During this primary season, there has been an unfortunate tendency to challenge the progressive and liberal bona fides of people on the opposing side of the primary contest, which is unfortunate. At times it has been even worse, with some people engaging in ad hominem attacks upon those with whom they disagree.
As a result it may not be clear to others who encounter such expressions what the person actually believes.
I cannot claim that I have a totally consistent ideology — perhaps it is my age, perhaps it is the time I have lived through, perhaps it is because I have known personally people engaged in politics at a pretty high level, that at this point in my life I can acknowledge that I disagree on some issues with a person I support yet nevertheless support her or him wholeheartedly. Similarly, I can acknowledge my own inconsistencies.
Explaining why I may “deviate” from some I espouse is not actually that hard. Life consists of choices, and at times advancing one goal for which I am strongly committed may require me to be less consistent about another.
Below the fold I will offer some explanation of what I believe, and why. That is, all other things being equal (or as we teach in economics, ceteris parabus) that is where I would come down on an issue. You may decide that therefore I am not in your eyes sufficiently progressive or liberal, but really that matters little to me, because I know myself.
I will try to explain how I came to each of these positions.
I no longer accept the death penalty for any crime. In part that is because I am informed enough by Christian thinking (even as I know longer identify as a Christian) that there is no action or series of actions that can place a person permanently outside of redepemption. In Christian terms that would make the person equal to or more powerful than God.
I absolutely believe in the right of working people to organize into unions, and to bargain collectively, and think the notion of “right to work” laws are an attempt by those often already with too much power to maintain that power and the benefits that flow therefrom at the expense of everyone else. I acknowledge that as a member of a collective bargaining unit I am no longer a free agent, and in fact I might receive less compensation or quicker advancement than I would under a collective bargaining agreement. At the same time I benefit because I have protection against the vagaries of supervisors and management who might otherwise seek to punish or even discharge me because of my outspokenness.
Despite being a male of upper middle class background and an elite education, I think I am comfortable viewing myself as a feminist, as pro- a very broad array of rights for various disparate groups. While I have little direct experience of discrimination and prejudice, I have some — I am after all of Eastern European Jewish background, and both in high school and at various times in my work career I have encountered the impact of anti-Semitism. At the same time, I am the son of a woman who graduate 2nd in her class at Columbia Law by a smidgeon at age 21, and could not originally get a job as a lawyer because she was female and had one parent who was an immigrant Jew. The person who narrowly beat her out clerked at the US Supreme Court. She was always careful not to make more money than my father, who, although in many ways more liberal than his own upbringing, was still more than a little sexist and insecure about things like that. Further, I was able to become a teacher because my brilliant wife chose to work full-time and for the past 22 years has had a higher salary than have I (although with pension and social security I now make about the same as she does). I am dependent upon her for my health insurance.
I do not think we have yet overcome the issue of race in this country. I saw it growing up, which is what drew me into doing civil rights activity beginning in 1963 as I graduated from high school. I have seen my understanding expanded as a result of knowing gay people (I did live in several gay friendly neighborhoods in NYC, my wife was active in the dance world) and to my great luck having some of them trust my enough to come out to me or to inform me of their HIV status before most other people knew. Having served as an adviser to Muslim Students, I have also seen the discrimination they have experienced, and it also broadens me.
It has taken me somewhat longer to come to a full acceptance of transgender civil rights, in part because I had little experience of it. That began to change a few years ago when I got to know a transgender young person who was the subject of a great deal of bullying. I realized that having laws designed to keep some people in the closet or restricted from full rights because others were uncomfortable was wrong, regardless of whether that discomfort was because of gender, sexual orientation, transgender status, race, religion, national origin, or any other artificial means of dividing one person from another.
I believe full access to all health care should be a right, and insofar as in a democracy we all contribute through tax dollars for things with which we may have strong personal, moral, religious or ethical disagreements, those disagreements should not be allowed to restrict what is legal and ethical and moral to the person involved. That includes birth control and termination of pregnancy. That also includes taxes that support the military, or in states that still allow it (as does the Commonwealth of Virginia where I live) capital punishment.
I do believe in a requirement for service as a price for being in a democracy, but I would define the notion of service as far more than the military or the traditional forms of alternative service under conscientious objection. I would think of teaching in a high poverty area, serving as a social worker, possibly even as a first responder of some sort, as fulfilling that requirement. I am open to discussing ways we could accomplish this. I chose to enlist in the Marines when I dropped out of college because I felt I had an obligation to service. The person I am today would not make that choice, but would still see some form of service.
I believe we all have a responsibility to provide for the option of a free and fair public education system, even those of us without children of our own, and those who choose to homeschool and/or send their children to non-public settings. I do NOT think that sending one’s child to a non-public setting should mean that one pays less taxes — by that logic having no children the 50% of my real estate taxes that go to Arlington Public Schools should be rebated to me for some other purpose, because I am not directly using the schools. As to charters, they can have a role, but the games that are played in which charters get the advantages of public money without the transparency and accountability imposed upon public schools needs to stop. There is not room nor time here for a complete discussion of this topic. Suffice it to say that I have taught in two completely non-profit charter schools, in four high schools and two middle schools in two states and five different school districts, and long ago was a teacher intern for 6 months in a Quaker Secondary School.
