone else should too, and shame anyone who says "nope, not doing it, this is BS". 

This is also why they're so bad at policy. Rather than design policies from the ground up to actually be effective, their short term pragmatic mindsets cause them to support lukewarm incremental changes no one really likes, leading to highly inefficient monstrocities held together by tons of "duct tape" that dont really solve anything. So no, I really ain't inclined to think like a pragmatist. I have my policies, I have my ideas, I want them implemented, I want it done right (although I can bend a little, keep in mind how critical I am of everyone else's UBI policies, I'm not such a purist I would turn down a well designed NIT or yang's UBI plan), and I'm not gonna settle for bad faith scraps the DNC wants to offer me as an afterthought. 

I believe in voting for the person you want to win. Now, you can compromise and vote pragmatically here and there, but such pragmatic compromises should be mild, and you shouldn't give up your core values just to get something marginally less crappy. Which is how I feel about the democrats. I can compromise and support someone I agree with 70-80% of the time on major issues. But what if they're only supportive of half of that, say around 30-40%? That's how I feel about democrats. Like, you're barely getting anything at all once you compromise your principles, and then compromise them again to appease joe manchin, and then again to get past mitch mcconnell. At the end of the day, you get nothing, and you look like a fool for it. Nah, I want someone who at least sees the world somewhat in the same way as me. Ideally a Yang, but I'd settle for a Bernie or Hawkins, while just laughing and feeling insulted at being offered a Hillary, or Biden, or harris. Not interested in perpetuating an oligopoly that doesn't benefit me, sorry.

Reflecting on Scott Santens' appearance on Yang Speaks

 So, Scott Santens, UBI advocate extraordinaire, went on Yang speaks, Andrew Yang's podcast. I wouldn't normally talk about something as mundane as a podcast, but this one is a little more personal to me. 

I had no idea Santens and Yang were so close, to the point that Santens knew him before running for president. I know Yang was a relatively late player to the UBI scene relative to myself, and Santens, but I didn't know Santens influenced him to such a great extent. I'm almost jealous, then I remember how asocial I am by comparison. 

The fact is, I actually got into UBI around the same time as Santens did, and remembered interacting with him on r/basicincome back in 2013. I actually was one of the posters there that tried to develop an early UBI plan, as for me, UBI funding was my own biggest obstacle to adopting the idea. If I could prove it could be done, then I could support it, so I did research and started making UBI plans. I know early on Scott actually references some of my early plans, like in this article. That 40% flat tax model? That was my original early plan, before I refined it to a 45% tax and later to 43.5%. 

And I know Santens later made his own UBI plan, which i recently analyzed, and later ended up influencing Yang. Which is why I bring this up. I just think it's mind boggling that I know Scott Santens casually on reddit, and discussed UBI with him, and then he discusses it with Yang, who was a big time presidential candidate. And while yeah, I have issues with Yang's actual plan, I think that it's awesome that I may have indirectly influenced yang, even subtlely. Makes me feel like I'm actually doing something and making an impact on the world. 

I know I aint as famous as Santens or Yang. To some extent I dont even want fame really. I just wanna contribute to making UBI a thing, really. Fame leads to pressure, which leads to stress, which leads to burnout, blah blah blah. Would be nice if I had a steady income from my UBI advocacy, but eh other than that I'm fine with others using my ideas to some extent. Or taking them, modifying them, and making them their own. I just wanna secure the bag. 

Another reason I brought this up is because a lot of progressives question yang's intentions. But if the dude is friends with Scott Santens and is mentored by the dude to some extent, uh, yeah, he's on "our side". You might have issues with his exact policies, welcome to the club. But I really dislike how quickly progressives are willing to write him off. He's not some neolib shill. The establishment hates him too. And even worse he's getting bodied by both the establishment and progressive wings for various reasons. Some deserved, but many not. 

Jeff Bezos says the quiet part out loud

 So, Jeff Bezos finally went to space. It's been talked about for a while, and many people criticized it, arguing that a system that allows this guy to get so much money to go to space, while his workers are underpaid and exploited, is immoral. Now, I feel somewhat mixed on this. I certainly don't believe that people should be banned from going to space. And I'm not against some level of income inequality. I'm not a hardcore socialist who is die hard on the labor theory of value. But I do think that a system that allows such grotesque inequality to exist, where people make billions while workers are exploited, is problematic. While I'm not necessarily for stopping billionaires from happening via wealth caps or legislation, I do think something is fundamentally wrong with a system that allows some to get so rich, while others get so poor.

Then Bezos comes back, and basically thanks his workers for "paying" for this. Uh, you're welcome, jerk. Look, I'm not going to claim that a UBI would necessarily fully solve this issue in itself. It would help. Both by redistributing income from Bezos to everyone else, and increasing worker bargaining power leading to wage increases and improved conditions, but it really depends on the implementation and the amount. UBI could range from mild changes to being completely life changing depending on how it impacts the labor market. 

