So, back when I first started this blog, I gave an overall summary of my views. And while this isn't the first article I've done on this, I do want to analyze this original article and see how I've changed over time. So this is gonna be me reacting to my second article ever on this blog where I outlined all of this out.
Since I'm going to be discussing primarily politics on this blog, I figured I would discuss my political views. I did this at great length in my original blog, but I'll provide a more condensed summary here to avoid having to port a lot of that stuff over later.
You know I've actually been going through my old stuff for another project. I kinda wish I had all of those articles. While I may not have seen all of them as important at the time, I maybe could have used some of them for it.
Long story short, the terms that would best describe me are "liberal", "progressive", "social democrat", and "left libertarian." There isn't really a single label that really encapsulates my views, but I'm trying to point out where I stand. On the political compass test, I generally score in the ballpark of -5, -5, which puts me in the bottom left, where I am left wing on economic issues and libertarian on social issues. I don't tend to take my views to extremes though.
Yeah this is one way where I've evolved. I now consider myself a "social libertarian" which is basically all of those labels combined. Each individual label is inaccurate, and I kind of struggled to define myself over the years.
I am a liberal, but I don't get along with other liberals as they're too moderate.
I consider myself a progressive but the term has some negative connotations that make it mean different things. In a sense the SJWs kinda coopted it for their own ideological purposes.
I'm a social democrat but I also tend to take things in a libertarian direction. Like, I'm a libertarian social democrat who leans into UBI. Also, my views might be closer to a social liberal than a social democrat as social democracy seems to lean more into socialism.
And for left libertarian, well, don't you dare call yourself a left anything or some "leftist" will be are "well are you REALLY left?" like they fricking own the term.
So yeah, social libertarian works. It also is closer to other ideological roots not covered here like indepentarian, based on widerquist's philosophy, or a "real libertarian" based on van parijs. While there are various kinds of social libertarianism, including some I don't really like, like, for example, georgism is considered a form of social libertarianism, largely the term applies to me. Andrew Yang's philosophy has been thrown into this category as "yangism" and my views strongly resonate with that. Kyle Kulinski's ideology also tends to be associated with the term, and more aligned with the "libertarian social democrat" label. His views are a little different than mine, but we're on the right track, with my views being a mix of both Yangism and "libertarian social democracy."
So yeah, good news, in the past 8 years, I finally figured out what to call myself! Yay!
Social issues
I am very liberal/libertarian on social issues. I'm pro choice, I'm pro gay marriage, sympathetic to LGBT+ issues. I'm for social equality for people of all races and genders. I support ending the war on drugs, the prison industrial complex,our massive spying programs, although I'm not an extremist. I might want to get rid of the war on drugs, and I might support legalizing marijuana, but I don't support a full scale legalization of all drugs; I just think we should focus on rehabilitation and save criminal penalties for the dealers. I also might support some spying programs, but they should only be done insofar as our constitution's original approach toward privacy and search and seizure allow. Essentially, with a warrant and probable cause. On some issues, I'm a little more moderate. I have mixed views on immigration, and support both more border security and a path toward citizenship for those already here. Same with gun control. I support fixing loopholes while also supporting some level of second amendment rights.
Literally 100% of this applies to me 8 years later. Or at least 99%. I'd say on drugs, yeah....for decriminalization but not sure full legalization. I'm basically all the right things, but as you can tell, I clearly don't take it to "woke" degrees. There's a liberal version of simply being egalitarian, and then leftists wanna basically go into the whole power structure thing and blah blah blah. Never been big on that.
I thought I'd consider myself more moderate on guns than 2016, but I guess pre...2019ish or so my views were a bit less clear as I always kinda believed in the second amendment but also believed in limitations on it. i guess now my views make more sense.
On immigration, my views still stand. We've discussed that more recently. I also am fine with biden's compromises even if it doesnt have a path to citizenship. I mean, the whole issue is low priority to me so it's like...whatever.
Economic issues
Economics is my main focus this election cycle. I believe that while capitalism is a good system on the whole, in the sense that it provides a lot of stuff, it is very deeply flawed and requires significant overhaul to fix. I largely support Bernie's platform. Higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, free education, etc. However, I do go farther in some ways. I believe we should implement a universal basic income to ensure every citizen has the ability to live without work. I see this as the only way to solve poverty, since jobs will never produce a good living for all, and I also believe forcing people to work is more or less de facto slavery and that it's unneeded in modern times and actually harmful. I'll port some articles from my old blog on this later.
As you guys can tell, I still agree with this, if anything I've evolved this stuff policy wise since then.
Generally speaking, I believe the economy is made for humans, not humans for the economy, and that we need to stop treating people as means and treat them as ends. Our economic system, while very functional, fails on many levels to do this and reduces human beings to mere tools for wealth accumulation. I believe this alienates us from our lives, and that the structure of the system ultimately benefits a few at the expense of the majority. My views are ultimately a mixture of pro capitalist views combined with some anti capitalist ones. I believe it's important to understand both sides of the story and use them accordingly. Meanwhile, our current system and mainstream ideology, even on the left, only tells one side of the story.
You know, when I say I was a human centered capitalist before yang came up with the idea, this is precisely what I mean. You see my original two premises these. That the economy is made for humans, not humans for the economy. The second one is a little less clear but still here. That work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Human beings are the ends. We treat humans as "workers" and valorize the act of work, when in reality work is just something we do to fulfill our needs. Fulfilling our needs is the important part, not work itself. And yes, basically, our failure to realize that causes us to be mere tools of wealth accumulation, and this fixation on work alienates us from our lives. This is different than marx's alienation. Marx's alienation is based on the structure of capitalism alienating people from their work....as if there's a proper relationship between humans and work. But for me, work is an inherent evil or negative, so to me there is no proper relationship. Eliminating work, or at least forced labor, is a core goal of my ideological system.
