Prometheus 6: The Promethean Position Paper or As Much as Necessary, But No More

November 06, 2003

The Promethean Position Paper or As Much as Necessary, But No More

This is an old post from the Blogger site. I'm resurrecting it as part of an explanation of why I've been ragging on Libertarians recently.

The other day I said the short story on my political outlook would place me slightly left of center-left. I believe it might be a good thing to go into the long story. Not all the way in; the complexity of "slightly left of center-left" is a clue that might take a while.

One reason I decided to write about this is that recently my daughter told me I'm a libertarian. I said something about a thought I had, and not talking about it out loud because people might think I'm a libertarian and she calmly said, "But you are a libertarian." This is the second time in my life I was told this, and it's not true. I'm not a libertarian, I'm just not. Even though stuff like this:

In praising the troops, President Bush implied as much: "Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before … You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American armed forces … Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope."

Hope! In the same speech, he mentioned faith and charity too, thus showing how all the virtues taught by God Incarnate are embodied in the act of blowing things up and killing people in distant lands. Now, this kind of language can be dismissed as boilerplate, but in fact it has repercussions in domestic policy. The advocates of big government seize on this to make the case for government to actively intervene in all aspects of life. If the armed forces really bring a message of hope wherever they go, maybe they should come to your town. If the world can be shown the might and skill of the American military, why shouldn't it be shown to America as well?

… strike me as the result of a reasonable thought process.

I also favor eliminating laws against victimless crimes. Sex and drugs have occupied a major portion of humanity's time since there was a humanity. People who want to get high or feel up girls in dark corners of the topless bar can do so pretty freely. Sure you risk your health, but if you take yourself out of the gene pool I have no problem with that. I don't like it when someone else takes you out of it. And by making them illegal you make them so profitable that you can fund wars, will shoot up the block, beat someone down for standing on "my corner."

Basically, I don't want the Procrustean Problem, where you have to make yourself fit in the bed you MUST lie in, even if it means losing fragments of yourself. The cookie-cutter Conservatism rampant in the national government has this effect, and sadly a lot of people are loving the hell out of giving up the outer edges of their nature because it makes them fit in so snugly.

Glen Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan have recently discovered the limits of the bed they've been laying in. Now, I'm neither a fan or a big consumer of either man's writing. They were, of course, among the first bloggers I ran across and among the first I left behind as ideologically incompatible with me. Sullivan, in particular, I found confusing. I find ALL Log Cabin Republicans confusing, even more so than Black Republicans. I mean, aren't these the guys that contributed money to the Dole campaign and he returned it? Aren't Republicans the guys who owe so much to the Religious Right^TM, which group thinks they are an evil influence, a threat to our bodily fluids and damned to perdition for all eternity? I can't read the work of so deeply deluded a person. It makes my head hurt.

But you couldn't avoid noticing the reports that Reynolds and Sullivan got savaged by Freepers for suggesting Bush's theatrics aboard the Abraham Lincoln this weekend were ever so slightly beyond the pale. Even as I couldn't help noticing a bit of an I-told-you-so attitude by many who posted that amazing statement of Sullivan's:

But what amazes me is the vituperative tone, and how many then accuse me of being anti-war, anti-Bush and anti-American. Me? Are politics so polarized that you have to either engage in hagiography or hatred of our leaders? Is there nothing permissible in between?

These men made the classic mistake many civil rights leaders have made: they confused being a spokesman with being a leader, having access with having influence. Sullivan in particular has to keep a very tight grip on the wolf's ears.

Speak as much as necessary … but no more.

This sort of behavior repulses the libertarian aspect of my political soul.

I'm not a full libertarian though, because I do not believe the government is the enemy. I believe the government is a very stupid, clumsy, sometimes overzealous friend, sort of like Marmaduke. There are collective needs that should be addressed collectively, and a government is the requisite instrument to do so. There are services needed, materials required to be a full participant in what the society can offer and I think a government is the means to establish the standard. Yes there should be a ground floor that no one should be able to fall through. Yes, it sounds like socialism, yes it's expensive, but 15% of our military budget is spend on outdated technology and plans that military experts say can be scrapped with no loss to our national security. TrueMajority suggests that vast sum be spent on:

Provide basic health and food to the world's poor: $12 billion
Rebuild America's public schools over 10 years: $12 billion
Reduce class size for grades 1-3 to 15 students per class: $11 billion
Reduce debts of impoverished nations: $10 billion
Provide health insurance to all uninsured American kids: $6 billion
Increase federal funding for clean energy and energy efficiency: $6 billion
Public financing of all federal elections: $1 billion
Fully fund Head Start: $2 billion

I'm selfish enough to let the impoverished nations thing and the world hunger thing wait until we have the poverty and hunger dealt with here. But other than that, I think it's an excellent list of priorities. Education, insurance, energy, free elections … all things the right are, irrespective of their propaganda to the contrary, trying to undermine the same way they've underminded civil rights, reproductive rights and all the other rights the Bill of Rights was referrings to in Amendment IX:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Take that, strict constructionists.

And right now, coasting on the rhetoric of the Contract on America, the Libertarian Party (and because of them, individual libertarians) are aligned for the most part with the fully-co-opted Republican party.

That's why I'm so dead set against being called a Libertarian^TM. Just as dead set as against being called Republican^TM, Conservative^TM or a Fundamentalist^TM. That's why I'm liberal, and changing my party affiliation from independent (meaning no party, not the Independent Party^TM) to Democratic^TM.

But notice the trademark sign is next to the Democratic Party's name too. I haven't forgotten what the party has been. I still feel the pangs of neglect. I am at the point of accepting "there are only permanent interests." I'll ride the tiger … but I'll have a knife at it's throat. Posted by P6 at November 6, 2003 04:33 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2209

Comments

Thanks for posting this. I've discovered that I feel pretty much the same way about libertarianism and about the issues that you mentioned.

Posted by at November 6, 2003 07:15 PM

As a long-time Libertarian, I want to comment on a couple of your statements.
-I doubt that most Libertarians consider the government to be the enemy. Those who would do away with all government are usually called anarchists.There is a small offshoot of the LP that are anarchists, but for the most part we recognize that there are certain functions that are proper for gov't, namely, protection of our nation's borders against foreign aggression, and protection of the individual against the use of force by others.
-Please reconsider your thought that most Libertarians have aligned themselves with the Republicans....I doubt that anything could be further from the truth. All political parties except the LP are inconsistent in their positions because they stand on pragmatism rather than principle, and because they have no clear moral philosophy. Example: they are for the rights of Americans to own guns because they have a constitutional right to do so, but are opposed to an individual's right to control what they do to/for their own body, giving domain over that body to a decision-maker in the government, which boils down to the use of force by one person/organization against another. So there might be certain philosophical/political stances which would be consistent with a Libertarian view, but for each of those there will be many more that are totally inconsistent.
-Head Start program: the information I have heard/read has convinced me that this program has been a dismal failure. Why throw more good money after bad? Use it where it could really help, as in the previous suggestions for better schools, food etc.

Posted by at November 21, 2003 05:42 PM

Specific to your points:
- If the majority of Libertarians aren't anarchists, then you need to stop the anarchists from representing you.
- My judgement that Libertarians are aligned with the right-wing extremists is based on your actions, notyour rhetoric. Pragmatic to the end, that's me…
- You're wrong about Head Start

Posted by at November 22, 2003 12:42 AM

Head Start is indeed a failure. That jumped out at me, in addition to the class size and funding issue. Funding has been rising with no statistically significant rise in quality. There is no connection between dollars spent and the quality of education in public schools. Private schools, on the other hand, have the traditional spending/quality curve you would expect in almost any business. Spend that $23BB you have earmarked for public schools on charter schools. That way the kids will get some results.

As for the Ninth, I agree wholehartedly (and think that criminalizing drug use is unconstitutional for that reason.) On the other hand, you can't forget the corolary to that one:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Education, insurance, energy... fuck them up in your state, not mine.

Posted by at November 23, 2003 12:58 PM

RE: Head Start - Do you guys even know what Head Start's mission is? I want to know this before I point you at the performance reports.

Posted by at November 23, 2003 02:58 PM

Yup.

Head Start and Early Head Start are comprehensive child development programs which serve children from birth to age 5, pregnant women, and their families. They are child-focused programs and have the overall goal of increasing the school readiness of young children in low-income families.

All of the independant studies that I have seen show that there is no statisticaly significant increase in the abilities of Head Start participants over non-participants when you control for income and race.

If you want to point me to internal Head Start reports, save them.

Posted by at November 24, 2003 01:05 PM