I do think it's an insult to injury, given how much this guy has exploited poor desperate people and coerced them into detestable working conditions under the threat of poverty, that after underpaying them and making billions of dollars, that he then "thanks" his workers for paying for his luxurious joyride. At this point he's either tone deaf or just flexing. 

Again, am I hardcore on the labor theory of value where I believe no private citizen should go to space? Not necessarily. But I do think something is wrong with a system that gives some so much while others get so little. If we had a basic income and working at amazon was TRULY (by my indepentarian standard) voluntary, and the dude paid his taxes, and his workers what they are really worth in a truly free market, I wouldn't have as much of a problem here. But given the exploitation exists, something must change about the current arrangement of the American economy. Everyone rips on the jobless as lazy leeches, but the only leeches I really see are people like Bezos. 

The right to say no and the Frito Lay strike

 So, Frito Lay workers in Topeka, Kansas are going on strike because they've been working 12 hour days, every day, without a day off in literal months. 84 hours a week. 

I would have imagined labor laws would have prevented this, but apparently not. I mean, what good is the 40 hour work week if it is merely statuatory? Forced overtime, when not dealing with an emergency like world war II or something, is just cruel. There's no reason for it. How can you even live working that much? You sleep 8 hours, you commute, you need to eat, get dressed, shower, this isn't living. This is slavery. The only reason people would ever put up with this, is because they are forced to by the threat of propertylessness otherwise. It is ridiculous. And Frito Lay did outright set up a system that penalized people for taking time off. 

This would not happen if we had a basic income. If people had a basic income, they could quit, and live on a lower income level. ANd given the quality of life associated with an 84 hour work week, I bet everyone would be quitting. I want to point this out. This problem, would not exist, if we had a basic income. Because if employers knew that their workers could walk, well, they would have to pay their workers better, or automate jobs, or outsource, or go out of business. Period. They couldn't force people to do it.

Basic income liberates people. I'm seeing people talking about more regulations, and unions, but compared to the outright right to say no, those are a band aid. We need a basic income, and we need it now. 

Regrading various UBI plans

 So, rereading what I wrote in which I graded various UBI plans a few weeks ago, I was kind of dissatisfied with how the grading came out, but at the same time, I had no issues with my metrics themselves. Looking at it now, I realize the problem was I was too harsh on taking points off for grading certain aspects of my plan. I would nitpick minor flaws and then take 5-10 points off, when perhaps they only deserved a 2-8 point deduction instead. I mean, after all, if I think something deserves a B, but then i give it 15/20, I'm actually giving it a C. So I should weight my grading in line with what I think the metrics deserve on a grading scale, with say, 15/20 being the equivalent of a 75/100, etc. Being too harsh is why so many plans I would've thought would deserve Bs were getting Cs and Ds. 

So that said, let's do a do over. 

My own plan

Is it a true UBI? - Yes, 20/20

Is the UBI at or above the poverty line? - Yes, 20/20

Is this plan regressive? - No, 20/20

Is the funding sound? - Eh, I tried my best but might have made slight miscalculations and errors - 20/20

Does this plan guarantee the right to say no? - Yes, 20/20

Overall- 98/100 (A+)

Andrew Yang's plan

Is it a true UBI - Mostly, but the breaking of unconditionality to avoid cutting welfare and forcing people to choose is a crappy way to deal with the welfare issue, 16/20

Is it at or above the poverty line? - Adult is right below, no child benefit, 14/20

Is it regressive? - Eh, some aspects could be improved but it's not the end of the world, 15/20

Is the funding sound? - Eh, there's a $900 billion hole, meaning 1/3 of his UBI isn't properly accounted for, so he loses 1/3 the points, 13/20

Does it provide the freedom to say no? - Mostly, but without a child benefit could leave some dependent on the labor force. 16/20

Overall- 73/100 (C)

Only a slight uplift on score,  but enough to bump it up to the C range where it deserves. The fact is, while I was a little harsh on some things the first time around, looking at my reasoning, I believe my scores were largely justified. Yang does need to fix his funding a bit. He does do some regressive things and force people to choose between welfare and UBI. His main plan does lack a child benefit. I mean these are all flaws, and I kind of feel like my ratings were largely fair. Yang's plan is messy and IMO makes several amateur mistakes which can and should be fixed. Still, it's not D level, it's a C.

