Prediction
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: January 6, 2009
Roland Burris and Al Franken will both be eventually seated in the Senate.
We’ll see if I’ll have to eat my words.
BTW, I’m optimistic about the new Congress. If the Senate can actually do all of this at the beginning, we’ll be on the right track.
Taxes, taxes, taxes!
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: January 5, 2009
This post of Ezra Klein’s criticizes the fact that tax cuts seem to be the be-all-and-end-all of policy prescriptions. So, just for the record, let’s present the liberalofdoubt Unified Theory of Tax Cuts:
(All this assumes government spending remains equal)
If the economy is in a recession: cut taxes to stimulate economy
If the economy is growing, and there is a surplus: cut taxes to “spread the wealth” of the surplus
If the economy is growing, and there is a deficit: raise taxes to get rid of the deficit
Of course, spending won’t and shouldn’t stay equal (sometimes you need Keynesian deficit spending, sometimes you need new programs, sometimes you need to trim the bureaucracy, etc.), but otherwise I think the Unified Theory is sound, if a tad simplistic. And it shows that while there are many situations where you should cut taxes, there are some where you shouldn’t (i.e., growing economy + deficit, or growing economy + surplus when more government spending is needed).
Time to Backtrack?
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: January 4, 2009
Apparently, it might be in the best interest of the Democrats to seat Burris, but only if Franken wins.
Third parties
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: January 4, 2009
It seems like the third parties we have are more or less irrelevant, not just because they won’t win any important elections (did anyone seriously think Bob Barr had a shot at the presidency?), but because our two major parties are flexible enough and so prone to the formation of coalitions that special interests don’t have much of an incentive to form political parties of their own. That’s not a particularly original idea (there’s an old political textbook called Democracy in the United States which makes that point); but what I wonder about is why we have the third parties we have.
The Libertarian party I sort of get. Their position is not really represented in either the Republican or Democratic parties in a significant enough way at the moment, though some sort of realignment could conceivably make a nontrivial number of Libertarians decide that one of the major parties is good enough, and that would probably lead to the relegation of the LP to even more of a non-entity status than it currently has. It’s only important because, insofar as fringe ideologies are concerned, libertarianism a) is relatively popular, and b) shares enough things in common with modern liberalism and conservatism that it can conceivably pick up converts from both Republicans and Democrats.
The Green Party, and the Constitution Party, though… they flummox me. Basically, they are just leftist and rightist parties, respectively, which don’t think the major parties are ideological enough. Why don’t they just work within the major parties and try to influence them? Otherwise, they risk breaking apart the major party coalitions to an extent that the other party wins (see 2000), and you wouldn’t think that Green Party members particularly want Republicans to win, would you? Their support just seems larger than I’d expect, based on that calculation.
You know it’s a crazy day…
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: January 4, 2009
…when someone from the Corner is praising a story on the Huffington Post.
On hiatus
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: November 19, 2008
I am officially putting this blog on hiatus for the near future, as I am realizing that I really don’t have the time at the moment to blog on a regular basis. I still may post sporadically, but until I officially post that I am “off hiatus,” there will not be regular, consistent posting.
I do reserve the right to post links to interesting political articles and the like, so if you are at all interested in that, please continue to stop by every once in a while.
Unreasonable at Reason
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: November 14, 2008
I guess this sums up why I’m not a libertarian as well as anything: because it can lead to arguments that cutting off people’s healthy limbs, is, y’know, all right (with consent, that is).
I realize it’s unfair to the people making such an argument to call that position self-evidently absurd, but what the heck, I think it’s self-evidently absurd. The idea that anything is acceptable with consent leads to such insane results. We do, in fact, need to protect some people from themselves.
Seriously?
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: November 12, 2008
Via Reason, the EU removes part of an insane ban, on… get this… ugly vegetables.
I’m glad they are changing the rules, but who would ever come up with something that stupid in the first place? I mean, seriously.
The World’s Smallest Political Quiz
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: November 10, 2008
I cannot vouch for this quiz’s accuracy, but it sure is entertaining. And it’s short. Very short.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html
Here are my results:
Feel free to post your results and thoughts in the comments!
Proposition 8
Posted by: liberalofdoubt on: November 9, 2008
Amidst the historical importance of our election of the first African-American to the office of the Presidency, it is amazing that there can be another story which people are even thinking about. While the passing of Proposition 8 in California, being as it is only a temporary setback, is not a story of equal or even similar magnitude, the grave injustice which has been committed by the people of that supposedly progressive state is worthy of attention.
I am not a partisan Democrat. I have no qualms with voting for a Republican, if I think him or her to be the better candidate. Yet there are many reasons why I support Democrats over Republicans as a general rule. One of these reasons is the Republicans’ obsession with the issue of gay marriage.
Majority rule should never infringe upon minority rights. I’ve yet to see a convincing, non-religious argument against gay marriage that could not have been used as an argument against interracial marriage. Those who oppose the rights of gay couples to marry right now will be justly judged by history to be of the same moral caliber as those who opposed the right of President-elect Barack Obama’s parents to marry. I have no doubt of this.
President Ronald Reagan was correct: we should live in a color-blind, gender-neutral society. What those of his ideological stripe can’t seem to realize is that gay marriage is the logical consequence of such an ideal. We liberals spend too much time talking about how homosexuality is not a choice, but what we forget is that such a debate is irrelevant. Clearly there are gay people, and clearly the love they feel is not any different than that a woman feels for a man, or vice versa. It is also clear that marriage is a positive, stabilizing force for society. By keeping gay people out of such a grand institution, we are marginalizing their deepest feelings and hurting society’s goal of stronger families.
If you have not read Andrew Sullivan’s book Virtually Normal, I suggest you do so. It solidified my already strong support for marriage equality and informed my arguments for its legality, including the arguments I briefly presented above. The book was published in 1995, and we have made significant progress since then. However, the voters of California proved that we have a long way to go yet. It will take significant effort to convince the hearts and minds of America, but we shall be emboldened by knowing that we serve justice and virtue. So let us be civil and courteous to the victors in this battle, and put the fulness of our strength towards our eventual triumph in the war. Freedom, as it always has throughout this great nation, shall prevail.
Keep up to date!
- None
- liberalofdoubt: I just took the test again and got: Your PERSONAL issues Score is 60%. Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 30%. That's the problem with only having
- johnbisceglia: The U.S. government crossed a VERY serious line with PROP 8. This “proposition” threatened children’s sense of safety and belongingness in C
- liberalofdoubt: I think Barack Obama and Sarah Palin both give a certain energy to their respective bases that neither party has seen in some time. When you think of
