Those are both things I see strong libertarian support for and little support outside the libertarian sphere.
People have this remarkable tendency to believe that they personally have thought through all their political beliefs, but everybody else is just going along with their political identity. I’ve seen a handful of people for whom this is the case; the vast majority choose their political identity based on their political beliefs.
Personally I think those who think politics are a mindkiller are just guilty of a jilted hubris; it’s easier to claim other people can’t change their minds than to accept that your arguments aren’t as universally compelling as you thought.
ETA: My point in this comment wasn’t the mindkiller parts, it was to point out that what somebody is inclined to believe is a “rational” political belief probably isn’t nearly so obviously rational as they would like to think—the opposition probably isn’t just mindkilled into opposing it, that is. Your “rational” political beliefs probably have decent evidence and arguments, which is why you hold them; don’t assume they’re slam-dunks without any decent counterarguments.
20% of Americans think the war on drugs is worth the costs. How many states just passed referenda legalizing marijuana use? This is not a fringe position.
I’m having a hard time finding polling on the justice system as a whole, but the supremes are around 40⁄40 split on approval/disapproval.
20% of Americans think the war on drugs is worth the costs.
That might be true. There are a lot of conversatives who believe that most government programs aren’t worth the cost. It however doesn’t mean that those people are in favor of legalisation.
According to the latest Gallup poll 50% still believe that marijuana should be illegal.
That’s just marijuana. When it comes to harder drugs even more people want them to be illegal.
First, there’s a difference between ‘favored by less than 50% of the population’ and ‘fringe position’. If it’s that popular already, your work is almost already done. And I don’t care too much about the 20%‘s reasons—it’s the next 30%’s reasons for their positions, that matter a great deal more.Rationalists working together might be able to achieve something of note in influencing politics on an issue if it’s merely unpopular to the tune of 4:1.
Opinions change. Based on evidence, even, sometimes. If the pot states work out, people might be willing to give it a chance. But it won’t happen if its working out is not pointed out.
Second, there’s a big difference between ending the war on drugs and legalizing everything. Simply reducing drug possession or use-without-a-vehicle-involved crimes to misdemeanors would be an enormous step in the right direction and would be way more palatable to the masses than wiping out the laws altogether.
I could interpret that statement to mean that libertarianism, which holds few political beliefs at all, is correct. I could also interpret it to mean that pragmatism, which holds few -solid- political beliefs, is correct. I could also interpret it to mean that unchecked dictatorship, which holds few solid political beliefs (indeed, all it needs is one), is correct.
Indeed, I’m willing to warrant that any given person will be inclined to believe that statement applies to their own political beliefs.
I know Democrats whose sole intersectionality with Democrat politics is gay marriage; they have, for purposes of political -isms, exactly one political belief. That is too many?
The loudest voices on the Internet aren’t necessarily the best representatives of the groups they claim to represent.
I know Democrats whose sole intersectionality with Democrat politics is gay marriage; they have, for purposes of political -isms, exactly one political belief. That is too many?
Do you mean the single-issue voters who say “I’m a Democrat because I am pro-gay marriage, even though I support these mostly GOP or Libertarian economic policies, but they are not nearly as important to me as equal rights for all genders”?
The loudest voices on the Internet aren’t necessarily the best representatives of the groups they claim to represent.
I have trouble understanding how this is related to the whole discussion. Are you replying to some implicit argument?
Do you mean single-issue voters who say “I’m a Democrat because I am pro-gay marriage, even though I support these mostly GOP or Libertarian policies, but they are not nearly as important to me as equal rights for all genders”?
No. I mean single-issue voters who say “I’m a Democrat because I am pro-gay marriage.” The “Even though” doesn’t even need to enter into it.
I have trouble understanding how this is related to the whole discussion. Are you replying to some implicit argument?
I’m commenting on an implicit fact which may have a bearing on the argument. The loudest members of political groups tend to be those who believe in the political group itself, rather than its specific goals. (Which we should expect; somebody engaging in political signaling isn’t likely to do so quietly, as that defeats a large part of the signaling to begin with.)