Allan Sheahan's plan

Is it a true UBI - Yes, 20/20

Is it at or above the poverty line? - Accounting for inflation, yes, but the child benefit could be higher, 18/20

Is it regressive? - Most cuts seem to come from welfare or existing tax credits, with him being fairly harsh and draconian in my opinion at times. 12/20

Is the funding sound? - Looks like it. 20/20

Would it guarantee the right to say no - Yes, for the most part, 19/20

Overall - 89/100 (B+)

This time I was more harsh on the right to say no by virtue of the smaller child benefit. Still i only removed one point because it wasn't a huge deal. His plan is fine, but it is regressive and it does take too many existing benefits to people away. Not just welfare was disintegrated, but stuff like pensions too if I recall. That didn't seem fair and I felt like I had to be hard on him there. Still, solid plan.

New schools' plan

Is it a true UBI - It's an NIT, which isn't really a UBI but has the effects of a UBI - 13/20

Is it at or above the poverty line? - It's literally right below it. 19/20

Is it regressive? - Due to its NIT nature, it does impose much of the effective tax burden on the poor in the clawback, which otherwise keeps costs down and accounts for roughly 70% of the funding based on what UBI plans normally cost. 15/20

They didn't explain how they would raise the rest of the money, so I'm gonna take points off like I did for Yang's plan. 13/20

Does it give people the freedom to say no? - On paper, yes. But I am leery the NIT format will maintain it over time and it will be undermined and turned into welfare - 15/20

Overall- 75/100 (C)

This one gets a well deserved category to the C category. It has some issues, the NIT format makes it more fragile in my mind, and it did have issues with regressiveness and not explaining aspects of funding well. But it is a decent proposal and this seems about right.

Oshan Jarow's proposal

Is it a true UBI? - Once again, NIT, 13/20

Is it at or above the poverty line? - Adult benefit is, but no child benefit. 15/20

Is it regressive? - Yep, 33% clawback rate, comparable to the other NIT plan, which would account for most of its funding. 15/20

Is the funding sound? - From what I can tell, yes, 20/20

Does it give people the freedom to say no? - No paper yes, but like other NIT plans, is potentially open to sabotage in the future, also, lack of child benefit could keep parents chained to the labor force - 12/20

Overall - 75/100 (C)

Like the other NIT plan it gets a C for its various flaws. The new school plan seemed a bit better due to the child benefit, but the explanation for funding was worse

Scott Santens' proposal

Is it a true UBI? - Yes, 20/20

Is it at or above poverty line? - 110% of the poverty line to offset a 10% VAT, 20/20

Is it regressive? - LVT aspect is divorced from income and ability to pay, meaning some people who shouldn't get hit with a major tax bill, will be hit with a major tax bill, 15/20

Is the funding sound? - Mostly, I wonder if the siegniorage reform aspect would work, but other than that, pretty solid. 18/20

Does it guarantee the right to say no? - Eh, LVT is questionable. Still, given a median home value of $300k, with 30% of that in land value ($90k), a 5% tax would amount to $4500, which is 1/3 of a UBI. It could keep some in poverty without a job or other liquidity to pay the tax. I dont get the fixation some have on LVT. it just turns the government into a landlord, which I see as opposed to indepentarian philosophy. Still, I admit I came down a little too hard last time. 1/3 of UBI disappears, so 1/3 of the points do too. 13/20

Overall - 86/100 (B)

A slight bump, and again, this plan does deserve criticism. LVT is, IMO, a horrible way to do UBI if you want to guarantee peoples' freedom to say no, but it's not as brutally bad as I made it out to be last time.

Evaluating shifts in scoring based on my new metric

My plan - 97 -> 98 (+1)

Yang's plan - 69->73 (+4)

Sheahan's plan - 90->89 (-1)

New school's plan - 68-> 75 (+7)

Jarow's plan - 68-> 75 (+7)

Santens' plan - 82->86 (+4)

Average- +3.67

All in all, regrading them did bump scores up on average by roughly 1/3 of a letter grade, enough to move the Ds into Cs. The plans that benefitted least were the ones that already scored highly, which isn't much of a surprise when I think about it. The plans that benefitted the most were the NIT plans that I was overly harsh on. NIT gets enough crap for various reasons from points taken off, and I didn't need to give the equivalent of a failing grade when a C or D would do more nicely. True UBI plans that had flaws like Santens and Yang's benefitted a bit too.

All in all, I really had trouble arguing with my previous reasonings for the scores when I read them though. If a plan does bad things to welfare, or imposes a 30-50% clawback rate when a 20% one like mine would suffice, I'm going to be critical of that. If the plan does not, in my mind, guarantee the right to say no, or doesn't keep people out of poverty, I'm going to be critical of that. If it has the weaknesses of NIT, I'm going to be critical of that. If a plan has problems, I'm going to be blunt about what I think those problems were. Perhaps my first attempt to grade these plans was a bit hard, but still, the flaws are flaws, and I struggle to argue against my own logic for why those plans deserve a sub par score. Still, none of the plans above really deserved Ds. I think the grades are more appropriate. UBI plans with relatively minor flaws got Bs, Yang's, with more serious flaws, got a C, and the NIT plans also got raised to C. None of these plans really deserved a D or an F. Even the worst of them are solid plans, even if flawed. So that said, I think this new approach works a bit better.

