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I’m always unsure how to answer this question. I have at least some knowledge of what this label means in broad terms, and so I have applied it to what I believe best characterizes my own philosophical leanings, but is it an accurate portrayal of my day to day thoughts and methods?

There is nothing in the basic principles of liberalism to make it a stationary creed; there are no hard-and-fast rules fixed once and for all. The fundamental principle that in the ordering of our affairs we should make as much use as possible of the spontaneous forces of society, and resort as little as possible to coercion, is capable of an infinite variety of applications. –F.A. Hayek, Road to Serfdom p17-18

Using “the spontaneous forces of society” and resorting “as little as possible to coercion” in “ordering our affairs” is as apt a description of my philosophy as I could develop on my own. No small wonder that this quote comes from Hayek, then is it?

The only problem with my line of thinking is that it is so highly criticized as ineffective, heartless, and leads to inequality. The assumption is that the “spontaneous forces of society” are ineffective at dealing with the inequalities it might breed; when left to one’s own self-interests they are unlikely to care much about the interests of others unless those interests are in competition with their own or can be of help in achieving one’s ends. But can this be true? Western society has been dominated by institutions that turn this thinking on it’s head–and these institutions are not coercive in the way that government is.

The idea that society organized under these rules and conditions can breed inequality is no secret; the question is, what amount of coercion helped push this inequality forward? And what makes an unequal state of affairs so unpalatable? As I saw in a link that I posted earlier, people are not all rational actors, and markets are inefficient. Sometimes decisions are made that are detrimental to the actor¹ and the market² in question suffers greatly.

But is that it? Is it those in poor conditions that gives some the notion that a libertarian society breeds heartlessness and suffering? Nothing in such a society would prevent it from creating an institution to care for these people. A society organized around a different philosophy, however, could use the coercive powers of government in order to give the appearance of alleviating this unequal suffering without the need for a social organization to fill this role; I have to argue that this is likely to produce apathy amongst members of that society. There is no need to care directly for the suffering of others as your interest in their well-being is served by contributing to whatever power is placed over you.

I don’t know, am I crazy in thinking this way? Couldn’t the well-being of others in a libertarian society be of consequence to you as a rational actor? Why might helping them be in your best interests? To fulfill some sense of altruism? To ensure individuals can afford and want the products/services you provide?

I propose more questions than answers–all of it rambling.

Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness. — Mary Frances Berry

This is a rather poignant statement from Mary Frances Berry. She summarizes the strategy that is most effective in discrediting one’s critics–a strategy I have discussed on numerous occasions. The method? That of labeling an opponent as holding some socially unacceptable position that is nearly impossible to refute; this is a most effective strategy because any arguments against such charges are not believed due to the heinous nature of the charge.

The Tea Party has been called out on numerous occasions as a racist group. A group that must denounce racism within its ranks, or else be forever tainted as a political movement. The only problem is that real evidence of supposed racism is hardly prevalent. It is, of course, entirely possible that some small percentage of members hold views that are racist in foundation, but this does not manifest itself in the Tea Party ethos any more than ant-white sentiment manifests itself in the NAACP’s core principles.

What we see evidence of instead is a group attempting to steer political discourse and fight for principles they truly believe will benefit all citizens. This can be said for the NAACP, Republicans, Democrats, and just about any other political organization. Disagreements around core principles and philosophies on governance have become toxic and are hardly good examples of discussions and debates, particularly when such charges effectively end it.

While the Tea Party isn’t my bag–haha–I do have a certain affinity for the small government philosophy they seem to be espousing; with that in mind, it is difficult for me to tell how racism has any part in debates concerning their ideas. From the few meetings I’ve attended, which makes my sample size prohibitively small, I’ve seen very little to no evidence of any racism to believe they are discussing anything other than what they claim.