That doesn’t sound like they identify as Democrats as a specific political -ism at all.
If they’re registered to vote democrat mainly because of their position on gay marriage, and I’m guessing also a negative opinion of the Republican party, and describe themselves as Democrats if asked about their political views because it’s a convenient answer, that’s not really the same thing.
You confuse party affilation with political beliefs. It’s a mistake that comes from living in a two party state and having a media that tries to convince everyone that red and blue are the two political beliefs that one can have.
It’s very worthile to have a mental concept of political beliefs that goes beyond party affilation.
George Orwell would say that the media tainted the language in a way that makes it impossible to analyse political beliefs in your vocabulary.
I don’t think it’s a no true scotsman thing, although as I was writing the comment I did worry that I was veering into that territory.
How one defines a Democrat varies, and only some ways of defining it make sense with the sort of Democrats you describe, and I don’t think the overlap of “Democrats” and “people who identify with a specific political -ism” contains those. This will vary a bit depending on how one is interpreting “identify with a specific political -ism”. I think this is where the disagreement lies.
I could interpret that statement to mean that libertarianism, which holds few political beliefs at all, is correct.
Where do you get the idea that libertarianism don’t have many political beliefs?
A liberatrian can usually tell you that a particular government program is bad without looking at the merits of the particular program.
Take minimum wage. I personally don’t know whether it’s a good policy. There are theoretical market based arguments that it’s a bad policy.
On the other hand the published empirical evidence suggest that it’s no bad policy. But then the data we have isn’t that good. We don’t have randomized control trials of mininum wage laws.
I don’t have a solid belief on the minimum wage. I have thought about the issue and I believe that the evidence to decide just isn’t there.
No. There are many motives why someone might promote a policy even when he doesn’t believe the policy is effective.
I would even find it plausible that most people promote or reject minimal wage laws based on a notion of fairness instead of effectiveness.
There are libertarians who believe that the state has no right to force a employer to pay a certain wage. On the other hand you have progressives who thinks it’s unfair for an employeer to pay 3$ per hour to his employee and for that reason the state has to intervene.
Personally I think those who think politics are a mindkiller are just guilty of a jilted hubris; it’s easier to claim other people can’t change their minds than to accept that your arguments aren’t as universally compelling as you thought.
I can’t speak for everyone here, but I’ve had the experience of partially deconverting myself from a certain political philosophy, which was extremely… well, difficult is the wrong word, it usually didn’t take much effort or willpower or courage, but it did involve unwinding a tremendous amount of rationalization and defensiveness. I’m not trying to claim perfection now, either, but ever since then I’ve found it useful to remember how dogmatism feels from the inside when I’m feeling defensive about one of my current beliefs or when I’m tempted to try to convert someone else.
And that seems to generalize fairly well. “Politics is the mind-killer” doesn’t just mean everyone else’s politics. It means that your thinking on anything you have an identity stake in is automatically suspect, and that you’d better be damned careful if you want to make major decisions based on it. This does imply as a corollary that partisan (or otherwise identity-bound) discussions on the Internet are spectacularly unlikely to be productive, but “my politics are perfectly rational, it’s all the fault of those guys over there” is exactly the wrong message to be taking from it.
This does imply as a corollary that partisan (or otherwise identity-bound) discussions on the Internet are spectacularly unlikely to be productive, but “my politics are perfectly rational, it’s all the fault of those guys over there” is exactly the wrong message to be taking from it.
Orphan’s point is that this is precisely the message the OP seems to take.
That seems uncharitable. I can see there being issues that go largely unaddressed by most of the major identity groups out there but which nonetheless end up looking important if we view the political landscape through a different set of filters as OP suggested, and those shouldn’t run afoul of any of the pitfalls I brought up. They might be harder to find than OP’s implying, though; political factions might be slow-moving and broadly irrational, but they’re not entirely blind to potential unexploited planks.