Are we doomed for a second Donald Trump term?

 So, scary thought. But the republican base loves Trump. At the recent CPAC conference, he won an easy majority for 2024 choices, with the only other candidate of note being Ron Desantis. The party is very united around him, and many still believe Trump was cheated out of the presidency. 

On the flip side, democratic support of Biden is a lot more tepid, with the numbers quickly declining from his honeymoon period as we enter the period in which we realize nothing is getting done. Normally, when we see trends like this, it spells out bad news for the upcoming 2022 mid terms, and could make 2024 a very close race.

Which brings me to another question, what is 2024 going to look like? It's too early to tell, but odds are, Trump is going to win the republican primary if he's healthy enough to run. Meanwhile Biden will have the power of incumbency if he runs, or we will likely end up with Kamala Haris, as she's being groomed as Biden's soccessor. But, Harris is questionable. No one really likes her, she's being propped up by the DNC in the same way HRC was, and some wonder if she can really beat a republican. Even Biden vs Trump again is scary. As we say, 2020 followed the same trends as 2016, with only a handful of voters really swinging the election either way. It took a global pandemic, and intense hatred for Trump uniting democrats behind Biden, and if morale is lower for dems in 2024, well, we could see 2016 flip back the other way. After all, anyone thinking 2016 was a fluke at this point is delusional. No, the public liked Trump, and it took record turnout on the democratic side just to oust him. And I'm not sure a lot of 2020 voters will be willing to support him again, especially those more marginally attached to the party like me and other progressives and independents. 

This is a nightmare, and is actually what Ive been wanting to avoid. The reason I stanned for Bernie so hard was because I understand the importance of morale in elections. We are in a sensitive moment of party realignment. Elections now will influence American politics over the next 40 years. The reason I went so hard for Bernie was because I understood if the democrats were to sieze the moment and be successful, they would have to unite behind a candidate with a vision, like Bernie. Bernie was never perfect for me, he was just a vehicle to destroy the conservative hegemony and shift the overton window. But the democrats, in pursuing the centrist route, ceded all of the populist energy to Trump, and doubled down on their boring moderate strategy. And now the village idiots in the GOP found their idiot king and practically deify the guy. Now we got half the country willing to fall on their sword for Trump, and a flundering democratic party that will only win elections, kinda, when the GOP really flops. Because no one actually likes the democrats. They tolerate the democrats. 

Was my choice to not vote blue no matter who wrong? I wouldnt even say it was. While I clearly miscalculated the idea that people would actually LIKE trump so much despite him being such a horrifically bad president (I thought they would recoil in horror and move left en masse like I did in 2012), honestly, the failure here is on the dems. If Hillary won, the GOP would have had a stronger argument in 2020 for the dems being bad, and they would've won then. Because the dems would have no morale. Ultimately, it really comes down to that. The dems are hell bent on remaining a boring centrist party no one likes, and they're hell bent on driving others who could propell them to ideological hegemony away, because they refuse to embrace ideas and policies that people actually want. And the GOP is always going to, by comparison, rile up their base and win independents who see the democrats aren't doing anything of note. It's a structural problem related to the party leaderships and demographics that they're pursuing. Even if elections flip here and there it's not gonna change the big trends, it would just cause the same events to happen in a different order. Dems win 2016, then lose in 2020 for the same reasons. And from there things play out similarly. The fact is until thee's a progessive movement with balls, rather it be of the Bernie variety, the Yang variety, or something else that resonates with people, the democrats are just destined to remain the "moon" party, because the party leadership sure as hell isn't willing to fight for anything, rather than remaining in charge and denying others the opportunity to change the country for the better. 

So thanks Hillary, thanks Chuck Schumer, thanks Obama. You blew it. You screwed this generation out of their chance at actually changing american society for the better and dragging us kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Because of you guys, Trump is the kingmaker of the GOP, he has the populist energy, and we never got anywhere, because we get stuck with boring and milquetoast candidates no one actually wants. Unless something changes, we're gonna be stuck doing this for 40 years. The democrats might have won the battle in 2020, but they're losing the war. It's like 1976 all over again. Dems saved their floundering coalition only to blow it in 1980. And while Biden isn't anywhere near as inept as carter, he's not exactly effective either. The effect may be the same. People want action, they don't wanna hear that you can't doo this or can't do that because blah blah blah Manchin, blah blah blah,, parliamentarian. They want action and outside of the child tax credit (aka knock off UBI for kids) and some executive orders, he hasn't done much of note.

