Ooo, survey

Sometimes I have a hard time "categorizing" myself politically. Wait, I lied. It's not that hard. The Democrats are good on environmental and poverty issues, the Republicans are good on the over-arching Big Issues. Like, what is the value of human life? How can we preserve the family? The answers to these questions are lots more important to me than the "pocketbook" issues. Even though unrestrained capitalism can result in humans being objectified, massive spontaneous corporate deregulation seems to be much less likely and much less of a threat than that whole collapse of Western Civilization thing.

I was mucho pleased with this quiz from the Pew Research Center. I can't remember if they're a liberal think tank or conservative or middle of the road. Blah.

Anyway, I came out as a Pro-government Conservative (click to see a profile) You can read the whole thing, it's just a paragraph or two, but the gist is that Pro-government conservatives are in favor of things like unions and anti-poverty* programs like welfare, but are socially conservative.

*(You could argue whether welfare is actually an anti-poverty program, since it seems to have a rather low rate of success in getting people out of poverty. "Anti-abject-starvation" program would maybe be a better name? Services to help the poor are only worth supporting if they actually help the poor. It's downright irresponsible, not to say cavalier, to pass huge entitlements for programs that aren't going to work. And it's worse when they're federal, which is what they always seem to be. Hasn't anyone ever heard of the principle of subsidiarity, that good old rational criterion for social organization?)

I would add that while I think labor unions have the potential to play an important role (and did indeed play an invaluable role in the past) in protecting the rights of workers, the unions as they are today do not do a very good job of it. And sometimes they manage to violate the common good. Example: The national teachers' union and its visceral hatred for school choice. "Rational self-interest" become not-so-rational. Although the self-interest bit is still going strong, lol.

And I would note that there are other ways I don't fit in "perfectly" with this group, either. For instance, according to the survey's profile, most people in my "Pro-government Conservative" group like the idea of banning books in public libraries, which I'm not too fond of, if only because banning authors like Judy Blume (as some over-anxious parents probably would) might dampen the public outrage when the local library acquires actual pornography. And while most of my group says that everyone should be willing to fight for their country, (regardless of whether the cause was right or wrong) I myself would definitely not require someone to fight a war he considered unjust.

Oh no! I used "he" to refer to "someone" and not the gender neutral "they" or "he/she!" Incidentally, I have never met an actual he/she, have you? Even the very confused people whom you see on Jerry Springer tend to pick a gender to identify with, you know. (Or whom you would see on Jerry Springer, if you ever sank so low as to occasionaly watch such morbidly fascinating trash ... ::: Looks guilty :::)

This does not absolve me from my genderist sin! Quick, where is the Marxist Feminist Professorial Brigade? Arriving any minute now, I imagine.