The War on Drugs probably isn’t one: opposition to it is near-ubiquitous among the LW commentariat, but I think that’s because the groups most strongly supportive of it are badly represented around here. Judicial reform might be one, although I’d need to know which judicial reforms.
In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
What predictions would you make about a universe where this is the case for most people, as compared to a universe where it is the case for only a small but vocal minority?
In a universe where the majority of people did not form clusters of beliefs centered around a political identity I would be extremely surprised to find so many people whose beliefs happened to match up perfectly[redacted] with one of only a few political stereotypes.
Perfectly was a poor choice of words. I would expect there to be much more variation in the combinations of beliefs that people hold than is observed. People who favor more aid to the poor are likely to also be pro choice. People who are pro war are likely to be pro life (these are true for US politics at least).
It is not obvious why these particular beliefs should be connected. I think you could make a convincing “just so” story for the sets of beliefs as they are and for their opposites.
edit: in a world where people thought through each of their beliefs independently I would expect the ratio of numBelieves(pro war, pro life) : numBelieves(pro war, pro choice) to be a lot closer to 1 than we observe.
It could be that the clustering you observe is caused by some other underlying clustering, e.g., class, personality type, a smaller set of fundamental “axiomatic” beliefs etc.
In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
Or, at a slightly different level, it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to those they wish to signal affiliation with and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
Those are both things I see strong libertarian support for and little support outside the libertarian sphere.
I don’t think that’s true at all; I would say that most liberals right now, and much of the country in general, are in favor of at least some movement on both of those issues. Legalization of marijuana, for example, now has majority support according to recent polls.
How can one tell if one has thought through their political beliefs? One piece of evidence might be that those beliefs have changed, significantly, from the beliefs you inherited from your parents and ealry environment. Even more so if you can say, because I learned facts X, Y, and Z, this changed my political beliefs.
At the same time, be careful not to confuse beliefs about fact with beliefs about values. I still have much the same political values I had 30 years ago. However I have very different political beliefs than I did then, primarily as a result of learning certain facts about 20th century history.
How can one tell if one has thought through their political beliefs? One piece of evidence might be that those beliefs have changed, significantly, from the beliefs you inherited from your parents and ealry environment.
Of course, this could simply mean you’ve changed your political beliefs to those that are more fashionable.
Those are both things I see strong libertarian support for and little support outside the libertarian sphere.
People have this remarkable tendency to believe that they personally have thought through all their political beliefs, but everybody else is just going along with their political identity. I’ve seen a handful of people for whom this is the case; the vast majority choose their political identity based on their political beliefs.
Personally I think those who think politics are a mindkiller are just guilty of a jilted hubris; it’s easier to claim other people can’t change their minds than to accept that your arguments aren’t as universally compelling as you thought.
ETA: My point in this comment wasn’t the mindkiller parts, it was to point out that what somebody is inclined to believe is a “rational” political belief probably isn’t nearly so obviously rational as they would like to think—the opposition probably isn’t just mindkilled into opposing it, that is. Your “rational” political beliefs probably have decent evidence and arguments, which is why you hold them; don’t assume they’re slam-dunks without any decent counterarguments.
20% of Americans think the war on drugs is worth the costs. How many states just passed referenda legalizing marijuana use? This is not a fringe position.
I’m having a hard time finding polling on the justice system as a whole, but the supremes are around 40⁄40 split on approval/disapproval.
That might be true. There are a lot of conversatives who believe that most government programs aren’t worth the cost. It however doesn’t mean that those people are in favor of legalisation.
According to the latest Gallup poll 50% still believe that marijuana should be illegal.
That’s just marijuana. When it comes to harder drugs even more people want them to be illegal.
First, there’s a difference between ‘favored by less than 50% of the population’ and ‘fringe position’. If it’s that popular already, your work is almost already done. And I don’t care too much about the 20%‘s reasons—it’s the next 30%’s reasons for their positions, that matter a great deal more.Rationalists working together might be able to achieve something of note in influencing politics on an issue if it’s merely unpopular to the tune of 4:1.
