Contradictions

 It was an interesting evening at the beer discussion group tonight. There was an argument for the draft, and for minimum standards of living, but the two had absolute opposite arguments. Why reinstitute the draft? Because if enough people were dying or in danger there would be a public outcry loud enough to end the war. The argument goes that if rich and poor, smart and dumb alike were all equally drafted into the military, then we'd all have skin in the game. The problem today is that we have a standing volunteer army that is willing to go anywhere to do anything for any amount of time, but if ordinary citizens were exposed to the terrors of war, there would be a backlash the way there was for Vietnam. Without getting into all the reasons I disagree with this theory, it's more relevant to say the very next conversation was about a minimum standard of living -- that we need to have government safety nets that keep people from hitting rock bottom. The argument was for government healthcare, and the support of a minimum standard for the commons. These are incredibly contradictory arguments. One argues that we are being shielded from suffering, and that is leading us into prolonged warfare; but the other argument is that we should shield people from suffering to shield us from prolonged hunger. In one case we are talking about increasing suffering by sending people against their will to their death, the other argument says we should force people to earn their own living, but it is supposed to be the liberals who are the compassionate ones? There was an effort to make a distinction, that there are other incentives for going to work than suffering, but there are also other incentives for not going to war than suffering. Anyway, this was certainly an exercise in "politics" as I attempted to win this argument without actually committing to one perspective or the other; the other side simply lost through their own inconsistencies. Ironic that the apparent best move in the face of an obvious dilemma, over two very real issues, is best solved in debate by saying absolutely nothing of substance?

There was also an interesting discussion on the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution; democracy vs. republic, central government vs. confederation. We can see how badly the European Union has done with their loose economic confederacy, but that's not necessarily a glowing endorsement of a union. In chess, you can take several moves or a different sequence of mobes to get to the same spot with very different results. Likewise, going directly from a colony to a confederacy would have very different results from going from a colony to a union to a confederacy, especially if we hold onto the most beneficial parts of a federal government, but allow states to have greater control over their own rules and privileges, without giving up the constitutionally protected rights.

These arguments were followed by an equally one sided ideological argument: that we have a demand economy, supported by the fact that consumption makes up 70% of our economy. For one, our economy should NOT be 70% consumption, we are out of balance. But the most important point, that was a common theme throughout the evening, was that a one size fits all ideology cannot be dogmatically adhered to and applied to all situations. Perhaps that opens the door to contradictions, but it more importantly opens the door to responding intelligently to the situation. As discussed in the Malcolm Gladwell TED Talk, one size does not fit all, but rather needs can be categorized. This theory could be applied to the elevation of states rights to choose which policies best suit its own citizens. The lack of states rights also places blame for injustices on the Federal government, making it a distant, somewhat insurmountable enemy, causing every simple change to appear to be a tremendous undertaking.

Related to that last point, I have been thinking lately that the cure for public unions may be to put the unions themselves in charge. The problem being that the unions want something, and the governments want them to get it, making for an unstable feedback loop. If we want this system to become stable, give the unions control over the money they get, give them a budget that the state can afford, and let them do with it what they will under the agreement that there is no limited liability, and the union gets taken over by the state if it goes bankrupt. Of course, this opens the door to starving out and sabotaging the union by the government, but governments have a good grasp over how much funds are available in total. If all optional spending programs were organized in this way, then they could go through negotiations with each other over how much each really needs.

Other thoughts:

• Thinking inside the box - I saw a bumper sticker today for thinking inside the box, which had a picture of a Jesus fish inside a box. Maybe some inside the box thinking is what we need -- that is, more pragmatic thinking, and perhaps pragmatism is a prerequisite to finding your way out of the box. Outside of the box does not mean no rules; one must define, and understand the rules of the box in order to think outside of the box. This thought made me think of Rules for Radicals. I should make a post on that in the future.
• Two paths to change -- It is often the case that all it takes to make a change is the right person catching onto the trend. Developing the ground swell just increases those odds. You look at the Homeowners Bill of Rights, something hundreds of groups I'm sure supported, but pushed through almost exclusively by Kamala Harris -- one woman. What are all these groups that I'm involved in doing? Are we getting our point across to those select people with the power to enact change? Are we either winning over those people or becoming those people? No. I would better serve the ELM st. group by becoming a Manchurian economist and becoming one of those people of influence.
• Back to contradictions, I find it odd that the most seemingly culturally rigid regions are the ones most emphatically preaching the gospels of freedom. You can have a deep fried stick of butter, but god forbid two men be married. Does this go back to hating in others that which one hates most about oneself?

Vocabulary:
Platitudes - meaningless expressions
Clarion Call - a strong, clear request for the people to rise to an occasion
Scion - a young shoot or twig, esp. one used for grafting; also the descendent of a great family. Used to describe someone/something which is going to be used to start something new and great.