Nick - Progress and Politics

The following synopsis is highly simplified and almost entirely untrue.

Way back when, some people got into a totally legitimate and consequential argument about how our government should be run. Some people thought that there shouldn't be much of a federal government and local districts should make their own rules. They were called conservatives, because they wanted to conservatively apply a federal government. Then there were people who thought that a strong unified government would best suit the people's interests, and these were called liberals because they wanted to liberally apply a federal government. This argument was more or less resolved by compromise, but people still held onto their opinions on how things should have turned out.

So naturally the two sides moved on to other things to argue about. And pretty soon they chose leaders and became what we call "parties." And the parties changed their views and got all contorted and twisted around and flipped sides several times. Even though our republican and democratic parties have the same names today as they did a long time ago, they have evolved to no longer resemble their ancient selves.

So now we have liberals and conservatives, but the words don't mean what they used to. Gone are the days of debating the application of federal government; neither mainstream party would be willing to change that now. Instead we see the words applied to other things: fiscal responsibility, social values, or regulation. But these don't always make sense. Many liberals claim to be "fiscally conservative," while not all conservatives are "socially conservative," and the conservative party spent more liberally than the liberal party while they held the white house.

So what we are forced to conclude is that these words simply don't mean much anymore. It's come to the point where the primary objective of either party is simply to sabotage the other party; it's become a battle for good standing with the people, waged with petty slogans rather than with policy.

And here is where my commentary on this whole thing begins: we've simply reached a point where policy doesn't sell. Nobody is interested anymore in debating matters of policy; nobody wants to talk about the merits of high-stake derivatives trading regulation because it doesn't get people interested. So instead they argue about whether that same regulation would be a noose around the neck of the free markets, because that's what sells. It's become a media-fueled war for the last word.

And this is all a shame because I think that most normal people who identify with the republican or democratic party could agree on ninety percent of policy issues if they were simply provided with the straight facts. I miss the days of debating Roe vs Wade, because that was a matter of policy; ("Where do the rights of one person begin, and another end?"; "At what point in development does a person have fundamental rights?") and now debate has turned into an all-out brawl, with slogans hurled and little to no fact behind statements made. ("Socializing health care would be akin to death panels."; "Tax cuts for the rich boost the economy.")

The reason I call myself "progressive," even though my views would be called more liberal than conservative, is that I'm not in favor of perpetuating this fight. "Progressive," signifies a want for progress; the ability to move on and make headway rather than continue the petty squabbles of other people. There are times to argue about details, but being progressive means fighting for the ninety percent of things we can all agree on. Things like removing corruption and corporate influence from government and introducing transparency. Things like finding the most efficient and practical health care system through experimentation and studying existing paradigms.

Most of this stuff isn't politics; it's just common sense. Somewhere along the line we lost our fact checkers, and everything is now coming through to us spun one way or the other. If we look at this stuff objectively rather than through the eyes of two competing parties, the answers are usually pretty clear. Once we train ourselves to read the facts for what they are rather than how they are sold, together we can begin to make progress.

-Nick.