Magic Poriferan
^He pronks, too!
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2007
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- 14,081
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- sx/sp
Now, after my little intro, I guess should at least make a broad political statement.
This blog is not going to be about anything more particular than politics. In fact, because these things are essentially inseparable, there will be economics, law, culture, and even some thoroughly philosophical stuff in here.
But some things are definitely going to be mentioned more than others, and between my view of society and what's currently going on in the US (and in some cases the rest of the world), I'm probably going to talk a lot about a kind of movement, driven by an ideology, that I'm never quite sure what to call.
Libertarianism? Minarchism? Laissez-fairism? As of late, these kinds of things have been getting attention in the so-called Tea Party. But whatever it is called, there is a collection of beliefs with a high rate of coincidence that seem to be growing in popularity, rapidly in the past two years, and slowly for the past three decades. It is consistent enough to call an ideology, and follows enough trends to be called a movement.
Some of the main beliefs that seem to tie all of this together are as follows:
The most prevalent one is the belief that less government makes things better. Forget context, just take it as an absolute, universal role. Less government is better. The milder people are on this, the more they will account for context. Moderation vs extremism also determines how much less government there should be. For the real die-hards, there is minarchy, the idea to make the government only as big as is necessary to enforce some arbitrarily defined rights. The Tea Party seems to like people who come close to that in word (though in practice they are clearly hypocrites, every one of them).
This belief itself is of course comprised of various subsidiary beliefs that, if accepted, make the resistance to government seem to make sense.
High emphasis on self-reliance: This is frequently given a moralistic tone, that those who want "government hand-outs" lack integrity. This is this paranoid search for sponges, parasites, and free-loaders. There is opportunity for anyone who has virtues and works hard. Social spending, it is thought, helps those who won't contribute, hurts those who have true personal merit, and thus in general makes the society slow, dull, and inefficient. The laissez-faire folks who don't subscribe to this belief tend to have an unrealistic faith in charity.
Faith in the power of free markets: Oh, yes, market forces and the invisible hand. Capitalist economies work best if left to work on their own. The unfettered, default habits of the masses actually brings about the most dynamic, productive economy possible. Supply will meet demand. Companies will make the products and give the services that are desired, and in turn people will happily give back to the companies. And since we can trust that these people are rational (right?), this will never go horribly wrong. At the very least, if it does go wrong, it will never go as bad as it would if the government were foolishly trying to influence things with its narrow scope. So, no government regulation of commerce.
You can't legislate morality: I'm not 100% for this one, but this line of belief is the one the produces nearly all of the things that I actually agree with libertarians on. It is the only one I have any respect for. This is two ideas, really. One is that a large, official body doesn't really have the means to decide what is right and wrong for someone. This is basically a philosophical concept, and I don't think it's actually quite true. There is a degree subjectivism in what each person wants, but you can make generalizations and crunch numbers regarding a greater good. The second idea I agree with more, which is that attempts to enforce moral laws often fail terribly. Making drugs illegal, prostitution illegal, abortion illegal, etc. often aren't feasible and fail to be affective policies, totally irrespective of the rationale behind wanting to do them. Clearly, however, rape and murder laws fall under this logic, too, so the idea can't be taken to the ultimate extreme. Sadly, among the Tea Party, it seems that this belief is usually excluded while the previous two are included. Tea Partiers often do want to legislate moral codes.
I could go into more detail, but if you read into those three, you will find pretty much every other reason for hating government involvement, even the reason for hating taxes taxes. If there is perhaps one last thing I should mention, it's something that often overlaps with self-reliance but is technically different. That is an appeal to natural rights and negative liberty. There is always some arbitrated collection of rights (in America, it comes from the bill of rights, of course, though often badly misinterpreted), which are then defended on faithful principle from there. Here in the USA, I feel like a lot of people treat James Madison like he's freaking Muhammad and the bill of rights is the Koran. It is an article of faith that one must resist the governments attempts to make anyone do anything against what they are allowed (by your interpretation) in the constitution. This oddly sometimes because a bases for demanding lower taxes, even though there's nothing unconstitutional about high taxes. Some people just get the wacky idea that because it is (presumed to be) a part of the founding fathers' ethos to hate taxes, we should act like it's is constitutionally forbidden. folks do a lot of that original intent bullshit. As a final note, this one seems to frequently cause dissonance with that bit about not legislating morality.
