Republican vs. Democrat
Right vs. Left
Conservative vs. Liberal
These are false battles, and those who perpetuate these modes of thinking are either misleading or misled.
I grew up in a conservative, Republican household, although I would not say that I nor my parents were politically active in any substantial way until recently. I listened to Rush Limbaugh for 20 years. I pretty well took for granted the “Republicans are good, Democrats are bad” philosophy. Likewise, goodness and conservatism were synonymous. If it was good, then it was by nature conservative. And if it was bad or evil, then it must be liberal. I saw these things as being on a spectrum matching the image below.
However, a few years ago I realized not all Republicans were good. Then I started to realize that perhaps most Republicans were not good. Then I started to realize not all Democrats were bad, at or least that some of them were right on some issues. I thus started to figure that there were Republicans that were not conservatives, and Democrats who were not liberals, but I still stuck with the idea that anyone who was a “conservative” was good, and anyone who was a “liberal” was bad or at best misguided.
But after my introduction to libertarianism, I realized there was a different way of looking at things, not from the perspective of left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, etc., but rather from the perspective of liberty vs. tyranny. Once I looked at things this way, I realized there wasn’t much difference between the left and the right, and that while there were some stark difference between conservatives and liberals (pro-life vs. pro-choice, legalize drugs vs. keep them illegal, gay marriage vs. no gay marriage, being some examples), this way of looking at things framed the debate incorrectly. I saw that so-called conservatives were just as eager as liberals to force their views on the rest of us. And so my spectrum of right vs. left was replaced with the graph below:
In other words, I now see both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, as being more on the side of tyranny, or forcing everyone else to accept their views, than on the side of liberty, which essentially says you can do what you want as long as you don’t harm me in person or property.
Once my perspective changed, my ideas about all sorts of government policies changed. Take illicit drugs, for example. As a conservative, I was against legalizing drugs like marijuana, because I believe smoking marijuana is wrong. I still believe it is wrong to smoke marijuana and I would prefer nobody else did either, but as an advocate of personal liberty I don’t see it being the role of government to be involved. I believe it should be up to individuals, families, counselors, treatment centers, charities, etc. to deal with the problem, and that government should merely get out of the way.
And as I’ve studied liberty, I’ve come to believe that it is not only right as a moral matter, but that it is pragmatically the best option as well. I see liberty (properly defined in my opinion by the “non-aggression axiom” which effectively says that the initiation of force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud against persons or property, is inherently wrong) as being the source of peace, prosperity, and general well-being, and coercion or force as being anathema to the same.
And so, while I still maintain my membership in the Republican party, because I see it as the most effective way for me to promote the principles of liberty, I no longer see the Republican party as a bastion of correct principles, even if I hope it may be someday. I no longer see the Democrat party as the devil’s spawn. I hope that the principles of liberty might spread into both parties, and that we can find true unity in the vision of a country where I don’t force my views on you, and you don’t force your views on me.
But how would this play out? At a start, we need to look at shrinking the federal government and restoring state’s rights. The federal government has become the tool for those who wish to force everyone to their point of view. By allowing each state to make their own decisions, we allow those who want to live a liberal lifestyle to have a place to do so, while also allowing conservatives to live in a place where they can enjoy their conservative lifestyle. We would promote experimentation, so that the best ideas would rise to the top, and bad ideas would fade away.
Try it out. Look at the world this way for a few days, and see what you think. Read a book like For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard. Like me, you may come to the conclusion that much of what you have believed with regards to politics has been wrong, and that you have a new cause.
Help me understand how state’s rights expand liberty. States can impose tyrrany just as easily as the federal government can. Do you believe that state level officials are any harder to buy off than at the national level? A smaller scale does not equate to more liberty. In my opinion, the argument that state’s rights create different types of ‘freedom zones’ for people who like ‘different kinds of freedom’ is a strictly conservative idea that you haven’t let go of yet. Freedom is a universal concept, and should have universal application.
