I considered myself a “kid” up until I had my own kid. So more a maturity designation than an age one. It took some election cycles to understand what the actual priorities are.
I grew up in a Democrat-majority state, so I naturally blamed the stupid policy choices on Democrats, and I was pissed even when a popular Republican initially won but lost after a recount “found” thousands of extra votes.
Then I moved to a Republican majority state and it had the same problems with stupid policy choices (different problems with different policies), and I realized the problem isn’t with ether party, but the two party system that essentially guarantees you’ll have poor representation.
That’s when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option. My state will elect the GOP candidate, so there’s no such thing as strategic voting on my ballot, I simply express who’s the least insane.
I considered myself a “kid” up until I had my own kid.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn’t really translate well in conversation no?
More than that, it feels like it hints at, but does not fully confirm a sort of “I didn’t care till it affected me personally” angle to it.
That’s when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option.
Ok, here I was not jumping to conclusions and then you end with libertarianism… the self defeating ideology that really translates to “Don’t tread on me, but fuck everyone else” and when asked how things will still run responds with a shrug.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn’t really translate well in conversation no?
“Kid” is an imprecise term that just means someone who is young and inexperienced, and what it means changes with context. When I went to middle school/junior high, “kid” was anyone still in elementary school. When I went to college, “kid” was anyone still in K-12. When I got my first real job after college, “kid” included most undergrads. And so on.
Here’s the first dictionary definition I found:
1
: a young person
hung out with the other kids in high school
especially : child
a married couple with two kids
—often used as a generalized reference to one especially younger or less experienced
the kid on the pro golf tour
you poor kid
Yeah, it’s ambiguous, that’s kinda how language goes. It can mean anything from a baby to an old person, given context. I would hope the context here (voted multiple times) would be enough to show I wasn’t referring to an elementary school kid, but a young adult.
"I didn’t care till it affected me personally” angle to it.
Nah, it still didn’t impact me personally when I switched my mindset. I’ve had a pretty privileged life, I grew up middle class and my first job after college provided a middle class lifestyle. Not having to worry too much about housing or food meant much of government policy didn’t really impact me. Today, the most impactful policy is immigration since my SO’s family are immigrants and we’ve only been able to help with my SO’s parents.
I’m not saying I was out of touch or anything. I had friends across the income spectrum from relatively rich (dad owned a car dealership) to very poor (living off welfare), and I certainly didn’t favor the wants of the first group over the second.
I was mostly interested in efficiency. For example, I wrote an essay in high school about privatizing social security (i.e. defined contribution like an IRA rather than defined benefit like a pension) because I was interested in stocks and saw stocks had much higher returns than Social Security payouts. Local politics was very inefficient, and I blamed that on the dominant party. I grew up near Seattle, and as a kid, there were a ton of cancelled rail and monorail projects, mostly in the Seattle area, and any of them would’ve helped alleviate traffic. They spent millions on these projects before killing them, and meanwhile traffic on the highways continued to get worse and investment outside Seattle continued to languish. And then when they finally built some rail lines, it didn’t really solve traffic (made getting to the Mariners stadium easier…) and they had a separate line for the airport that didn’t connect to the commuter line, making it only narrowly useful. Around that time, I had family in Utah and they could take the train to the airport, downtown for shopping, and to the local university, and that was across three lines with many transfers between them.
Young me saw Democrats as inefficient and eager to spend, and Republicans as stubborn but efficient. The reality is that both parties suck when they have a massive majority, and they don’t really work well together if there’s a shot one could have a majority in the next election. In Utah, they’ve talked about a light rail extension for well over a decade that would increase daily ridership by almost 50% and give an alternative to a congested area, and in that time they built a short rail segment to a relatively wealthy area (~1/10 the daily ridership of the other propsal) and will build a short extension before reconsidering it. That’s not left/right thing since they prioritized a liberal area over a conservative one.
end with libertarianism…
Then your understanding of libertarianism is misguided. It’s a big tent, with everything from socialists who adore Marx to the far right who want a Mad Max style free-for-all, and you seem to be talking about the second group.
I’m personally somewhere in the middle, and certainly left of the Libertarian Party in the US. I was attracted by the idea of the NAP guiding decisions, and I think people are generally better off with more freedom rather than less. Here are some policies I support:
Negative Income Tax - like UBI, but only for people under a certain income; goal would be to get everyone above the poverty line, and it wouldn’t be super expensive (this guy claims $168B); I’d prefer to repurpose Social Security for this, but that’s an uphill battle
end qualified immunity and hold law enforcement, representatives, and the President accountable
more pigouvian taxes rather than regulations, such as a tax on alcohol to fund rehab, carbon taxes to clean up the air, etc; anything not covered should largely come from property taxes rather than income
expand school choice by replacing school buses with city buses in metro areas, and encourage schools to specialize
eliminate federal student loans, expand Pell grants, and replace most other functions of the Department of Education with an independent group that assesses school performance across states
mandatory balanced budget
And so on. I want better, more efficient services, and I think the libertarian perspective is the right way to find that balance.