Having said all of that, there are some common, though less pervasive themes among the anti-government clicks that have become some common and loud in this country.
Historically inaccurate regressivism: The desire to go back to a wonderful past that never existed. Much effort is made to show that we once had a less government dependent society, and it was better. The part about it being better is extremely debatable, while the part about there being less government depends on how far back you are going. If you go back 60 years, you'll be going back to an age of way more government.
Anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism: This one has become a more and more common part of the anti-government crowd. Make no mistake, there are minarchic intellectuals, a few on this forum. It is always fascinating to watch them defend the anti-intellectual elements of these movements (or just ignore that they exist) against their own well-being. It seems the usual reason for these sentiments comes from the belief that the ever evil government is in part controlled by a an exclusive, insular circle of elites and intellectuals (the elite part might actually be true). Thus, their self-interest cannot be separated from the monstrous government, and therefore only the common man will make the proper changes some day.
Delusional concept of the rest of the world:. This one, surprisingly, seems about as common among the intellectuals as it does the anti-intellectuals. This is many things, from a lack of knowledge of what policies other countries use, a complete mis-estimation of the state of living in other countries (typically an under-estimation of the more left-wing developed world), and an inherent distrust of anything suggested by, or that makes us more like, another country. This is pretty American. It seems that the patriotism and nationalism will always find a way to attach to whatever the trendy political movement is, and this case is no different. Still, I am struck by how badly it affects the small government in particular, most likely because the rest of the world seems to make a lot of their other ideas look incorrect (why isn't Scandinavia an unbearable dystopia? Don't expect a libertarian to tell you).
There are some other rag-tag ideas that deserve mention. Somewhere crossed between all the other thing above, you get commonly shared traits like not believing in global warming and generally being against environmental protection. Or not worrying about energy sustainability. Believing nothing is wrong with income inequality. Abandoning major technological efforts like the space program, etc...
Let's see, let's see. Is there anything I'm missing? For now I can't think of anything more. I may have just exhausted myself by this point.
[subject is continued]
This blog is not going to be about anything more particular than politics. In fact, because these things are essentially inseparable, there will be economics, law, culture, and even some thoroughly philosophical stuff in here.
But some things are definitely going to be mentioned more than others, and between my view of society and what's currently going on in the US (and in some cases the rest of the world), I'm probably going to talk a lot about a kind of movement, driven by an ideology, that I'm never quite sure what to call.
Libertarianism? Minarchism? Laissez-fairism? As of late, these kinds of things have been getting attention in the so-called Tea Party. But whatever it is called, there is a collection of beliefs with a high rate of coincidence that seem to be growing in popularity, rapidly in the past two years, and slowly for the past three decades. It is consistent enough to call an ideology, and follows enough trends to be called a movement.
Some of the main beliefs that seem to tie all of this together are as follows:
The most prevalent one is the belief that less government makes things better. Forget context, just take it as an absolute, universal role. Less government is better. The milder people are on this, the more they will account for context. Moderation vs extremism also determines how much less government there should be. For the real die-hards, there is minarchy, the idea to make the government only as big as is necessary to enforce some arbitrarily defined rights. The Tea Party seems to like people who come close to that in word (though in practice they are clearly hypocrites, every one of them).
This belief itself is of course comprised of various subsidiary beliefs that, if accepted, make the resistance to government seem to make sense.
High emphasis on self-reliance: This is frequently given a moralistic tone, that those who want "government hand-outs" lack integrity. This is this paranoid search for sponges, parasites, and free-loaders. There is opportunity for anyone who has virtues and works hard. Social spending, it is thought, helps those who won't contribute, hurts those who have true personal merit, and thus in general makes the society slow, dull, and inefficient. The laissez-faire folks who don't subscribe to this belief tend to have an unrealistic faith in charity.
