Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

[Prologue edited for clarity.] Years ago, before my ideas went out of fashion, I went around calling myself a Liberal. I also frequently submitted posts for the Carnival of the Liberals, and still do occasionally. Sometimes I manage to sneak one in there. The Carnival was the driving force behind my beginning a series of long form posts (one and two) in which I began to sketch out my political thoughts in an attempt to figure out what it all meant. Enough time has passed since the second of those posts, that I feel rather radically removed from the younger me that wrote them. This post serves as a continuation of that project, yet picks up not where that different me left off, but instead from where I find myself now.

I AM NOT A LIBERAL. Certainly not in the postmodern United States where words have no meaning beyond their commercial utility, where “Liberal” means “Progressive” means centrist corporate imperialism with a friendly face, and the “center” is nowhere near the middle of the full range of political possibilities.

I’m a Recovering Progressive

Classical Liberalism, if that term can still be used meaningfully, may be onto something in emphasizing individual liberty, but loses the thread in its devotion to free market, laissez-faire economics. A condition which may very well work on a much smaller scale, yet does not obtain in a society such as ours, large enough to necessitate the establishment of a ruling class, which in turn manipulates market conditions to enrich a powerful elite, and then globalizes that influence through military force.

My Liberal/Progressive friends acknowledge this on some level. They are concerned that the system is broken and they want to fix it. But it’s worse than broken: it works perfectly; in accordance with the demands of the powerful. The People have been rendered utterly powerless. It cannot be stated in any plainer or more direct terms. We. Have. No. Power. In directing the governing forces of our political-social-economic system.

Add to this competition over the dwindling, soon to be scarce resources necessary for human subsistence, and the problem comes into clear resolution. Our current situation is untenable. This fucker is too big. Not “too big to fail,” but “so big it must fail.”

One cannot rely on Big Coercion* to insure (sic) healthcare for all. (Or low oil prices, or safety, or whathaveyou.) It is worth examining whether it is right to even request such provisions, when by doing so one legitimizes an institution that directly expends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military supremacy and conquest. The American Way of Life had a a good run there, but really, to quote myself, “Is it even right to ask for a bigger slice of the pie, when the pie is imperial plunder, taken through violence and exploitation?”

* It is appropriate to call it Big Coercion, when “big” has come to mean “evil” in the parlance of the postmodern commercial utility of vocabulary. Think “Big Oil,” “Big Insurance,” “Big Government,” and so on.

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If you like to think about the same things Your Montag attempts to work out in my Series of Unpredictable Length, I highly recommend doing this:

1. Go to the Word for Word Program Archives: The Good Society
2. Click on “listen to program.”
3. Listen.

That is all.

Here are some “truths” about our democracy. Well… here are some sentiments about our democracy that are seemingly widely held, or at least, often expressed:

1. Citizens are responsible for keeping themselves accurately informed of the issues and candidates.
2. Citizens are ethically obligated to participate in the electoral process.
3. If one doesn’t participate in the electoral process, one has no justification for complaining about the results.

But here is what Your Montag wrote yesterday:

[Allow me, Dear Reader to use the weasel-words "some say" here, so I don’t have to hunt down a quote to back it up…]

Some even say that it is unethical to participate in such an undemocratic arrangement, thus legitimizing it as a ‘free and fair’ election. [Stump Lane Archives: Clean Elections]

This time around lets examine the possibility of replacing “some say,” with “I might say.” (“I” meaning “Your Montag.”)

Rather than blindly accepting those three “truths” mentioned above, let’s take another look:

1. Citizens are responsible for keeping themselves accurately informed of the issues and candidates. — Yes.
   If one is going to vote, or otherwise participate in governing, then one should heed this sort of ‘buyer beware’ rule. And while it’s worth mentioning that one needn’t achieve full or complete understanding of the issues of the day in order to formulate an opinion, it is also probably worth mentioning that it’s a good idea to actually investigate and think about a particular issue before one participates in activism— whether that activism takes the form of voting, or signing a petition, or sending a message to those in power. You know, to make one’s activism meaningful.
2. Citizens are ethically obligated to participate in the electoral process. — No.
   In fact, when a responsible citizen comes to the realization that the electoral process is not truly representative of the best interests of the populous, it may actually become unethical to participate in, and help legitimize, such a process.
3. If one doesn’t participate in the electoral process, one has no justification for complaining about the results. — Again, no.
   The act of living in and accepting the benefits of our society— governed as it is by the institutions set forth in the Constitution —implies each individual’s right, nay responsibility, to monitor, steer, and, yes, even complain about our leaders, whether an individual participates in the electoral rites or not.

