This is my first post here, though I've been lurking for the past couple years. I've working over these ideas in my head for a while and I hope you find them useful/interesting/whatever. It's more personal, than policy so be forwarned.
My roommate Cam made an excellent point a few months ago that has kind of thrown me for a loop and has taken me some time to figure out. We were talking about something and he pointed out that a lot of our political beliefs are based on outrage. Something is pissing us off and we want to fix it. It’s an inherently negative position to come from, as everything stems from having some problem, so you start to view politics as the profession of having to fix things; everything carried out by the government is an obligation, to yourself or your constituents, to correct some error or injustice. That’s the way I’ve looked at it, knowingly or not, for a long time and definitely the way a lot of other people have looked at it.
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