rorschach

Rorschach's Journal - 07/12/2009

I've decided to take up the pen again and write. The past SG version kind of broke my heart when they changed to this newer interface and started over with a new database. All of my past journal entries were destroyed and I put a lot of work writing many of them. But several things have come together, leading me to try again.

So that also means that all of the people on my friends list, especially those who post to my blog, I will be visiting yours again...or at least trying to, once a week. Thanks to all my friends who have posted even when I haven't.

Well for the first journal back, I only have two topics on the table:


1) NIOBE!!! (my new crush! ...actually crush does not do her justice ) She's my number one right now, my only one and it feels great to belong to her.
More to come on this in future journal entries....



2) The American Liberal/Conservative label schism (part 1)

One thing that's been on my mind for years is this thing where people describe themselves as liberal or conservative. To me, politics and economics are hand in hand. As an economist, I feel that politics is merely one way, the non-militaristic way, of conducting economic policy. And all policy must be written and recorded since it's purpose is to communicate a general plan for everyone to participate in. In order for that communication to be effective, the leaders need to be able to talk in the same language that the electorate can understand and vice versa. But right now I believe there is a large divide in what two key words now mean: conservative and liberal.

In their original definitions, being "conservative" in terms of government and economic policy on a national scale meant a policy where government power, aka public resources, were usually stored and not used until "rainy days" and such, conserving them. And thus a "conservative" person was one who supported this government policy. And the "liberal" policy was the exact opposite, trying to spend every single resource and trying to maximize it's potential on the spot and at times even attempting to gain more resources and spending through all of them each fiscal year. And "liberals" were people who supported that sort of policy.

While those views are of methods that are diametrically opposed, usually the conservatives and liberals had the same goal, trying to make their society run as best as possible. And because of this common goal, both sides in America could serve their roles in government. I've always felt, after observing another similar, smaller scale government work (the country Trinidad/Tobago) I came to realize that while there are two different agendas between the two groups, the system wasn't a game of who won what election. Our government system was always a work of genius by the American forefathers because they built in checks and balances to make sure while each section of government had enough power to execute society's will, no section would ever gather too much power and unbalance the system. And the two parties also, when the system was healthy, also served the same general purpose. Each side got to advance the agenda of their constituents but could always be checked by the other side to not go too far and thus alienate the other sides. (In Trinidad, the two groups were the Africans who had been transported as slaves to the island to work and then later generations were given a fairly British education when they were free, and the Indians who migrated to the islands from India fairly recently. Both sides seem to win alternative elections, then while in office, do their thing, then inevitably they lose the next term to the other side who then takes their turn. And the overall government and society is very peaceful and relatively stable. )

However in the current political landscape, as voter apathy has grown, the two dominant political parties have made these two terms almost into brand names, where the word loses its original meaning and gets tagged with new meanings that are then injected into the public consciousness via a lot of spending on propaganda. So now "conservative" = "Republican" and "liberal" = Democrat. Ironically the original party names also have lost their meaning as well. As someone who considers himself usually conservative, with the ability to properly use liberal policy in its time and place with equal ease, I've found the so-called conservative Republicans winding up being more and more like liberals and often times the Democrats acting like conservatives! For example, most Republicans support the creation of certain laws that serve their special interest groups where making laws and thus making more government bureaucracy to execute, run and enforce those laws, which is a liberal agenda. And we all know what those issues are, like making abortions illegal, parts of stem cell research illegal, flag burning illegal, etc. And thus by opposing those laws, the Democrats are acting like conservatives. Legislating anything, including morality, is certainly a liberal agenda, using government power to run society and also to justify increasing the size of government.

*** To be continued, next journal ***