Faith in the power of free markets: Oh, yes, market forces and the invisible hand. Capitalist economies work best if left to work on their own. The unfettered, default habits of the masses actually brings about the most dynamic, productive economy possible. Supply will meet demand. Companies will make the products and give the services that are desired, and in turn people will happily give back to the companies. And since we can trust that these people are rational (right?), this will never go horribly wrong. At the very least, if it does go wrong, it will never go as bad as it would if the government were foolishly trying to influence things with its narrow scope. So, no government regulation of commerce.
You can't legislate morality: I'm not 100% for this one, but this line of belief is the one the produces nearly all of the things that I actually agree with libertarians on. It is the only one I have any respect for. This is two ideas, really. One is that a large, official body doesn't really have the means to decide what is right and wrong for someone. This is basically a philosophical concept, and I don't think it's actually quite true. There is a degree subjectivism in what each person wants, but you can make generalizations and crunch numbers regarding a greater good. The second idea I agree with more, which is that attempts to enforce moral laws often fail terribly. Making drugs illegal, prostitution illegal, abortion illegal, etc. often aren't feasible and fail to be affective policies, totally irrespective of the rationale behind wanting to do them. Clearly, however, rape and murder laws fall under this logic, too, so the idea can't be taken to the ultimate extreme. Sadly, among the Tea Party, it seems that this belief is usually excluded while the previous two are included. Tea Partiers often do want to legislate moral codes.
I could go into more detail, but if you read into those three, you will find pretty much every other reason for hating government involvement, even the reason for hating taxes taxes. If there is perhaps one last thing I should mention, it's something that often overlaps with self-reliance but is technically different. That is an appeal to natural rights and negative liberty. There is always some arbitrated collection of rights (in America, it comes from the bill of rights, of course, though often badly misinterpreted), which are then defended on faithful principle from there. Here in the USA, I feel like a lot of people treat James Madison like he's freaking Muhammad and the bill of rights is the Koran. It is an article of faith that one must resist the governments attempts to make anyone do anything against what they are allowed (by your interpretation) in the constitution. This oddly sometimes because a bases for demanding lower taxes, even though there's nothing unconstitutional about high taxes. Some people just get the wacky idea that because it is (presumed to be) a part of the founding fathers' ethos to hate taxes, we should act like it's is constitutionally forbidden. folks do a lot of that original intent bullshit. As a final note, this one seems to frequently cause dissonance with that bit about not legislating morality.
Having said all of that, there are some common, though less pervasive themes among the anti-government clicks that have become some common and loud in this country.
Historically inaccurate regressivism: The desire to go back to a wonderful past that never existed. Much effort is made to show that we once had a less government dependent society, and it was better. The part about it being better is extremely debatable, while the part about there being less government depends on how far back you are going. If you go back 60 years, you'll be going back to an age of way more government.
Anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism: This one has become a more and more common part of the anti-government crowd. Make no mistake, there are minarchic intellectuals, a few on this forum. It is always fascinating to watch them defend the anti-intellectual elements of these movements (or just ignore that they exist) against their own well-being. It seems the usual reason for these sentiments comes from the belief that the ever evil government is in part controlled by a an exclusive, insular circle of elites and intellectuals (the elite part might actually be true). Thus, their self-interest cannot be separated from the monstrous government, and therefore only the common man will make the proper changes some day.
Delusional concept of the rest of the world:. This one, surprisingly, seems about as common among the intellectuals as it does the anti-intellectuals. This is many things, from a lack of knowledge of what policies other countries use, a complete mis-estimation of the state of living in other countries (typically an under-estimation of the more left-wing developed world), and an inherent distrust of anything suggested by, or that makes us more like, another country. This is pretty American. It seems that the patriotism and nationalism will always find a way to attach to whatever the trendy political movement is, and this case is no different. Still, I am struck by how badly it affects the small government in particular, most likely because the rest of the world seems to make a lot of their other ideas look incorrect (why isn't Scandinavia an unbearable dystopia? Don't expect a libertarian to tell you).
There are some other rag-tag ideas that deserve mention. Somewhere crossed between all the other thing above, you get commonly shared traits like not believing in global warming and generally being against environmental protection. Or not worrying about energy sustainability. Believing nothing is wrong with income inequality. Abandoning major technological efforts like the space program, etc...
Let's see, let's see. Is there anything I'm missing? For now I can't think of anything more. I may have just exhausted myself by this point.
[subject is continued]