That said, I expect 2022 to be a bloodbath for the democrats, with 2024 being a 2020 rematch, with the emergy going the opposite way. This doesn't look good. 

Should we consider any cash payouts UBI?

 So, I've been noticing a new controversy going on in UBI communities, and this is whether recent actions from the Biden administration, and the like, should be considered a UBI. This issue reminds me a lot of the general feel of the differences among people within the democratic party. You got people who are purists who want to only have the most strict definitions of UBI count as UBI, and people who are more "pragmatic" who think we can incrementally get UBI via back door means like these tax credits.

As someone who tends to be more purist on issues, I tend to have a fairly strict idea of UBI. However, I am willing to admit that UBI exists on a spectrum. And that said, I'm going to go over the spectrum. 

So what is a UBI?

Well, a UBI, or universal basic income, is a policy intended to give people cash monthly. It's intended to be universal, in that everyone gets it with few to no precondiitions, it's basic, meaning it's intended to meet peoples' basic needs, and it's an income, meaning that it takes the form of cash.

I would argue that a true, ideal UBI would give every American citizen over the age of 18 (age of legal adulthood) a check of at least the federal poverty line, without preconditions. It would be given out by the social security administration or similar government agency, and it would be like getting social security. You get a check every month, or a direct deposit in your bank account, you cash it, and you go about your day. You get this every month until you die.

Is an NIT a UBI?

Ideologically, no, although it is very similar to a UBI on paper. Let's be honest, an NIT can basically mimic a UBI. Whereas a UBI would give people an unconditional check and there would be higher taxes to claw back the money, an NIT could, in calculating a person's income, give them an otherwise unconditional amount of money that scales with said income. But it's not really an unconditional amount because it's means tested. Still, to the end user, the effect could be the same. I could have a $13000 UBI with a 30% tax clawback, earn $15,000 a year, and have to pay $4500 in taxes, or, I could earn $15,000, and get an $8,500 check from the IRS. Either way, you're going to get $13000 if you dont work at all, and $23,500 if you do. 

But, despite this, an NIT is NOT a UBI in my opinion, although it's the closest thing you can get to a UBI without it being UBI. The thing if, if you go the NIT route, you are not really unconditionally giving people cash, you're means testing it based on income and calculating it. It has the same overall effect of UBI, but it isn't a UBI, it merely mimics it. 

An NIT also has a lot of negative trappings of welfare, of needing to constantly get your income recertified in order to maintain payments. It also runs, in my opinion, a higher risk of being undermined or sabotaged the way welfare was. Because it is welfare. Imagine if the next president added a job requirement to it. Or they made the forms longer to discourage people from applying. They could undermine the unconditional aspect of it very fast, and basically turn it into another means tested program. This is why I dont really consider NIT to be a true version of UBI. 

It's basically akin to the insurance mandate or public option alternative to universal healthcare. Rather than just ensuring medicare for all, it tries to cheap out and offer subsidies and care for the poor that phase out rather quickly once you hit the middle class. I mean you kind of accomplish what you say you're trying to do, but it's the less optimal way to do it and more vulnerable to sabotage.

Are tax credits/EITC UBI?

Once again, no. These are a step further removed from UBI. Tax credits like the child tax credit and EITC are knock offs of NIT, the way NIT is a knock off of UBI. Here's the thing, these credits are even more conditional, meaning they're not universal, often falling into narrow income ranges, and they often are far less than a UBI. Biden's child tax credit, for example, is giving parents $3000-3600 per child, if they earn less than $75000 a year. And while my own plan gives $4800 to children, with roughly $4600 being the poverty line for additional people in a household, without an adult UBI to accompany this, it's not even close to a UBI. You can't live on these tax credits alone, and they will probably be roughly a quarter of what a real UBI should be in a household (depending on living situation). And while the $75000 figure makes it almost universal, it isn't really universal. 

I know this will disappoint a lot of biden bros and yang gangers trying to suck up to the biden administration who claim it's a UBI for kids, but it really isn't. It mimics a UBI in some ways, but the amount is too low and there are still strings attached to it. 

And some tax credits like EITC are even worse. Many only apply if you work and earn income between a narrow range of income, with most not being eligible for an income. So it's pretty easy to see how quickly tax credits can become divorced from the idea of a UBI. 

Are partial UBIs a "UBI"?

Eh, I know I aimed for the poverty line with my definition, but let's be honest, Andrew Yang's UBI plan was $12,000, just below the poverty line. One NIT plan was $12,500/$4,500. Are they not true UBIs for being just below the poverty line? Well, I'd say they are. Being a dollar below the poverty line does not mean that they should be thrown out and not treated as a UBI. If you're just below the poverty line, I'd say they're UBIs by virtue of being "close enough". 