I think addressing the environment is a critical issue. We have chosen to pay more to replace things like furnace, dishwasher and drier to make them more energy efficient. We both drive hybrids. We recycled before it was required. I strongly believe that it is possible to transition from the carbon-intensive fossil fuel based economy to one more based on renewable energy without necessarily harming the economies of local communities and states, nor the income of those working in or dependent upon fossil fuel industries, but that will require a major rethinking of not only of federal energy policy, but also overall economic policy and to a large degree the interrelationship of the federal government with those of states and localities. We can and should be developing the industry to move to renewable energy, and we should explore new ways of using technology to provide good jobs in communities losing energy-based employment.
I think our entire approach to criminal justice needs to be rethought. THe notion of private prisons is an abomination, just as much as the notion of a private police or fire department, or a private military. Private prisons represents a profit motive for incarceration, and we already have the evidence of the distortion and corruption that represents.
On the other hand, we need to recognize that fines in lieu of imprisonment are too often a protection against real responsibility for the wealthy and powerful (especially in corporate malfeasance) and an imposition that leads to imprisonment for the less well off. If we allow corporate malfeasers to avoid imprisonment by making amends, then the same logic should apply to a lot of those we lock up. Diversion programs, community service are examples of what can be done. The entire notion of restorative justice can often be accomplished without incarceration. There is something obscene that we have ¼ of the world’s incarcerated population, that far too often we impose PERMANENT penalties even when we do not execute — loss of voting or of working in certain jobs, permanent bars from some kinds of federal benefits (a single juvenile drug conviction can in some circumstances permanently bar you from federal education and housing benefits, and if it is an adult conviction, also from employment — how then do we bring back offenders as productive members of society?).
Corporations are not, Mitt Romney, people in the sense the Founders intended. Continuing to build on the foot note in the Santa Clara case as a basis for so many things including Citizens United and its progeny is about as far from the doctrine of originalism as one can imagine. Whatever is necessary, rather than merely attacking Citizens’ United, we need to address the misguided underlying legal reasoning.
in 1904, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is reported to have said in a speech “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” Most ethical teachers, including the founders of the great religious traditions, have taught us that a moral society has a responsibility for those that are less well off. And yet we have those who try to argue that taxes are immoral, that government should get out of the way of business, that no one should be taxed at a higher percentage of income (although when it comes to payroll taxes with caps on the income subject to taxes they tend to forget that) or that certain kinds of income should be taxed at a lower level (which of course benefits those who have the extra funds to invest to generate those kinds of income).
I believe in a graduated income tax. I do not believe in the carried interest exception, nor in the notion that most of what is considered capital gains should be taxed at a lower rate. I note that for calculating GDP only the original investment is included, and income generated from selling shares of stock already on the market is not considered a contribution to the GDP of the economy, any more than selling a used car is. The rationale that trading of already existing shares is somehow contributing to growing the economy is to some degree sheer nonsense. Yes, it can make more valuable the unissued but authorized share that a company could still issue — but whatever price it gets when it issues them can be counted as a real investment in growing GDP.
Far too much of our tax system falls on the shoulders of those with the least, and far too many of the benefits — including of direct government spending, of some of government transfers, as well as foregone tax revenues — goes to those who do not need it even to live very comfortably.
I can think of many quotes from religious and ethical literature to make this point. Instead I will offer only a quote from a former well-regarded American political figure, one with his flaws, but with a heart almost always in the right place. Hubert H Humphrey said
t was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
I believe if the United States is going to be the government of the people, by the people, and for the the people as suggested by Lincoln at Gettysburg, we would be well advised in our politics and policy as well as in our personal lives to keep in mind the moral test in those words by Humphrey.
I may not be consistent in how I live.
I try to be moral, by the standards I value.
I certainly will in making my political decision keep my values in mind.
At times I will be confronted with conflicts. In choosing where to come down I will have to evaluate somewhat holistically, what provides the greatest benefit?
My judgment will never be perfect.
This is how I operate.
It is part of why I teach.
it is also part of why before i was a teacher I left the private sector working with computers to work with my local government.
It is why I am active in politics, and in some areas (education in particular) in policy.
It is why I volunteer. In the past I have served as an officer or board member of various non-profits, religious bodies, professional associations, and why I still serve on an advisory committee for the school board of the community in which I live.
I think my values are both liberal and progressive. I am comfortable with either word, but proudly claim the word liberal in the best sense of that word, one which includes a sense of generosity towards others.
Make of this what you will. Ignore it, argue with it, affirm it, in whole or in part.
It is an explanation of who I am as a political person, at least in part.
Peace.