The two major parties in the United States have taken hold of the process. They have the power. They make the rules. They write the campaign finance rules and decide who is allowed to participate in presidential debates, for instance. They will never make a rule or decision that might run counter to the preservation of their power.

The “truths” discussed here— at least numbers two and three —seem that they might not amount to a truth at all, but rather a simulacrum of democracy: nurtured and perpetuated by those in power, and instilled in their subjects. Their subjects are our friends and family who, with good intentions, urge us to participate; but only within the narrow boundaries set out by those already in power. They are the friends and family (and I’ll admit I was among them not all that long ago, myself) who urge us to participate, but warn us against voting the ‘third way.’

How can one effect change, if forced to operate within such tight and strictly regimented constraints? If one is not allowed to effect change— or attempt to —can that situation be rightfully considered true democracy?*

* In this case, “representative democracy,” responsive to the needs and desires of The People; envisioned and passed-on by forefathers and Civics teachers throughout US history.

[It's not about liberalism/progressivism specifically, but let's add this one on to the Series of Indeterminate Length in which Your Montag lays out my political philosophy and opens it up to criticism by commenters that don't exist as yet.]

A second installment of our fledgling comic strip, if one can even call it that. But before you read on, read this post and do something about girls’ education for the holidays.

Stump Lane Comics: Episode 2

No, that’s not all. Keep reading! (more…)

[Part two of a Series of Indeterminate Length in which Your Montag spells out my evolving political philosophy; and you, Dear Reader, tell me if it makes sense, and whether it may be considered "progressive" or "liberal," as those are the terms I am wont to use in self-identification.]

Part one, Human Nature, Morality and Progressivism: A Layman’s View, began the series by looking at the subject in terms of — well — human nature and morality. It even had a bitchin’ explanatory graphic.

By way of a quick recap, I’d established three— whether they are the only three, or only the first three, I have no idea —tenets of “Montag’s Liberalism” and these were they:

1. An individual’s personal sovereignty should not be subject to government coercion.
2. Society should seek justice through empowerment.
3. A society that perpetuates power deficits in a segment of its population is not just.

The post ended with a promise to examine the drives and motivations that push us to fulfill our needs, and look at motivations that a liberal/progressive society would need to guard against. And the discussion in the comments ended with a concern raised by Your Own Fehlleistungen:

. . . You posit an individual who has the right to full autonomy, the right to determine one’s own ends (as opposed to being determined by external authority). With this idea of the individual in mind, my thoughts about sociality come from two directions: (1) how does the autonomous individual come to know others, to treat others in a way that respects their autonomy (“sovereignty”)? How do you know how to treat others right?; and (2) How can a cooperative society be formed from this collection of autonomous, inviolable individuals? I don’t mean these as questions-to-be-answered, but just as something to keep in mind as morality remains under discussion. [Emphasis added.]

Thank goodness for that last bit about not having to actually answer the questions!

Not to try and answer them outright, but…

I think an answer to F’s direction (1) would lie in having a mutual respect for others’ needs and desires; by holding as an ideal, some sort of simple moral code. Something along these lines, perhaps:

Don’t do to others what they don’t want done to them.

As for F’s direction (2), well, I have been puzzling over this one for, what, eight months now since that initial post. It seems like the First Tenet of Montag’s Liberalism may be problematic. Take a look at that sweet graphic again, for this part.

