I often feel that culture, society, and people in a general sense argue and debate political theories not because of an inherent disagreement in goals, but a disagreement in base philosophy of life. I want to take a moment to explain what my personal goal in any political context aims to be.
Autonomy
That's the key to everything. In my opinion this was the ultimate goal of the founding fathers when they laid out the constitution and the bill of rights. We want to live in a society where any individual determines their own life path as much as possible. I don't hate big government because I hate poor people. I don't hate big government because I believe people shouldn't be able to have a quality of life. I hate big government because it takes away this very idea of autonomy.
When a change or law is debated, the first question I ask is one I believe we all should ask. "How does this restrict my ability to control my own destiny?" We're not supposed to debate from emotion. We debate from logic. The entire concept that separates humanity from a puddle of amoebic goo is that we can think for ourselves, beyond our instincts. Logic is our strongest mutant power, and far too often we throw it away to emotion and whims. Hell, I'm a pretty emotional guy in general to be honest. I have a temper that, slow to raise, is horrendous when it arrives. It's not that we can't spark a debate with emotion, but when the emotion fades we have to be able to justify that decision through logic, or it is typically a bad decision. There's a reason we don't let victims of crimes determine the punishment for those crimes.
Though the quote is probably overused, it remains a good one. "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything away." I use the example of a general hot topic as a perfect illustration of this. Gay Marriage. While the left is busy fighting for "gay rights" to be married in the eyes of the government; Social cons fight to protect their definition of "marriage" in the eyes of the government. A sane person says "Why do I need government approval to dedicate my love life to another consenting adult?" There's no reason for government to be involved in our life, so how about instead of fighting so hard for a government stamp of approval, you fight to get government out of all of our bedrooms. When you force a new law on anyone that they don't like, whether they like or dislike it for valid reasons, there will be resentment, bitterness, and future problems. What's the problem there if it's a fair law that respects autonomy you may ask? The problem is in practice.
Let's face it, there are a lot of stupid people out there. We created this problem by letting our emotions control us. I think most people accept evolution at least in part as a valid theory. I'll let the social cons hash out their beliefs of "macro" vs. "micro" and such, but especially in the "left" evolution is a very widely accepted theory. Yet we fight every day to buck this theory and go against every bit of scientific data we have. We do our best to make sure the weak survive. On average, with of course many legit exceptions, the less educated you are, the more kids you have. Don't mean to offend any Duggers out there, but social studies have shown this to always be the case that the more poor and uneducated a person is, it is far more likely that they will have more children. When we coddle these people, we ensure that their weaknesses grow. You don't see sickly lions hand fed by the strong lions. They are eaten and killed. I'm not suggest we round up our impoverished for a cookout featuring longpig-a-plenty, but I am showing how we, as a society practice principles that directly conflict with nature itself, and irony being that it's typically the side of the aisle associated with protecting nature itself. When you ask for a governing body, at force of gunpoint, to control behavior you hand the keys of autonomous life over as well.
I want to choose my bedroom partners without a law telling me I can or cannot. The only time government should restrict my actions, is when my actions restrict another person's autonomy. Case closed. End of discussion. That is it. You have no right to use military force (which is what government is) to control my behavior on anything that does not affect you or your life.
There are many conflicting theories on most political hot topics that would allow debates like this to be handled logically. However, we don't get to see that do we? Both sides play on the emotions. Republicans love only the wealthy and hate women, babies, minorities, puppies, and anything that isn't a 40 year old christian white male. Liberals hate responsibility, hard work, the bible, accountability, and anything that resembles a 40 year old white christian male. That's all we hear. For every intelligent person that can see through this bs, there are a dozen on each side repeating the lines they've been fed.
You've been lied to if you think your vote matters, assuming you fall into the intelligent category. Because no matter how much time you waste pondering the pros and cons of any topic, there are busloads of sheep waiting to mark the box they've been told to mark on both sides. This is why you cannot empower government to restrict people's lives.
The stupid will always outnumber the intelligent, and we really smart people have decided voting majorities gives the best results.
Moo.