Note, I was raised in the same type of environment as you, as believed that Jesus wanted a Republican president until I was about 20 and started opening my mind. =]
The real aspect that makes tyranny harder to maintain at a state level rather than the federal level doesn’t have to do with size, although I do think that’s a factor, it’s the matter of competition. It’s not that hard to move from California to Arizona, but it’s a lot harder, if only mentally for most people, to move from the United States to Canada or Mexico. Thus, if we give our federal government certain powers, there’s virtually no escape and people will live with a lot of intrusion into their lives and a lot of infringements of their liberty before they’ll leave the country. But if one state infringes on a person’s liberty and the one next door doesn’t, it won’t take much before that person will up and move to the more friendly state. States that don’t treat their people right will find they lose people and therefore tax revenues, plus the economy will suffer and the politicians in that state will get booted out of office. And so the threat of competition at a state level tends to keep politicians in line much better than competition at a country level.
Two big problems I find with this argument:
1) This presumes that outside interests are unable to buy and sell politicians on a national (or global) scale, which I would argue is simplistic and slightly naive. If corrupting powers are able to take over the legislature in one state, what is stopping them from taking over in every state?
2) It’s really not that easy to move from one state to another, especially if you have a family and/or are poor, and those kinds of people are the most susceptible to abuse from the powers that be.
Thoughts?
The question I would ask back to you is, is it easier to buy and sell one group of politicians, or 50 groups of politicians? It might be easy to do both, but which would be harder to do and maintain?
Likewise, with moving, is it easier to move from one state to another state, or from one country to another country? It might not be easy to do either, I just moved three blocks over the weekend and that was a major pain, but which is easier?
I feel like both of your questions are non-sequiturs. What is the ‘one group’ of politician’s that you’re talking about? Is it all of the state-specific senators and house legislators that write and impose federal law? Because that isn’t ‘one group’. It’s a vastly dynamic mass of individuals, all with unique personal interests. I would argue that there is no difference at all.
Same with moving from state to state. I submit that the difficulties involved in moving from California to Alabama are exactly the same as moving from California to Canada. Especially if you consider the reality you are proposing, where each state would have vastly different laws and requirements for residency.
Are you able to provide any specific mechanics around how state governments are less corruptible, or how a move from one state to another (specifically in the reality you propose) would be easier than moving to Canada? Or is all of this anecdotal?
The “one group” I’m referring to is the federal government. It’s true they are a dynamic body with unique interests, but, for example, are the interests of the senators more unique today than when they were chosen by state legislatures?
Canada is perhaps the easiest of all foreign countries to move to, but even moving there would be a significant hurdle for many. I can just up and move to Alabama and it’s no big deal. I change my address in a few places, I register as a resident, easy. But leaving the country isn’t just a change of address. If I want to escape US taxation, for example, I have to renounce my citizenship. To live in Canada I have to file to become a legal resident and what guarantee is there that my application will be accepted? Even superficially the process is substantially more complicated than a move within the United States. And even if we were to accept that it’s just as easy to move to Canada, that’s only one place of refuge, which doesn’t exactly provide robust competition for the US. Only if the US were surrounded by 50 other countries comparable in ease of movement to that within the US would we have a competitive situation like that within this country.
My point isn’t that state governments are less corruptible, or at least that’s not my major point although I believe it to be true–all other things being equal, which of course they aren’t so there are always exceptions. My point is that competition amongst the states provides a natural form of restraint on state politicians, and that lower competition amongst countries means there is less restraint on federal officials.
And in the case of someone buying off politicians, it’s simple math that it’s more difficult to buy off two separate groups as opposed to one. Yes, each senator and congressman is different, but if you want to get a law passed to favor your company in all 50 states, and the federal government has jurisdiction, then all you have to do is lobby in DC and get half of each legislative body and the President to come to your side. That’s no small feat, but compared to getting 50% of every state legislature and 50 different governors to sign off on it, it’s relatively easier. If it weren’t for the centralized power of the federal government, corporate and other interests that seek to gain a country-wide advantage through legislation would find their way considerably more time-consuming and expensive to navigate.
But anyway, let’s talk about you. You said you think freedom should have a universal application. What do you think the ideal setup would be?
I feel like you are using vagaries to disguise your weak position. The term, ‘The Federal Government’ is a red herring, and you are avoiding defining exactly what that is. You’re using a big scary platitude, just like all political pundits on MSNBC and FOX. The idea that states freed from the oppression of a federal government flies in the face of everything federal action has done to provide more rights to oppressed minorities, against the wishes of bigoted state legislatures and governors. Likewise, the statement, ‘I can just up and move to Alabama and it’s no big deal.’ is simply not true. You openly admitted that only moving three blocks was a ‘major pain’, but now you say that moving to a completely different state is ‘no big deal’. Which is it?
