Although I lean left, and I voted for Obama with lots of hope, I in no way blindly support his policies or rhetoric. There are a lot of flaws in him and his administration and I freely admit that, but I think most of that debate is a smokescreen. I think it is about both sides avoiding things we don’t want to talk about- because it makes us look bad, or because we are afraid there is no possibility of reconciliation. Who knows? Debating over whether he or his administration is at fault for a fatally flawed system ignores the greater point that most politically minded (young) people need to address which is

a)       How do we come to consensus on the things we can agree on (as an ideological basis for future policies) and

b)      How do we begin to tactically execute on those priorities in a way that balances freedom of individuals, some kind of safety net for those we deem to be unable to provide for themselves and deserving of some social support to enable them some dignity and the rights/ needs of the collective?

Politics has become so divisive- about how to beat the other guy, prove people wrong, take things away from one group so we can give it to another. But the reality is that we are all here together, and we do have issues that face us all and are better solved by finding common ground and then common solutions. There are collective action problems that must be solved together, and problems that when solved together are more likely to have positive and longer term solutions. At the same time it is unproductive (at best) to deny the individual as much power and responsibility for their own actions as feasible within a highly dense social population.

Both parties are now in bed with special interest groups in such a way that governance is almost impossible. It used to be that government was able to play mediator between factions within society who rightly or wrongly believed their interests to be mutually exclusive to other factions. At times government was able to help those groups find a common ground, and when they couldn’t both sides trusted them to arbitrate fairly for the best interests for society. Between campaign contributions and gerrymandering we have pretty well f*ed up the system we had working for us.

In terms of equality- I think is issue is less about the income equality, and more about the socio-economic level within which we think it is beneficial to have the majority of society exist. Once we have an idea about what that level is, there are a number of tactics that can be employed to attempt to bring more people to that point- but we haven’t agreed on that first piece. There are a lot of issues on the backend that make up the nuance- how much is any one individual or group responsible for their own poverty/ deprivation? Who has responsibility to change those circumstances- especially if we don’t all see ourselves on the same side? If I don’t agree with the moral choices they make how much do I get to dictate their behavior to balance the economic support I may be offering?

At the base level, any society attempts policies to contain chaos and anarchy: wealth redistribution, monopolies of violence and some form of bureaucracy are the main instruments by which that is accomplished but which nuanced articulation and instantiation of those policies we choose to use is undermined by the extent to which we are so busy yelling at and blaming the other guy for the things they are not doing…

Anyway… just a few opening thoughts 🙂

PS- I do think that pulling out random numbers from the budget about things we overspent on is both a red herring and unproductive but that might be the academic that still lives in my heart [response to a different thread]