Opinions change. Based on evidence, even, sometimes. If the pot states work out, people might be willing to give it a chance. But it won’t happen if its working out is not pointed out.
Second, there’s a big difference between ending the war on drugs and legalizing everything. Simply reducing drug possession or use-without-a-vehicle-involved crimes to misdemeanors would be an enormous step in the right direction and would be way more palatable to the masses than wiping out the laws altogether.
How many have voted on decriminalizing heroin use?
Are there -any- states which haven’t passed laws in the past decade making it harder to produce methamphetamine?
The first poll stands. The war on drugs as a whole is wildly unpopular.
People who have genuinely thought through all of their political beliefs generally have few (solid) political beliefs.
I could interpret that statement to mean that libertarianism, which holds few political beliefs at all, is correct. I could also interpret it to mean that pragmatism, which holds few -solid- political beliefs, is correct. I could also interpret it to mean that unchecked dictatorship, which holds few solid political beliefs (indeed, all it needs is one), is correct.
Indeed, I’m willing to warrant that any given person will be inclined to believe that statement applies to their own political beliefs.
A better interpretation is “if I identify with a specific political -ism, I have too many political beliefs”.
Taboo “-ism”.
Speaking of, don’t identify with tabooism, either :)
I know Democrats whose sole intersectionality with Democrat politics is gay marriage; they have, for purposes of political -isms, exactly one political belief. That is too many?
The loudest voices on the Internet aren’t necessarily the best representatives of the groups they claim to represent.
Do you mean the single-issue voters who say “I’m a Democrat because I am pro-gay marriage, even though I support these mostly GOP or Libertarian economic policies, but they are not nearly as important to me as equal rights for all genders”?
I have trouble understanding how this is related to the whole discussion. Are you replying to some implicit argument?
No. I mean single-issue voters who say “I’m a Democrat because I am pro-gay marriage.” The “Even though” doesn’t even need to enter into it.
I’m commenting on an implicit fact which may have a bearing on the argument. The loudest members of political groups tend to be those who believe in the political group itself, rather than its specific goals. (Which we should expect; somebody engaging in political signaling isn’t likely to do so quietly, as that defeats a large part of the signaling to begin with.)
That doesn’t sound like they identify as Democrats as a specific political -ism at all.
If they’re registered to vote democrat mainly because of their position on gay marriage, and I’m guessing also a negative opinion of the Republican party, and describe themselves as Democrats if asked about their political views because it’s a convenient answer, that’s not really the same thing.
Is that a No-True-Scottsman argument or is there something subtle I’m missing there?
You confuse party affilation with political beliefs. It’s a mistake that comes from living in a two party state and having a media that tries to convince everyone that red and blue are the two political beliefs that one can have.
It’s very worthile to have a mental concept of political beliefs that goes beyond party affilation.
George Orwell would say that the media tainted the language in a way that makes it impossible to analyse political beliefs in your vocabulary.
I don’t think it’s a no true scotsman thing, although as I was writing the comment I did worry that I was veering into that territory.
How one defines a Democrat varies, and only some ways of defining it make sense with the sort of Democrats you describe, and I don’t think the overlap of “Democrats” and “people who identify with a specific political -ism” contains those. This will vary a bit depending on how one is interpreting “identify with a specific political -ism”. I think this is where the disagreement lies.
Where do you get the idea that libertarianism don’t have many political beliefs?
A liberatrian can usually tell you that a particular government program is bad without looking at the merits of the particular program.
Take minimum wage. I personally don’t know whether it’s a good policy. There are theoretical market based arguments that it’s a bad policy. On the other hand the published empirical evidence suggest that it’s no bad policy. But then the data we have isn’t that good. We don’t have randomized control trials of mininum wage laws.
I don’t have a solid belief on the minimum wage. I have thought about the issue and I believe that the evidence to decide just isn’t there.
Do you think beliefs about the efficacy of minimum wage are necessary to promote or reject it?
No. There are many motives why someone might promote a policy even when he doesn’t believe the policy is effective.
