I blame that stupid political compass the libertarians are always trotting out.
For example, suppose I want to leave government spending where it is, but take fifty billion dollars a year from Medicare and spend it on student loan forgiveness and basic research grants. Which quadrant does that put me in?
We need to give up on the tired old categories and start over. We built parties around heuristics like "government spending bad" or "social programs good" instead of evaluating specific programs on their merits.
Ideologically pure libertarians are really anarchists. I've encountered people who advocate private police forces and private roads. People who don't understand that there is no difference in the harm that can be caused by de facto and de jure governments when they go bad.
But if you allow public roads and a public police force, why not public schools? Why not public universities, or public parks? Why not publicly financed scientific research? The answer to any of these questions is, at bottom, "because that program is better or worse than allowing private enterprise to handle it." But you have to answer that question on a case by case basis -- and it changes with demographics and technology and everything else.
And of course, you have to throw in the nature of coalition politics. Publicly funded universities are an extremely valuable program for college-aged voters and those with college-aged children, but seen as a complete waste of money by childless retirees. So sure, you have to build a coalition, but the existing parties exist as they do only by historical happenstance.
What could be interesting it to start a party with the following principles: First, for any given issue, evaluate what the majority of the population would want. Then, evaluate whether that position is manifestly unjust or based on assumptions contrary to the evidence. If not, adopt it as the party's position. Repeat for all issues.
Take the platform that party puts out, it's pretty much guaranteed to win a majority of the votes by definition. Then the other party can try to pick off a group of minority positions to form an opposing coalition, but any success they have is liable to just change the majority's view on that particular issue -- which changes the first party's position on it going forward from the date of the next election. And if you want to change policy, get on your soap box and convince the majority, which will chance the party's position.
It's kind of like direct democracy, but with a filter for extremely bad ideas.
For example, suppose I want to leave government spending where it is, but take fifty billion dollars a year from Medicare and spend it on student loan forgiveness and basic research grants. Which quadrant does that put me in?
We need to give up on the tired old categories and start over. We built parties around heuristics like "government spending bad" or "social programs good" instead of evaluating specific programs on their merits.
Ideologically pure libertarians are really anarchists. I've encountered people who advocate private police forces and private roads. People who don't understand that there is no difference in the harm that can be caused by de facto and de jure governments when they go bad.
But if you allow public roads and a public police force, why not public schools? Why not public universities, or public parks? Why not publicly financed scientific research? The answer to any of these questions is, at bottom, "because that program is better or worse than allowing private enterprise to handle it." But you have to answer that question on a case by case basis -- and it changes with demographics and technology and everything else.
And of course, you have to throw in the nature of coalition politics. Publicly funded universities are an extremely valuable program for college-aged voters and those with college-aged children, but seen as a complete waste of money by childless retirees. So sure, you have to build a coalition, but the existing parties exist as they do only by historical happenstance.
What could be interesting it to start a party with the following principles: First, for any given issue, evaluate what the majority of the population would want. Then, evaluate whether that position is manifestly unjust or based on assumptions contrary to the evidence. If not, adopt it as the party's position. Repeat for all issues.
Take the platform that party puts out, it's pretty much guaranteed to win a majority of the votes by definition. Then the other party can try to pick off a group of minority positions to form an opposing coalition, but any success they have is liable to just change the majority's view on that particular issue -- which changes the first party's position on it going forward from the date of the next election. And if you want to change policy, get on your soap box and convince the majority, which will chance the party's position.
It's kind of like direct democracy, but with a filter for extremely bad ideas.