Kids cant vote tho, and you indicated that you voted that way for multiple prior elections.
I considered myself a “kid” up until I had my own kid. So more a maturity designation than an age one. It took some election cycles to understand what the actual priorities are.
I grew up in a Democrat-majority state, so I naturally blamed the stupid policy choices on Democrats, and I was pissed even when a popular Republican initially won but lost after a recount “found” thousands of extra votes.
Then I moved to a Republican majority state and it had the same problems with stupid policy choices (different problems with different policies), and I realized the problem isn’t with ether party, but the two party system that essentially guarantees you’ll have poor representation.
That’s when I found libertarianism, and now I look less at party affiliation and instead try to find the least insane option. My state will elect the GOP candidate, so there’s no such thing as strategic voting on my ballot, I simply express who’s the least insane.
This arbitrary milestone that is only meaningful for you doesn’t really translate well in conversation no?
More than that, it feels like it hints at, but does not fully confirm a sort of “I didn’t care till it affected me personally” angle to it.
Ok, here I was not jumping to conclusions and then you end with libertarianism… the self defeating ideology that really translates to “Don’t tread on me, but fuck everyone else” and when asked how things will still run responds with a shrug.
“Kid” is an imprecise term that just means someone who is young and inexperienced, and what it means changes with context. When I went to middle school/junior high, “kid” was anyone still in elementary school. When I went to college, “kid” was anyone still in K-12. When I got my first real job after college, “kid” included most undergrads. And so on.
Here’s the first dictionary definition I found:
Yeah, it’s ambiguous, that’s kinda how language goes. It can mean anything from a baby to an old person, given context. I would hope the context here (voted multiple times) would be enough to show I wasn’t referring to an elementary school kid, but a young adult.
Nah, it still didn’t impact me personally when I switched my mindset. I’ve had a pretty privileged life, I grew up middle class and my first job after college provided a middle class lifestyle. Not having to worry too much about housing or food meant much of government policy didn’t really impact me. Today, the most impactful policy is immigration since my SO’s family are immigrants and we’ve only been able to help with my SO’s parents.
I’m not saying I was out of touch or anything. I had friends across the income spectrum from relatively rich (dad owned a car dealership) to very poor (living off welfare), and I certainly didn’t favor the wants of the first group over the second.
I was mostly interested in efficiency. For example, I wrote an essay in high school about privatizing social security (i.e. defined contribution like an IRA rather than defined benefit like a pension) because I was interested in stocks and saw stocks had much higher returns than Social Security payouts. Local politics was very inefficient, and I blamed that on the dominant party. I grew up near Seattle, and as a kid, there were a ton of cancelled rail and monorail projects, mostly in the Seattle area, and any of them would’ve helped alleviate traffic. They spent millions on these projects before killing them, and meanwhile traffic on the highways continued to get worse and investment outside Seattle continued to languish. And then when they finally built some rail lines, it didn’t really solve traffic (made getting to the Mariners stadium easier…) and they had a separate line for the airport that didn’t connect to the commuter line, making it only narrowly useful. Around that time, I had family in Utah and they could take the train to the airport, downtown for shopping, and to the local university, and that was across three lines with many transfers between them.
Young me saw Democrats as inefficient and eager to spend, and Republicans as stubborn but efficient. The reality is that both parties suck when they have a massive majority, and they don’t really work well together if there’s a shot one could have a majority in the next election. In Utah, they’ve talked about a light rail extension for well over a decade that would increase daily ridership by almost 50% and give an alternative to a congested area, and in that time they built a short rail segment to a relatively wealthy area (~1/10 the daily ridership of the other propsal) and will build a short extension before reconsidering it. That’s not left/right thing since they prioritized a liberal area over a conservative one.
Then your understanding of libertarianism is misguided. It’s a big tent, with everything from socialists who adore Marx to the far right who want a Mad Max style free-for-all, and you seem to be talking about the second group.
I’m personally somewhere in the middle, and certainly left of the Libertarian Party in the US. I was attracted by the idea of the NAP guiding decisions, and I think people are generally better off with more freedom rather than less. Here are some policies I support:
And so on. I want better, more efficient services, and I think the libertarian perspective is the right way to find that balance.