Liberal Talk Radio

Hi folks,

As you know, Bruno and I are out not just to take the country back from the Morlocks, but to reenvision the future in a way the is meaningful, progressive, and achievable. Here’s a piece I wrote about my political views a while back.

Thought some of you might find it interesting.

Matski

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I am a bombastic neo-liberal not afraid to take cheap shots against both left and right. The core of my liberalism is my belief that government has only two proper purposes: (1) To correct market failure and (2) To enforce contracts, including social contracts. In this I see myself the heir to Bentham, Mill, and their ilk. My own twist on this classicism is that I believe that MARKETS ARE SOCIAL CREATIONS, and, therefore, government has the right and responsibility to regulate them in whatever way it sees fit, given sufficient provisions for efficiency concerns, etc.

I’m very Rawlsian in my belief that the biggest challenge for us in America is to ensure equality of opportunity (inequality of opportunity being an example of market failure), and that makes me very pro-education, pro-transit, pro-universal healthcare, pro-development.

I’m anti-command-and-control, but pro-incentivization. You’ll never convince me that globalization is anything but good in its outcomes, if not always in its means. And progress is a fact that we must accept and deal with. The challenge is not to stop progress, but to manage it in such a way that we can live with its bad side (the chip in my neck is coming, like it or not – do I fight it and let Ashcroft decide how the system is set up, or do I recognize the inevitability of the thing and work to ensure that I can live with what happens?).

I believe that there are certain inalienable truths about human nature, which too many liberals ignore. Peaceful utopia is only possible with complete and perfect free love and absolutely no resource scarcity, but that’s not going to happen in my lifetime, so we must seek to channel the more aggressive aspects of human nature to more productive, or, at least, less destructive purposes. This is why I support both the continued manned exploration of space and the furtherment of sports.

I have some atypical views, for a liberal. Unions can be a force for great good, but too often are the willing (if unconsciously so) partners to large corporations hell-bent on improving the bottom line (unions help the most skilled, most employable workers most … or, in the case of the teachers unions, create an intolerable situation where we’d love to pay the position itself more, but can’t possibly stomach paying many of the individuals who hold the position more). I’m for the abolition of affirmative action based on race (if we continue to have a legal definition of – and benefit for – racial separatism, then we will always have a group defined as “the other,” c.f. Hannah Arendt’s discussion of “The Origins of Totalitarianism” for a rationale as to why this is bad) and I also find myself being more and more pro-gun (else, who will fight for the left in the inevitable kulturkampf?).

One more thing: I hope never to let my strong and deeply held opinions get in the way of my right and responsibility to learn and to change my mind when I’m proven wrong. I expect regularly to eat crow, and – in the context of my responsibility to the program – seek only to do so in an entertaining fashion.