Monday, May 15, 2006
Am I A Liberal?
I’ve seen this “are you a liberal” test everywhere and thought it might be amusing to answer the questions. But do I answer based on absolute ideals and assume my answer encompasses the idea that things were rolled back to a position that makes the answer valid? Or do I answer in either a way that is realistic and practical but points us more in the right direction, or a way that accepts that if you’re going to go a certain way, then take it all the way and do it right? Hmmm…
1) Repeal the estate tax repeal: Estate taxes are evil. No.
2) Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI: No. This is government economic intervention at its worst, and then to put it on autopilot…
3) Universal health care: How about a market in health care? The government and the AMA got us where we are today. The lack of same is needed to make it right. But in the real world we are headed for universal health care and it’s not wrong to talk about how best to get there, even if it’s not where we should be heading and will be less superior to the hybrid mess we have now than a market would be.
4) Increase CAFE standards: No. How about letting the market function, rather than letting the government dictate what we should drive and what it should run on. How about letting ethanol, as well as petroleum, have a market. How about letting refineries and nuclear plants exist, and encouraging technology if only by getting out of the way.
5) Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice: As always, a state issue if a government issue at all, which it’s not. In the world as it is, sure, for the most part. In the world as it should be, the government and education wouldn’t intersect any more than would government and reproduction. As things are, abstinence-only education is outrageously stupid, like something an anti-human death cult might dream up.
6) Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code: Aren’t these mutually exclusive, and besides, who says so-called progressivity is good and right? There should be the minimum taxes possible. They should be on consumption before income, fees for specific services before consumption, and be less invasive of the general citizen’s privacy than the KGB’s NSA’s crazy compilation of phone records. I’ve sometimes called gasoline taxes my favorite tax, funny as that may sound these days, because it makes a relatively direct connection between provision of roads and payment for use of same. Not that the government necessarily is the only way to do roads, hard as that may be to imagine. A few days ago we were talking about how great the interstates are and an alt-history “what if” based on the feds never having built them.
7) Kill faith-based funding: You mean kill government funding of things the government wasn’t conceived to do? Okay. In the world as it is, not so fast. Does it descularize the government? Does it establish a government church, or favor one religion over another? No? What’s the problem then? Does it get help where needed at least as efficiently as alternatives? Yeah? What’s the problem then? If we’re going to steal people’s money and throw it around, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this.
8) Reduce corporate giveaways: What are corporate giveaways? Making roads cheap and plentiful so commerce can happen? Government recording of patents? A court system and stable system of laws for ease in doing business and resolving disputes? The fact that corporations are a government-sponsored legal structure granted a form of personhood and some legal benefits? Government sponsored or encouraged monopolies? Shall I go on? Some might say almost none of this should be governments job, and even that corporations as such shouldn’t be able to exist. Some might say we should interfere in business as much as needed to shape society into our own mental image. But they would be wrong.
9) Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan: Don’t you mean “eliminate Medicare and the Medicare drug plan”? After all, that would be part of number three, and an overwhelming contributor to the current non-market in health care. Real world answer would be “you mean it’s not? Why?”
10) Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions: The knee jerk answer is “duh, yeah.” Apparently there is more to this, legally, and the government that would go after them for underfunding has also made it impossible to do otherwise. In the real world… heck, in the real world it’s still nothing to do with the government, because it’s a contractual obligation between business and employee, or union and member, in which nothing should interfere.
11) Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana: Hell yeah, and the states should leave the people alone on same.
12) Paper ballots: Duh. Even if we’re voting electronically, it’s stupid not to have a clear and extensive paper trail.
13) Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies: And a gobbledy goo gah to you too. In the sense that daycare should be easier to get into as a business, so there is less regulation, zoning, etc. to contend with, absolutely. Funny how less keeps meaning more. Pro-family? No. Get away from our families, thank you very much.
14) Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes: No. Eliminate FICA taxes. Which in the real world must either be gradual or replaced by an adequate, all-encompassing consumption-based tax. This administration and congress missed such an opportunity to be transgenerational heroes.
15) Marriage rights for all, which includes “gay marriage” and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens: I said stay out of our families. Marriage is not a government institution, nor is it something for the government to meddle in. In the real world, then yes, but I’d rather see government out entirely. Certainly the feds have no place in defining or legislating marriage. Immigration, that’s a whole other topic that this only just nudges, but under the status quo, then quicker transition is to the good.
16) Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration: Absolutely. It was essentially written by the creditors for the creditors. At least, given the government sets law for bankruptcy in the first place, it should go. And if government’s role includes creating the legal structure within which people do business, having such a thing as law to handle bankruptcies isn’t out of place.
Others answering these rather arbitrary questions include Glenn Reynolds, Dean Esmay, Daniel Drezner, Megan McArdle, Stephen Bainbridge, and Pixy Misa.