But that begs the question, how low can we go and still consider something a UBI?

Well, here's my thoughts on it. If you're within 10% of the target amount, you're close enough. Less can be considered to be a partial UBI, but we should be clear about the partial aspect. For example, I have backup UBI plans that are around $9000. They pass the true UBI standard in every way, but the amount is lower. But Im pretty clear, hey this is a partial UBI, I wanna make this higher. If you got something around 45-90% of the poverty line, where you're offering between say, $6000-11000 a year, yeah, that's a partial UBI.

What about lower amounts? Well, at some point you gotta admit it's barely a partial UBI. $1 isn't a UBI. $1000 isnt really a UBI by any stretch of the imagination either. I dont even bother with plans below say, $6000, or $500 a month, which is what the lowest pilots offer, and roughly half of what the good faith "close enough" standard is. 

What about Yang's UBI?

Yang's plan offers some interesting quandries into what a true UBI plan is, as he broke a few rules here as I'm laying them out. He had a $12000 UBI, which is slightly below the poverty line, but still within the good faith "close enough" standard I established above. But, at the same time, he had no child benefit. I would argue this is not really an essential part of UBI as child benefits are controversial for various reasons. His original plan also excluded seniors given they got social security, which sucks, as many seniors don't even get $1000 in social security a month. Thankfully he walked that back, but yeah, that was a negative aspect of his plan.

Heck, that's one thing I want to discuss here. Yang's plan had some interesting quirks. Rather than remove some welfare programs and run the risk of alienating constituencies for doing so, he did the relatively lazy fix of excluding UBI from those who got welfare. This essentially added an extra layer of conditionality to it that challenges y definition of UBI.

Here, I'm going to grade by intent. Yang is trying to make UBI as unconditional as possible, but ultimately, given the welfare system as it exists has to interact with UBI, UBI or welfare have to be scaled back somehow. My own plan is to remove smaller welfare programs and modify larger ones around the UBI, but Yang instead said "if you like welfare better you can keep that, but you'll forgo the UBI". It was a lazy, ill conceived approach to the problem attempting to simulate a similar outcome to what I and other UBI advocates want, but it did it in a bad way. Heck this approach was so bad it actually created a lot of ill will with progressives who framed his plan as "destroying welfare" and crap, which goes a bit far, but it is a lazy and poor way to do it and made it less unconditonal. 

Still, I would argue his plan is far closer to a true UBI than an NIT or anything else I looked at. 

Conclusion

So there you have it, that is my opinion on the whole "is X a true UBI" debate. As you guys know, on my big issues, I like my purity, as impure policies can have negative intended or unintended policy consequences. While an NIT is similar to a UBI, I dont believe it is a true UBI. It is a backdoor way of accomplishing the same result, but it has weaknesses a UBI policy would not. And once you get to tax credits and the like, you start getting more and more removed from UBI and more into conditional welfare and the like again. And this leads to flawed policy.

I know the neolibs and even some DNC bootlicking UBI advocates love to act like every cash giving policy is a UBI in some form, and some even argue if you pass tons of these small programs over the years you'll eventually get something similar to a UBI, but honestly, let's be honest, like everything else that comes from the moderate camp, you get crap that attempts to accomplish a similar result in a far less efficient way. And such policies aren't that good.

Now, that's not to say that compromise policies are always crap. We should take what we can get when we can get it. I created my grading scale for a reason, and that's to grade UBI policies according to how well they meet certain goals. If you get a passing grade, your plan probably isn't crap. But it's probably not ideal either, and we shouldn't mince words and act like highly incremental policies are some pathway to UBI. 

News flash! UBI trials are not going to be a full UBI!

Ive seen this argument a lot in regard to UBI studies recently, and its annoying, so I need to say it. 

Some UBI advocates are bashing UBI studies as not being a true UBI, because they're often not universal and given to a handful of people, often from a lower socioeconomic background. A true UBI will be given to everyone.

I don't know what people want here. To give everyone a so called "true" UBI, you would need to...implement a full UBI. And no private entity is ever going to have that cash. And even local governments cant do it. Only the federal government can do that, and it would cost $300 billion a month, as we know. While we could have, and in my brutally honest opinion as I've bashed Biden for this before, should have used COVID to promote a full on UBI trial, we could've funded one for 6 months instead of his stimulus/unemployment bill (of course given the volatility of the economy, any problems associated with work shortages and inflation would be blamed on UBI, which isn't good), virtually every other entity cannot implement a full on trial in this way. This leads to limitations.

