Justin Responds - Blog Sounds Good
Sorry, meant to say centre-right. That was a Freudian slip. The U.S. is centre-right for sure. I wasn’t intending to say that harm is a purely left-wing concern. Moral psychology indicates what people rate most highly, but only people with various forms of autism, etc. rate zero in any category. I would agree that liberal philosophy gets carried away on protecting people, which is why I prefer centrist approaches. What tends to be left out is the social and shared cost of ignoring protection because it “will never be perfect.” People who need protection and don’t get it create a cost for society in many ways that could be mitigated to everyone’s benefit. That’s not always the case, so everything needs to be analyzed from a cost/benefit standpoint—that’s where liberals suck—but going with the approach of not doing it if it can’t be done perfectly is short-sighted.
Welfare is an interesting topic. I think welfare makes sense as a very short term offering to get people bridged into another line of work or getting them funneled in to some kind of trade or education situation that becomes an investment for society. Coddling lazy people is dumb. We probably agree on this with the exception that I’d be more inclined to focus on trying to do it well, and you’d be skeptical that it can be done well.
On education, I tend to agree with you in principle. I’m very upset at anti-intellectualism in the US. In fact, this was an issue I had with the Republican presidential campaign this time around. I think your idea is to get everyone educated, but split them up into competency areas to optimize the approach in these areas. That’s sound. My idea (and this is a new topic for me) would be instead to recognize the value of not homogenizing everyone while also recognizing that some people just don’t belong on that track. Vocational school, trade-ships, etc. are viable alternatives. We should get under-performers out, but allow good and great performers to mingle because in my own personal experience there is a great pragmatic value in requiring each group to learn to deal with the other. I went through our Gifted and Advanced Placement programs and Honors in college. Gifted and AP were good because they were supplemental, but I still had to adapt to others around me. Honors, I didn’t like because they tried to house all the brainiacs together and it actually kept us from teaching down to others, which has a practical benefit to everyone. But, like I said, new topic for me.
To your joint blog idea, that’s definitely sharp. I think you’d crush me. I’m actually very new to thinking about politics. But I’d learn a lot and that’s my primary focus. I can set this up if you want!