He’ll correct me when I wrongly characterize his concerns, but I think F sees as unavoidable the necessity for incursions below the “black line” (you’ve reacquainted yourself with the graph, right?) to satisfy the three tenets. I agree — if you’re gonna get all up in my grill and apply that shit to the Real World, that is. But— and I may not have known this at the time I wrote that post —the three (so far) Tenets of Montag’s Liberalism are goals. They are what a society that calls itself “liberal” strives for. I’m not sure the tensions F sees in them are problematic in a perfect, idealized liberal society. Which is to say, if everyone was empowered all the way up to the red curve, and nobody used their excess power to dominate others; and since the “excess power” area of the graph is larger than the “power deficit” area of the graph; through empowerment… blah, blah, blah… etc.

Hey, you got to have goals, so why not shoot for Utopia?

Yes, it is now necessary to look at why we aren’t living in Utopia, and account for real-world problems. (more…)

This post isn’t really a part of the Series of Indeterminate Length on my sense of what “progressivism” is, that began with the post on human nature and morality the other day, but I thought I’d delve into the issue of mine safety in the terms laid out in that post, and attempt to further hash out some thoughts on liberalism. (And, you know: take a break from blood-boiling outrage— and focus on something important in basic human terms, but has that been given short shrift as things like democracy, justice and human dignity are going up in flames.)

Earlier today we linked to a New York Times article on the current administration’s approach to mine safety. Starting with the two opening paragraphs:

In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.

Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days.

Your Montag is going to be very brave and strong here and avoid expressing the cynicism that makes me think the administration is following this policy simply as a default to corporate interests. The corporate interest in this case— the National Mining Association —thinks the administration’s approach is fantastic, by the way.

A spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, Carol Raulston, agreed.

“The [Mine Safety and Health Administration] agency realized in recent years that you can’t browbeat operators into improved safety, and this general approach has worked,” Ms. Raulston said. “The tragic events of this year have given everyone pause. But I don’t think it means we want to abandon what we have found works.”

Without going too far into the monsters corporations become when left unregulated and they adopt a definition of success based solely on profits, let me simply state that, to my mind, the non-browbeating approach cannot be trusted. It would seem to me that strictly enforced and severe penalties for safety violations would really speak to the corporate interests in the language they understand best: money. But I said I wanted to look at this issue in the terms outlined in the ‘human nature’ post. That is in human terms.

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Progressive politics? What do we mean?

That is the question posed by the host of this week’s edition of Carnival of the Liberals (#6), and one I am interested in looking at and sharing some thoughts with you, Dear Reader. However, there is no way in hell Your Montag can pull together all of my thoughts on this before the 10pm Tuesday deadline. So, here is Part One of a series of unpredictable length.

I’m a liberal. Just ask me, and I’ll tell you that’s what I am. But come to think of it, I haven’t really spent enough time hashing out what that really means. Repeated consultations of the Political Compass invariably confirm that my beliefs/attitudes place me well into the “Left Libertarian” quadrant, which seems like a fair assessment to me. Much of the material I read that is called “liberal” or “progressive,” more often than not, seems to jibe with my personal worldview and beliefs. But am I really a “liberal”/”progressive”? Are these terms as interchangeable as they seem to my mind? Perhaps I’ll lay my worldview on the table and let smarter people than me figure out what I should be calling it.

The only place I can imagine starting from to speak about my political leanings is with some thoughts on human nature and morality. Bear with me as I redefine words for my own purpose despite the words having perfectly workable definitions already. I’ll let it be known when I am doing this so you, Snickering Reader can both scoff at my ineptitude, but also decipher what it is I really mean to say. Hopefully.

Morality is a tough nut to crack. I’ll tell you I’ve tried, right here in this space, though I ask you not to read too much of it, because after the first page or so the whole adventure turned into an embarrassingly incoherent muddle, and has since stagnated out of my own shame and reluctance to go back and read the latest installment that I know to be a complete mess.

But enough of the self-deprecation and pity! I do feel like I have a good handle on human nature— How’s that for a hubristic statement? —so let’s begin with…

Montag’s Humble Theory of Human Nature: a graphical approach. (more…)