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Traitors!! Turncoats!!

by Prometheus 6
September 9, 2003 - 5:49pm.

Jes' funnin'…

In keeping with a promise I made myself I added dcthornton.com to the RSS reader. Today he pointed approvingly to a post by Dean Esmay, with whom I am unfamiliar, about why he's no longer a Democrat though he calls himself a Liberal. Fair enough…as I said when I first started blogging:

The short form is, politically most bloggers will see me as a liberal falling slightly left of Atrios. But I rarely think of myself in those terms. The way I tend to see myself is as this Black guy, see? Looking at the USofA from the perspective I have, I see particular issues from particular angles. Some things loom large to me that probably don't demand the attention of (pulling an A-list name out of a hat) Jeanne D'Arc, though she'd probably take the right position when the topic arises. Way back when the Conservative Culture Wars began, I had a guy tell me his Black neighbor certainly doesn't agree with the "answers" I suggested. I replied that might well be the case, but I'd be willing to bet we agreed on the questions.

This is a major reason I'd align myself with the left. The right isn't considering the issues of importance to the Black folks that need to be drawn into the political process at all. They are considering the issues they think will resolve the problems they see ? to the right, "minority issues" means "issues I have with minorities." A large component of the Black community feels the left, or more particularly the Democratic party, deals with us the same way. I've had that thought as well, but the fact is there is significant agreement on the questions between the political left and the Black community. At least the questions get some light.

So calling me a Democrat isn't strictly accurate, regardless of what the voter registration card says.Anyway, Mr. Esmay's points seem to be:
I think the big change for me came when I became a believer in School Choice. In reading about it, it seemed so logical, so fair, and so right.

Personally, I'm more concerned that students universally have the opportunity for a quality education. The No Child Left Behind bill has all the right rhetoric, which is why there was bipartisan support for it. It hasn't been funded as authorized, the teacher enrichment portions has lain fallow and the funds for the tutorial and student after-school programs have come up short. According to The Education Trust, which is a big supporter of NCLB, Congress and the administration has focused so much on accountability and testing that the rest of it has fallen all to hell. Democrats who supported the bill admit this; Republicans don't. This leads me to believe Democrats are more serious about education than Republicans.

Now, that doesn't speak specifically to school choice, but school choice isn't my issue…education is. If school choice can be shown to improve universal access to quality education, I'd support it. But that would mean there'd have to be enough quality schools (equipment, teachers, class size, we know how to make schools work…search around The Education Trust's web site and see) for all kids, which means we'd have to fix the public schools anyway. So why don't we just stop fuggin around and do it?

Because school choice isn't what parents want. Quality schools is what they want and if you give it to them around the corner from their house or in a magnet school, it's all good either way. In other words, school choice in an insufficient criterion on which to judge an education policy.

Mr Esmay also says:
I also never understood--still don't--the Democratic Party's visceral loathing for the idea of a missile defense system.

Well, for my self, the problem is THEY DON'T WORK. And you can't find a competent technologist who's not on the payroll to develop them who'll say it's even close. Budget for research, fine. But budgeting for a full blown system is stupid.

There's also a complaint about "all that anti-business rhetoric out of Democrats" and I'm not sure what rhetoric that is. Is taxation is inherently anti-business? I don't think so.

Then, Mr Esmay goes into the Social Security thing:
I'm also a Gen-X'er who has come to believe that the current Social Security System is broken, and needs fixing. Band-aids and lock-boxes won't do it.

Well, this post points to a Wall St. Journal article I can't read because I never paid the gatekeeper. But the part that's quoted says:

THE SOCIAL-SECURITY TIME BOMB could very well prove to be a dud. The doom and gloom red-ink budgetary forecasts of recent years have overlooked some astoundingly good news for the government: pensions, IRAs and other tax-deferred accounts should generate some $12 trillion in taxes by 2040. This mind-boggling pot-of-gold is larger, at a minimum, than the sum of the 75-year actuarial deficits in either Social Security or Medicare, according to Stanford economist Michael Boskin , who has written a pioneering paper on the subject for the National Bureau of Economic Research. We could end up with enough to offset both shortfalls, he says.

…not to mention pointing at a 131-page NBER working paper on the topic that, as suggested, should be taken…with a grain of salt…into account.

The last problem Mr. Esmay has, other than Democrats constantly complaining about Bush (a trait I share with them) is their complaints about cutting taxes on rich guys. Being great of spirit, he says he's realized that someone else getting a bag of money is no skin off his nose:

I'll be blunt: I've come to believe it's very selfish, very mean-spirited, to rail about "tax cuts for the rich." It's also counterproductive.

I just feel people ought to pay in proportion to the benefit they receive. Which could start a loooooooong rant about the value rich folks receive vs. that the middle class and those below the poverty level receive from the government.

My problem I guess, is that after I react, I check stuff out, think about it and make up my mind based on the results of my inquiries. It's not often my first reaction survives such an examination.

His post has several comments and trackbacks from other ex-Liberals. I may read them as well.

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Submitted by Kevin A. Hayden (not verified) on September 9, 2003 - 6:38pm.

Dean's a generally likeable guy who helped dozens of folks to convert to MT last June, for free. But I share your POV on the issues you cite, while his take on things seems amiss.I suppose it's reflective of life experiences. Mine is this: when it comes to self-protection, a workable missile shield would be great, but it's never gotten past the sci-fi stage and is enormously expensive to pursue to the degree proposed. It amounts to pork, not protection.Schools, I think, could do better with a serious deregulation effort. Literacy and equal opportunity are necessary regs but very little else. The bureaucratic strains limit good teachers from teaching time. Cost containment invariably strikes arts and music departments hardest, which for some students are more important topics ofv study than algebra. School choice, as proposed, further institutionalizes a two-tiered Ed system with the poorest getting less.And you hit the nail on the head about taxes. At the low end of the economic scale, my property gets scant protection because I have no property. FHA programs benefit the middle class, while ignoring the working poor. I receive some benefits from infrastructure expenditures and national defense, but very rarely do I find much else I gained from. Eliminating progressive taxation has NEVER proven a successful economic stimulus that I'm aware of.