Why is defending one’s character against this charge such a difficult proposition? Imagine having a lively discussion about the color of the sky. You and your opponent are deadlocked in a debate about the shade of blue the sky typically is on a sunny day. “I feel it has more purple undertones,” you might say. Your opponent claims, “it is more blue-green.” The discussion continues like this for another ten minutes, when suddenly your opponent says, “well those who see purple in the sky probably dislike children, and are inherently unfriendly to them.”

Well now, the debate has shifted from the color of the sky to whether or not your like children. You’ve gone no further in discussing the sky or the implications of it being one color or another, you’re stuck defending something that has nothing to do with the debate at hand. While this illustration is rather crude, it should give you a good idea of why accusations of character being related to certain political philosophies have no place in most discussions involving matters of government.

Take my man of straw with a grain of salt, but please don’t accuse me of a character flaw because of my beliefs; instead, debate my philosophy on its merits alone.

This is a very interesting move on the part of the NAACP. Accusations of racism make fighting back incredibly difficult for the Tea Party; not because the Tea Party harbors any sort of racist tendencies, but because when a group or individual is accused of something as strong as racism, outside actors will tend to see any following action or reaction in the light of said accusation.

What this means is that no matter how often Tea Party members claim to have not seen any racist displays amongst other members, outsiders will say, “but that is only your small group, what about the others you aren’t a part of?”

From NPR¹:

The NAACP has approved a resolution condemning what it calls “racist elements” within the Tea Party. The vote has sparked a war of words between the two groups, and NAACP leaders hope the move will help fire up its membership with midterm elections approaching.

The fray began when NAACP President Benjamin Jealous issued a challenge to the Tea Party:

“You must expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.”

Liberal groups, like the NAACP, are rarely ever responsible for the actions of a few fringe members. And they shouldn’t be. Those elements rarely ever represent the thinking of rational members, or the overarching goals of the group–one hopes–but painting this sort of picture of conservative groups is a rather routine occurrence. Why?

Why is the belief in limited government racist? I’ve been to a couple of Tea Party gatherings. The speeches aren’t particularly unique, noteworthy, hateful, racist, et cetera, but what they have to say is representative of a group of people that are troubled by the actions of the government; this is simply because they have an opposing view of governance. Nothing more.

Since I guess I’m a little dumb, could anyone out there explain the racist angle to me?

I kind of set out to write a scathing little entry here about the ‘trend’ to shut off or not include comments in a few recent redesigns around the design community. A couple of big name folks have decided to go down this road, and sure enough a few of the smaller players followed soon after, and this sort of follow-the-leader game bothers me–as it always has. It looks like a trend to me.

So, not too long ago I asked myself, “what purpose do blogs serve on the web, if not as a place to engender and encourage conversation?” Isn’t this what the medium has become, and isn’t this it’s purpose? I’m not entirely sure how to answer this question–my own notebook here isn’t a bastion of discussion so much as it is a one way soap box–but there are many who have decided it is no longer important to maintain the debate on their own site. And now that I’ve let this thought stew, I can’t blame them.

If you operate a site that receives substantial traffic volumes it can become more of a chore than it is worth to moderate and maintain comments, and so a few of these folks have turned to encouraging the use of Twitter, Facebook, or a reader’s own blog, to continue the discussion. This is perfect, except that a disconnect can exist between the content, author, and material being discussed.

And I get why people would want to utilize social tools for encouraging discussion. Any one of these formats is better suited to the purpose of getting a community involved around discussing various topics. Frankly, they’re much better than blogs, despite the disconnect I cited a paragraph ago.

You see those of you who have not been working on the web in the past fifteen years might not know, but blogs have advanced a great deal over time, adding a wide range of functions and becoming outright CMS’s in some cases, but in researching and thinking about this entry, I have to ask myself if their original use was bastardized to fit a need that wasn’t met at the time?

Blogs are essentially online journals; a place to fill the diminishing role of analog pen and paper, where one could write one’s thoughts in an environment they were more likely to be involved in. Creating a social environment around this seemingly simple use is tricky, particularly when the traffic volume increases exponentially–but it’s all we had until someone took the need and created a product that fit a community participation model better than blog software and commenting models ever could.