Still, despite that, I am somewhat pro capitalism. I've debated it over the years, even have been open to mild socialism before, but I just keep going back to capitalism for practical reasons, and because I don't believe the inherent structure of capitalism is bad as long as workers have an ability to say no.
As such, I'm significantly to the left of the current democratic party to an extent, but I would still say I'm largely to the right of socialism and communism. I believe capitalism is a necessary system to have at this point of time, and that we need to keep it. However, I am deeply critical of it and also believe that we need to enact some very serious reforms to make it work for the benefit of all. My ideal system is capitalistic, but also has a lot of safety nets, unionization, and even workplace democracy. Over the longer term, I would also like to see automation replace jobs, so that we can finally live in a post work world where we're free to do whatever we want to do. I don't see work as a good thing. I see it as a necessary evil and believe we romanticize it too much. I think people should have the option to seek it, but I disagree with our current system of forcing it on everyone under the threat of poverty if they refuse.
Yep. I already covered this, and I spent a lot of effort explaining how to get there, by what mechanisms, etc. So I've basically expanded on this core ideology while remaining the same.
Foreign policy
I would consider myself a pragmatic non interventionist/pacifist. I am largely anti war, and I dont believe in involving ourselves in every conflict around the globe. Having grown up and seen the consequences of our interventionist foreign policy in the war on terror, I think that intervening too much militarily does more good than bad. Still, at the same time, the US is essentially to world security, and our presence in a lot of places like Europe and eastern Asia largely keeps the peace, and that if we weren't there, some rival powers like Russia, China, DPRK, etc. would step up and control the world. So I do have a streak of realpolitik in my foreign policy, and do believe some of our actions are done for the sake of national security, and that we have to do them to keep us safe. However, I also think we should be mindful of the consequences of our actions and only intervene when absolutely necessary.
And we can clearly see how this balance works out in practice. I mean, back when this was written, it was 2016. Since the late 2000s, the zeitgeist at the time foreign policy wise largely focused on our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And over time, I became more and more anti interventionism, believing our intervention was a net negative. I largely supported Obama's foreign policy, believing it had the right balance between strength and peace.
However, since then, we've gotten out of Afghanistan, closed that chapter in America's history, and during the Biden administration, the big foreign policy challenges are ultimately about containing Russia and China. And this is where that more realpolitik streak comes out. I'm for sending arms to Ukraine, while not fighting ourselves. I'm for aiding Taiwan. And while I'm mixed on Israel, let's make no mistake of my position. My problem isnt sending them arms to defend themselves. I see Israel as a core geopolitical security partner in the middle east. I just believe that they are currently acting unethically and that their behavior in their war with gaza is a bit too barbaric and bloodthirsty for my tastes. So keep in mind, I have a balanced, nuanced position there. I'm nominally pro Israel, I just don't like their behavior. but that doesn't automatically make me pro palestine.
But yes, my core foreign policy stance is literally identically here.
The political system
I believe in democracy. I think if we don't have a democratic system, the alternatives are oligarchy, a dictatorship, or anarchy. None of these options are preferable. Generally speaking, while people may be correct in criticizing many as being unable to make good decisions due to ignorance, if we don't allow everyone to have a say, we then have to worry about who does. And often time, this devolves into a group of people with an investment in the status quo imposing it on others regardless of their thoughts and interests. This leads to authoritarianism and a general lack of freedom. As such, I believe our system should be as democratic as possible, that representatives should be directly accountable to the people, and that money should be taken out of politics. I have an article in mind that discusses my ideas of how to fix America's political system that I will port over once my old blog is up.
Generally speaking though, I'm very anti authoritarian and am very critical of those with power. I believe power is necessary, but it needs to be treated like fire, with lots of respect and reverence to avoid burning oneself. Since power is necessary, we need lots of checks and balances to keep it in line, and we need the people to have input into who our leaders are. Leaders exist for OUR sake, not for their own. They are servants of the people. They are accountable to us.
Yes, my core philosophy is the same here. What has changed is, again, the times. In 2016, for me, this meant standing up to a hostile democratic party who took voters for granted and thought it could bully people into voting for it. I fully recognize the democrats have not changed in this regard. I just feel like Donald Trump is an even bigger and more immediate threat. At this point, we risk turning out two party state into a one party one like, say, Russia. So yeah. It's just a matter that in 2024, things are moving in the wrong direction, and I feel like I must shift to counter new threats.
Conclusion
You can probably get a good idea of where I am at politically from this post. All in all, I'm liberal, progressive, maybe even a social democrat or left libertarian. I generally align pretty well with Bernie Sanders, although on a few things I may be more extreme and tend to have my own left wing philosophy that may differ from him and the democratic party line. So I guess the best say to approach me is as, say, a left wing independent. I'm liberal on social issues, left wing on economics, a pragmatic noninterventionist on foreign policy, and am fairly skeptical of authority and support a political system accountable to the people.
Yes, again, my views are mostly the same, I just now have names for them and have made my stances a bit more nuanced.
But yeah. I sometimes look at how things have shifted since 2016 and wondered if I have changed, but looking at it now, no, I realize I am what I always have been. My views are nearly identical, and while they have grown a bit more mature since then, the same ideological basis exists.
That's the power of having a coherent worldview. I see the world a certain way and i interpret events within it for better or for worse. My core ethical and belief systems don't change much. I'm literally the same guy I was 8 years ago. I just have more mature and nuanced takes while having an identical political belief system.
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