I would even find it plausible that most people promote or reject minimal wage laws based on a notion of fairness instead of effectiveness.
There are libertarians who believe that the state has no right to force a employer to pay a certain wage. On the other hand you have progressives who thinks it’s unfair for an employeer to pay 3$ per hour to his employee and for that reason the state has to intervene.
I would interpret it to mean that people who have genuinely thought through all of their political beliefs aren’t very sure about anything political.
I can’t speak for everyone here, but I’ve had the experience of partially deconverting myself from a certain political philosophy, which was extremely… well, difficult is the wrong word, it usually didn’t take much effort or willpower or courage, but it did involve unwinding a tremendous amount of rationalization and defensiveness. I’m not trying to claim perfection now, either, but ever since then I’ve found it useful to remember how dogmatism feels from the inside when I’m feeling defensive about one of my current beliefs or when I’m tempted to try to convert someone else.
And that seems to generalize fairly well. “Politics is the mind-killer” doesn’t just mean everyone else’s politics. It means that your thinking on anything you have an identity stake in is automatically suspect, and that you’d better be damned careful if you want to make major decisions based on it. This does imply as a corollary that partisan (or otherwise identity-bound) discussions on the Internet are spectacularly unlikely to be productive, but “my politics are perfectly rational, it’s all the fault of those guys over there” is exactly the wrong message to be taking from it.
Orphan’s point is that this is precisely the message the OP seems to take.
That seems uncharitable. I can see there being issues that go largely unaddressed by most of the major identity groups out there but which nonetheless end up looking important if we view the political landscape through a different set of filters as OP suggested, and those shouldn’t run afoul of any of the pitfalls I brought up. They might be harder to find than OP’s implying, though; political factions might be slow-moving and broadly irrational, but they’re not entirely blind to potential unexploited planks.
The War on Drugs probably isn’t one: opposition to it is near-ubiquitous among the LW commentariat, but I think that’s because the groups most strongly supportive of it are badly represented around here. Judicial reform might be one, although I’d need to know which judicial reforms.
In my experience it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to them and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
What predictions would you make about a universe where this is the case for most people, as compared to a universe where it is the case for only a small but vocal minority?
In a universe where the majority of people did not form clusters of beliefs centered around a political identity I would be extremely surprised to find so many people whose beliefs happened to match up perfectly[redacted] with one of only a few political stereotypes.
What makes you believe their beliefs match up perfectly?
Perfectly was a poor choice of words. I would expect there to be much more variation in the combinations of beliefs that people hold than is observed. People who favor more aid to the poor are likely to also be pro choice. People who are pro war are likely to be pro life (these are true for US politics at least).
It is not obvious why these particular beliefs should be connected. I think you could make a convincing “just so” story for the sets of beliefs as they are and for their opposites.
edit: in a world where people thought through each of their beliefs independently I would expect the ratio of numBelieves(pro war, pro life) : numBelieves(pro war, pro choice) to be a lot closer to 1 than we observe.
It could be that the clustering you observe is caused by some other underlying clustering, e.g., class, personality type, a smaller set of fundamental “axiomatic” beliefs etc.
Or, at a slightly different level, it seems that people choose their political identity based on a few beliefs that are important to those they wish to signal affiliation with and pick up the rest as part of the identity package.
I don’t think that’s true at all; I would say that most liberals right now, and much of the country in general, are in favor of at least some movement on both of those issues. Legalization of marijuana, for example, now has majority support according to recent polls.
How can one tell if one has thought through their political beliefs? One piece of evidence might be that those beliefs have changed, significantly, from the beliefs you inherited from your parents and ealry environment. Even more so if you can say, because I learned facts X, Y, and Z, this changed my political beliefs.
At the same time, be careful not to confuse beliefs about fact with beliefs about values. I still have much the same political values I had 30 years ago. However I have very different political beliefs than I did then, primarily as a result of learning certain facts about 20th century history.
Of course, this could simply mean you’ve changed your political beliefs to those that are more fashionable.