In my situation, that is in a low traffic one, this sort of thinking doesn’t have to apply as I rarely see a comment come across my in box. I have very little to moderate, or discuss, which begs the question, who am I even talking to right now? Myself perhaps? But, would my site be better served by eliminating comments altogether? Would it give the appearance of being more widely trafficked if I didn’t reveal that my site is rarely commented on, thus appearing rarely visited? That’s intellectually dishonest thinking, but that doesn’t mean keeping comments is the right move.

I’ll keep comments open for the time being, because I still like the model for my purposes, but what say you fine reader? Does this eliminate anything in your mind, or could you care even less about this now than you did when you didn’t even think about it?

I’ve been working on a format for my portfolio for a long time now–about six months in fact. But coming up with a way to showcase your own work is kind of tough in an own-worst-critic sort of way. At the moment I’m in the process of getting the details and design together, with the former being the most difficult.

In the past I put together a custom portfolio management app; it was crude and poorly programmed, but it got my feet wet in working on that sort of thing in php and mysql, and has launched me onto many experimental ideas. But it became a bear to manage as it was built with one design in mind, and when I moved on to others I had to adapt my site for that format. Not ideal in the least.

Most recently I put together a small manually built portfolio. It showcases a few pieces, and that’s about it. Not very impressive, but minimally invasive.

At this time, I’ve chosen to work with a second WordPress install to run my portfolio. This will allow me to categorize and tag my work as I add it to the portfolio, managing the work in a way that I’ve never really done in the past. Hopefully I get an opportunity to launch it soon, but in the meantime, take a look at my current portfolio.

Are we, in any way built to survive in this world? I would be tempted to state unequivocally that our ability to control our environment in ways unimaginable to our great-great-great grandfathers would be proof of a positive supposition in this respect, but I suspect I would be wrong in thinking as much.

Our ability to survive in the environment we’ve created for ourselves is reliant upon factors that if ever put out of balance would ultimately be devastating to populations and cultures.

Consider: greater than 50% of the world’s population is concentrated in urban centers. It takes a great deal of organization and planning to house, feed, protect, and maintain such populations; these urban environments are reliant upon just-in-time deliveries of food, utilities, and the organization of police forces to help maintain order.

What if some disaster put the delivery of food out of balance? Being an urban environment, it would be exceedingly difficult for residents to compensate for such food losses with their own provisions through gardening, hunting, or gathering. Residents are reliant upon the type of farming that is most devastating to land: large corporate farms.

Not that this sort of activity is bad. On the contrary it has allowed the world to be fed and fed cheaply, and is certainly a contributing factor in the explosion of population we’ve experienced in the past century; however, this land will not be arable forever and we cannot expect the sort of abundance we’ve grown accustomed to in our supermarkets to last.

If utilities are severely disrupted, we run into similar problems with food, yet in this case perhaps the lack of availability of clean and easily used water is more devastating.

The point is: as a whole our reliance upon the conveniences of modern life have built a situation that could lead to extremely undesirable consequences if any one part of it were to go out balance.

I’m just as vulnerable as anyone else in this. I’m not prepared to grow my own food, identify what sorts of things are safe to eat, build impromptu or semi permanent shelters, and live in a way that should come naturally to us as human beings. The loss of life would be great if the situation were extended to a large swath of the population, i.e. many major urban centers.

I love modern life, but what cost does it have 100 or more years from now?

I’m not a runner–at all. No matter what shape I was in when I made a go at long distance, the results were never satisfactory. By the time I made it to the mile marker my body was telling me to quit. It wasn’t even that I was tired, it was more the laborious nature of running that made me quit each time. It was the fact that I had to keep breathing in a controlled fashion, I had to keep running, and mostly that I was bored out of my mind that always put me over the edge. Running–just to run–has always seemed like a giant time waster to me.

Why would I ever want to run?

The only activities that seemed like a good opportunity for running involved games–e.g. soccer, football, basketball–and had some purpose that kept the activity off of my mind. Strategy does that. I get no runner’s high, but I do get a competitive high. Running can be competitive, but christ, you just run and that is unbelievably worthless to me.