If you're going to design a study, you're gonna have limited resources. This means a limited sample size. It means aiming for the poor people who would benefit from UBI most. It means going with an NIT apporach to simulate what a UBI would do. And these are all study limitations, dont get me wrong, any UBI study is going to have limitations. 

Really, I feel like this doesn't even deserve a post, but it deserves to be said, because some UBI advocates I've run into recently are getting very purity testy recently over trials, and that's just dumb. 

Congress proposes a UBI trial!

 So, I saw this article here, saying Bonnie Coleman (D-NJ) is pushing for a basic income pilot. It's also cosponsored by AOC and some others, which I will be discussing a bit more later. I seriously doubt this passes, but I like this. Essentially they want a trial of 12000 people with a 6000 person control in which a monthly UBI is given to people based on the fair market value of rent in their zip code. So it's not really a true UBI, but no UBI trial really is. Regardless, for a trial, this is amazing. The trial will last a total of three years.

I am very happy to see congress considering this. I always give politicians crap for not pushing UBI, and now they're pushing UBI. So I'm giving credit where credit is due. Also, AOC is on board with this, and since I'm tired of hearing from both the Jimmy Dore left, and from some pissed off Yang Gang, let's just say it, AOC is NOT a sell out. She's one person in a position of limited power and has to work around that. And the reason she ripped Yang for Israel was because she deserved it and liked Wiley, there I said it. But hey shes pushing us toward UBI now, so, let's not be too mean about it. 

I like this. I think it's a promising sign that the government is starting to take UBI seriously again, and I like the fact that it's looking at that.  

Why has COVID not radicalized me into a socialist?

 I saw someone, who is a socialist, ask this before, to those of us who are not socialists. And since I really should have written a post on the economic effects of COVID and how I believe I hold many of the answers to solving many of the problems. The fact is, the reason COVID has not radicalized me, is because I was already radicalized by the 2008 recession to understand the problems with capitalism. And the reason it has not turned me to socialism, is because I believe my own ideology solves those problems better. I find it weird how many people, upon dunking on capitalism, jump right on the socialist bandwagon and be like "we have to throw this whole thing out, and we need to go straight to socialism or some other ideology", when once again, I don't understand how socialism would really solve the problems better than what I have. That said, I want to discuss why I believe my ideology could do just as well, if not better, at combatting the problems of capitalism and COVID.

The gamestop debacle

No, I don't mean the reddit stock thing. I'm talking about something that happened the year before that happened. In the early days of the pandemic, there was a lot of panic about what should be done, and around mid March 2020, everything was shut down. In the days leading up to that, there were a lot of safety concerns regarding how COVID was impacting workers and whether they were at risk. Here in Pennsylvania, no one was scrutinized more closely than gamestop, which was reported to deny workers adequate cleaning supplies, and demanded workers keep demo stations for video games operational, despite them being potentil vectors of disease. Workers were in a hard situation. They couldn't quit, or they wouldn't be paid. And because in capitalism you need to work to get a paycheck to live, workers did not have the right to say no to work. Workers kept working in gamestop until governor Tom Wolf stepped in and ordered stores to shut down. But gamestop defied the governor, and the businesses remained open.This caused Wolf to revoke their business license, and to declare that people who refused to show up to work due to safety concerns could claim unemployment, finally giving employees a right to say no they should have had in the first place.

While Wolf's response was adequate from a mainstream liberal perspective, it had the hallmark delays that a liberal response does. Because liberals, just like the right, require people work to live, workers were at the mercy of the employers until the government, in all of its benevolence and wisdom, decided that the reasons for refusing to work were to be taken seriously enough to allow people to do so. So employees were at risk for a good week or more until the government decided to step in to finally give people the right to say no, in a limited fashion, in this instance. 

Honestly, if basic income were a thing, this need for such a delayed response would have been totally unnecessary. Because workers would be able to quit their jobs for any reason, and they would still have a basic income. Perhaps they would still take a hit to their living standard in the form of a loss of income from work, as they should. But, they would retain that lifeline no matter what, and would be able to make the best decision for themselves and their families. 

Employers always try to force workers to work through national disasters and emergencies. Having been down south in the summer before, I see cases where employers try to force employees to work through hurricanes and tropical storms, delaying their evacuations to make their owners a little extra profit. If always takes the government to step in and say "Im serious, get out" and offer exemptions before workers are free of their obligations, and that typically only lasts for the duration of the emergency, forcing people to come back to work after the storm as quickly as possible. Governments only grant exceptions to the obligation to work when they are forced to. And they often do so at the last minute, and only for the minimum duration necessary. This is better than nothing, but if workers had the right to say no and a basic income to fall back on, they would be able to make the decisions to quit and leave on their own terms, and come back on their own terms. Liberal capitalism only grants exemptions when the government deems it necessary, with a UBI, people have that right from the get go and it cannot be taken away. And that's the point. 