Your arguments are inconsistent. In your original post the one and only solution you provide is state’s rights. Which conflicts with your more recent statement of ‘My point isn’t that state governments are less corruptible’, which then you immediately defend by saying you actually do believe that. I feel you are clinging to a very old and very wrong idea that state’s rights create more freedom. Of course forgetting, (like all conservatives) that states rights were only invented as a mechanism to maintain oppression. Like all conservatives, you will predictably deny this historical truth.
I find it very interesting and revealing that you’re turning the conversation away from your own article to my personal beliefs. I most certainly don’t have perfect solutions, but neither am I writing articles or blogs proposing solutions that have no basis in political reality.
But even so, I’ll play ball. My main issue, whenever someone cares to listen, is that we should cure the disease and not try to treat the symptoms. The only way to do that is to address campaign finance, and get private money out of elections altogether. All elections should be funded by public money, thus putting the power back into the hands of the people rather than outside moneyed interests. I freely admit that I’m not learned enough to describe exactly what a public political finance program would look like, but if we don’t change the way our officials are elected, no amount of Federal power reduction will make any difference. My second (but much less important) solution would be senate term limits (in the ballpark of 3-4 terms), I think for obvious reasons.
“The term, ‘The Federal Government’ is a red herring, and you are avoiding defining exactly what that is. ”
By that term I mean the three branches of our federal government and their accompanying departments and bureaucracies, or that is, anyone with the power to set or affect federal laws, regulations, and policies.
“The idea that states freed from the oppression of a federal government flies in the face of everything federal action has done to provide more rights to oppressed minorities, against the wishes of bigoted state legislatures and governors.”
Each instance would have to be argued individually to come to any real conclusion. Suffice it to say, federal policies and actions have directly led to or contributed to the deaths of millions of US citizens, and tens of millions of individuals in foreign lands (Civil War, US involvement in WWI which led to Hitler’s rise to power which led to WWII, etc.). Where state governments have been immoral and corrupt (slavery, Jim Crow) and the federal government appears to have been the savior, we often neglect to realistically consider what would have happened without federal involvement (there are credible arguments to be made that slavery was already on its way out due to natural causes) or whether the path chosen by the federal government was the best one (any other option, such as buying slaves’ freedom as was done in other countries, would seem to have been better than killing hundreds of thousands of citizens and destroying a major part of the economy).
“You openly admitted that only moving three blocks was a ‘major pain’, but now you say that moving to a completely different state is ‘no big deal’. Which is it?”
In absolute terms any move is a big deal. In relative terms moving within the US is no big deal compared to moving to a foreign country.
“Your arguments are inconsistent. In your original post the one and only solution you provide is state’s rights.”
States’ rights isn’t the main thrust of this post. It was mentioned in passing, casually, as one potential place to start as a solution to what I believe is too much power concentrated in too few hands, which always seems to lead to power ending up in the wrong hands.
“Which conflicts with your more recent statement of ‘My point isn’t that state governments are less corruptible’, which then you immediately defend by saying you actually do believe that.”
That isn’t my main point. It’s a point, but not one I’m inclined to argue at the moment because I see it as being a minor point compared to the much larger point that competition leads to increased freedom for all parties.
“I feel you are clinging to a very old and very wrong idea that state’s rights create more freedom. Of course forgetting, (like all conservatives) that states rights were only invented as a mechanism to maintain oppression. Like all conservatives, you will predictably deny this historical truth.”
States’ rights existed before the federal government did. You’ll recall that the federal government was created by the states, and not vice versa. The states delegated certain rights and powers to the federal government while retaining others. What we have seen over time is that the federal government, which was intended to be subject to the states, has taken to itself more and more power as time as gone on, such that the states have now become subject to the federal government, which was not the intent of the Constitution.
“I find it very interesting and revealing that you’re turning the conversation away from your own article to my personal beliefs. I most certainly don’t have perfect solutions, but neither am I writing articles or blogs proposing solutions that have no basis in political reality.”
I’m not trying to turn the conversation away from my article, I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from because I’m not sure what points you’re trying to make which makes it difficult to have a discussion.