What sucks is that prior to my next surgery about the only real running like activity I can safely do is to jog/run in my neighborhood, on a track, or on a field. And so I’m stuck with the boring ass activity that it is. Wearing a brace that is increasingly uncomfortable for these activities makes me want to shoot my face; I’m pretty much ready to head into surgery and commence with the rehab all ready.

So, why would I ever run? Because the only way for me to safely exercise is to participate in an activity that I hate. The only thing is, it’s put me in a little healthier place. I’ve lost a bit of weight from running, exercising, and eating a little better.

I wasn’t able to reach one of my goals last month, though I made a pretty good go of it, but I still had to run.

This isn’t something I take lightly. There will be a certain bit of responsibility on my part to try and organize Republican voters to get involved; this is particularly difficult for me simply because the community that I’m a part of tends to vote over 60% Democrat, save for the incumbent state rep, while their interests and beliefs tend to be better represented through other parties these days.

The trouble for me will be in identifying Republican voters and convincing those who vote for other parties that their interests are better served by the ideas of the Republican party in Michigan.

I see their interests being better served by Republicans, particularly if long term community viability is a goal, simply because the ideas being implemented in our community today have created an environment that is no longer sustainable. Which is why I’m so interested in becoming a part of the political process to begin with. My community has seen better days. What was once a major manufacturing and shipping community, has become a center of poverty and depression with little hope of recovering former prestige. The bottom line is, it won’t recover that prestige, but it can gain another kind. It can grow and become a viable community again.

In recent years there has been an active investment in bettering the area, and some new business has made it’s way in, but those businesses have a focus on community consumption rather than production; businesses focused on selling to consumers will never meet the employment needs of the community if certain standards of living are to be met, though it should bring in plenty of tax dollars. What can be done to entice the right kind of business? Offer the right tax and land incentives to the right manufacturer and you’ll have a viable employer and tax base for many years to help sustain the community, bring it growth, and better the conditions of everyone.

Unfortunately, our city has mismanaged its affairs, and we are currently under state control while we get our books in order. While the position I seek can do very little in regards to any of these problems, I can help to get the right folks elected that will foster the environment necessary to bring about the kind of operational changes we need to build a healthy sustainable community. And of course, we need to prepare for the difficult road ahead of us.

It is my hope that in running for this position, and perhaps serving if elected, that I can help to foster some of the change needed to make my city viable again, in addition to getting a better understanding of what the community is looking to accomplish.

You’re not alone. There are–literally–tens of hundreds of you out there right now, plotting ways in which to make your voice heard in regards to the oil spill. You’re mad, and you’re not going to take it anymore. In your mind, the corporate greed of BP was enough to create the massive environmental disaster in the gulf. Their desire to earn, earn, and earn some more took precedence over everything else, including the safety and well-being of the region. Somebody has to pay! That’s why you’re going down to the local station.

Step 1 There will be cameras. Photographers for sure, but perhaps a local news channel on a slow news day will show up. Find an appropriate outfit for the occasion. Something tasteful perhaps, not too colorful, as the occasion is indeed quite somber. If the weather is warm, a pair of short pants may be the ticket.

Step 2 Come up with a really great slogan to put on your sign. You need to let others know that you’re witty and socially aware when you protest. Something like “BP = Selfish Greed” is the shit…tiest one you could use, mostly because it doesn’t really jive with the whole two letters equals two words beginning with those letters motif. Why not “BP = Barn Poop.” At least that makes a little bit of sense.

Step 3 So, is it time to head on down? Should you really protest?

First off: don’t do it. Your message may be the right one for your cause, but you’re inflicting economic harm on the wrong people in most instances. Owners of gas stations, whether they are BP or Citgo, are not tied to those corporations. They’re more like fast food franchises in that they purchase their fuel from the parent corporation. Essentially, by the time you’re out there protesting, you’re really harming the owner of the station, as well as its employees, more than the parent corporation, which I would hope is not your goal. Hurting local business is really a very negative thing if you’re concerned about the welfare of your community.