Unemployment overload

So, COVID came, all nonessential businesses were shut down, and millions of people were out of work. What now? Well, now unemployed workers have to go collect unemployment. And now the website, phones, and bureaucracy is overloaded with insane amounts of claims. I know it's taken some people weeks, if not months, to get through. The system was overloaded and couldn't keep up. This is a problem with conditional aid. You gotta go through their bureaucracy to claim it, and it's never a good experience. Long wait times and delays are common. This is a huge reason I dislike NIT style UBIs. Imagine the government needing to calculate everyone's UBI bureaucratically and needing to keep up with all of that paperwork. It's ridiculous. If you have a basic income, all of this is automated. The checks are designed to come in automatically, with the money going out of your paychecks automatically. Basic income automates the process. It doesn't matter how many people are in and out of work, people get the same checks regardless. 

And given how everyone is going on about how everyone should be getting monthly checks, while the government is largely unresponsive on this front outside of a couple rounds of stimulus, gee, what am I advocating for all along? Monthly checks. Speaking of which...

Moratoriums because people can't pay

I get socialists' disdain with mainstream liberalism here. I really do. The capitalist system is fragile, full of coercion and flaws, and liberals are proposing band aids that are the bare minimum, if they do anything at all. For most of the pandemic republicans were in charge, and they barely did anything to help people. And because money is the lifeblood of capitalism, when people lose income, there's a ripple effect through the economy. It isn't the lack of productivity that's the big problem it seems. It's the fact that people lack income. Because people suddenly found themselves with no income, and because the government wasn't particularly helpful, people began to owe rent they couldn't pay. The government established a moratorium on rent payments as a response. But this made the landlords freak out. They have mortgages to pay after all and without rent coming in, they can't. The moratorium on evictions didn't help either. It didnt mean tenants don't owe rent. It means they didn't have to pay it right then. But once the moratorium runs out in the near future, what of people who owe thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars? Oh noes, if only we had a solution for this. Oh wait, we do. Basic income...again. Admittedly, a loss of a job would still mean a loss of income, but it wouldn't be a total loss. I could see households going from $6000 a month in income to $2500-3000. This would soften the blow. It wouldn't fix the problem but it would greatly stabilize the system. And then temporary unemployment assistance on top of that would keep things even more stable.

The unfairness of conditional aid to the deserving poor

Weve  talked a lot about unemployment, but let's talk about something else with it. A huge feature of both Trump and Biden's response to the pandemic is to offer expanded unemployment insurance. Trump offered $300 a week on top of what is given, while Biden is offering $600. But this creates an inherent unfairness issue. Not working now pays more than working. And essential workers busting their hump aren't getting any of this and can't quit their jobs without good reason. This creates resentment. Some are being paid excessive amounts of money to sit and not work, and others aren't being paid anything extra and are forced to work in essential jobs they can't quit. Gee, if only there was a solution to this! Do I even need to say it? Yeah, UBI would provide a safety net both to the unemployed, and to those who work. Unemployed people would be more incentivized to work, and employed people can quit bad jobs if they want. And we eliminate resentment!

"No one wants to work any more!"

While I have yet to see any serious evidence suggesting work refusal due to unemployment, to once again make a theoretical argument, if we had a basic income instead of expanded unemployment insurance, people would have more incentive to work as they would be rewarded for work, and not lose their UBI in practice. Easy peasy. 

Conclusion

Look, I get socialists' criticisms of capitalism, and mainstream responses to them. They are garbage. However, like always, socialists misdiagnose the problems and propose extreme solutions with no clear solutions. The problem with capitalism is it coerces participation in order to meet basic needs. So people are dependent on jobs to survive, forcing people to work through a pandemic. And they need to rely on a fickle government to take the proper steps at taking care of people, which they don't for political reasons, and because bureaucracy is slow and convoluted. These problems could all be largely solved, with a basic income. With that basic check, people would have the financial stability to quit their jobs and make ends meet in some form, and pick up jobs if they want to later on. When we take making the right choices in this pandemic out of the hands of a fickle government and put it in the hands of the people, because the government takes care of people automatically anyway in this case, people are able to do what is right for them. And they will be taken care of, because we take care of them already.

I quite frankly don't see the need for socialism. Even more so, I could imagine the fact that decisions are left with a collective or with a slow acting government to be bad. I'd prefer to give people the freedom to make their own decisions. That's the great thing about indepentarianism. It maintains the economic stability of the left while giving us the personal freedom of the right. That said, why have I not really radicalized due to this pandemic? Because all this pandemic has done is demonstrate to me that we need a UBI.