“But even so, I’ll play ball. My main issue, whenever someone cares to listen, is that we should cure the disease and not try to treat the symptoms. The only way to do that is to address campaign finance, and get private money out of elections altogether. All elections should be funded by public money, thus putting the power back into the hands of the people rather than outside moneyed interests. I freely admit that I’m not learned enough to describe exactly what a public political finance program would look like, but if we don’t change the way our officials are elected, no amount of Federal power reduction will make any difference. My second (but much less important) solution would be senate term limits (in the ballpark of 3-4 terms), I think for obvious reasons.”
I’ll address the second point first, which is that I don’t have a formed opinion on the matter. I’ve gone back and forth on term limits, and I see pros and cons either way.
On the other matter, I think you are misunderstanding the symptom as being the problem. Money merely follows power. Restore power to the people and that’s where the money will go. Increase the size, scope, and power of the federal government and money will go there instead. Pulling more power from the federal government and putting it at the state level is one step in the right direction. Another good step would be for much of the power states have to be pulled down to the county and city level. The more we can steer power to individuals and less to a centralized government, the better off people are. As long as there is power in government, that power will be purchased one way or another. The more power government has, the more incentive there is to buy it off and control it.
Public funding favors the rich, powerful, and well-connected and leads to restrictions on freedom of speech, which hurts individuals. Imagine you have a famous, powerful guy. A nobody wants to run against him. They are both given equal amounts of public money to run their campaigns with. Who immediately has the advantage? The famous, powerful guy. The no-name guy can’t raise more money to compete with the rich guy’s fame, because he’s restricted by the campaign finance laws that purport to make the election “fair”. Instead of making it fair, it has made the election decidedly unfair.
Now, imagine that the rich guy has a friend who owns NBC. He doesn’t have to buy advertising, because his friend will run positive ads for him and negative ads against his no-name competitor. So you say “Fine, let’s not allow campaign advertising.” So now the guy at NBC doesn’t run ads for his friend or against his competitor, instead he just has his journalists run positive stories about his friend and negative ones about his friend’s opponent under the guise of “news”. So you say “Let’s not allow any political news during the campaign” but if you’re not going to allow it at NBC, that means you can’t allow it anywhere, from the biggest news organization to the smallest blogger, unless it’s purchased using the public funds. The consequence here is that we have killed free speech, and the no-name guy is still at a disadvantage.
The only way to give the no-name guy a chance is to have no restrictions. Let anyone or anything spend as much money as they want, wherever they want, whenever they want. This way the no-name guy can go find a rich benefactor of his own so that he can compete with the other rich guy. Or he can crowdsource funding as Obama did and as Ron Paul is doing by soliciting small donations from a larger number of contributors. It is only freedom that gives the no-name guy the opportunity to have a fair fight. But if there weren’t so much power in government to be bought, this would be a non-issue anyway.
It sounds to me like we have different philosophies about the role of government due in part to differing assumptions about the people who run government. If I understand you correctly, you see government as being what keeps all of us in line and keeps bad things from happening, politicians as basically good people who want to help make the world a better place, and that without government we would have chaos. I see government as the cause of the vast majority of death, suffering, and poverty in the world. I see the vast majority of politicians as the worst people society has to offer because the worst people in society are drawn to the power government offers them. If we could guarantee that our politicians would always be angels, I’d be fine with centralized power, but since they are not, I believe in binding them down from mischief and putting as much power as possible directly in the hands of individuals to manage their own lives.
You are absolutely correct that we have different views about the role of government, but you are incorrect in the idyllic and unrealistic stance that you have painted me with. I absolutely do not believe government to be the solution to the world’s problems, and in fact I see one of the biggest problems with America as the people’s willingness to believe that their politicians are serving them and not their own interests. But I refuse to accept that trading Federal power for state power is the answer. There should be a balance, which was the whole point of the way our government was framed in the first place. I do feel like the current balance is much more even than most state’s rights advocates claim.
I actually do love the main point of your article (which is what drew me to it in the first place) and I greatly admire your efforts to free yourself from the traditional views of Right vs. Left. At the same time, we strongly disagree on the state’s rights issue. My main point is that I feel that you haven’t separated yourself from traditional conservative ideas as being good simply because they are conservative as much as you may think. But at the same time, I admit that I am probably in a similar place on the liberal side.
The true test is whether we (and others like us) can not only leave the house that we’ve been living in for years, but move into the street instead of camping out on the doorstep. Unfortunately, I don’t see the nation moving in this direction any time soon. Things, sadly, have not gotten bad enough yet to pry people away from their programmed ideas.