Second, if your cause is to make the government move towards asset seizure, then your cause is wrong. Where in the hell do we live? When in history class did you learn that one of our founding principles was the asset seizure of entities that inflicted economic harm from a situation that can only be described as an accident? Just because contingency plans are inadequate does not make the corporation criminally negligent. They may be liable for clean up, which is likely to lead to bankruptcy, but government seizure seems antithetical to our notions of what ‘property rights’ mean. Another topic perhaps?

However, if BP is guilty of skirting the law, we must absolutely prosecute them and all of those involved in said activity, and make decisions on the future of the company in the United States based on the findings of the case rather than a knee jerk reaction to what we might feel in response to the massive disaster we’re experiencing.

Lastly, keep on protesting abusive and illegitimate corporate practices, but learn to recognize what those practices are and what they aren’t. Our government is often in bed with corporate interests that are harmful, simply because of the campaign money that is involved, and so it is difficult to rely on government for proper regulation. Voting with dollars is your best bet. I recognize the hypocrisy of this statement in light of what I’ve written above, but in terms of economic effect, this will have a greater impact if you’re not spending money on the right things.

I also want to address this rather interesting situation we’re experiencing with the six month moratorium on drilling: the current administration is making the claim that BP should be held responsible for the wages that workers affected by the government ordered moratorium have lost. They say BP is at fault for the wages lost during the government imposed work stoppage. I’m not sure that I really understand the logic here.

Blame a corrupt government, a corrupt regulatory process, and a corporation that did not have a proper contingency plan in place, but do not think BP evil for this disaster.

This is one of those issues I should be commenting on; particularly because I’m such a proponent of the expansion of domestic oil exploration, but this makes me an unpopular man amongst many folks right now. I harbor no ill will towards British Petroleum, which perhaps makes my crimes particularly egregious.

I’m a big believer in harnessing our resources as often as possible in order to maintain our way of life. As a caveat, I’m a proponent of working towards harnessing sources of energy other than fossil fuels. It just makes economic sense. More efficient methods of generating the energy we need exist (or not), but we really need to utilize the sources (nuclear) that all ready offer the promise of efficiency with little to no pollution. Until we do that, we need coal, oil, and natural gas in vast quantities to maintain a certain societal equlibrium.

What is it that convinces so many that oil companies are hatching nefarious plots in an effort to make a huge, largely evil, profit? The fact that they provide a commodity that happens to be in great demand? That this commodity has largely fueled the emergence of the great industrial empires in the last several hundred years, created a vast network of communication, and essentially built the world of cheap energy within which we live (or once lived, depending on your view of energy’s costs)?

Frankly, without the oil companies you couldn’t run your shitty little Apple iPads (damn’t I want one), drive your Prius, or run any other true electric vehicle that won’t take me to work and back on a single charge. That all requires oil, coal, nuclear, and other forms of energy (this is all in various quantities that is a big fucking mystery to everyone but the power distribution people) that you folks decry as evil. Progressive ideology is more nuanced than this, but it seems that any form of profit is evil, and these companies should just be in the business of providing a product for shits and fun, and to provide jobs to the jobless, and the sun to the sunless, bringing songs of joy to all, and a Ford in every driveway. *Fuck-it-all*.

Is my strawman enough for you, or do you require more?

In any event, this whole mess is certainly a tragic accident. Many of the players involved, up to and including government regulators (one could argue the President’s lackadaisical attitude is a result of some very intriguing campaign contributions from folks associated with BP), are at fault. BP should pay for this mess–as indeed, their actions certainly created the problem–while the government should be contracted in, at BP’s expense, to assist them in the cleanup.

But–you knew this was coming, right?–this event should not be taken as an excuse to end off-shore exploration. These accidents are few and far between and we need these domestic sources of energy.

Whatever the consequences of this are, what say you, fine reader, about the future of off-shore drilling and this event?