THE partisanship thread

[Belsnickel]

(12-16-2016, 12:22 AM)treee Wrote: As a liberal who sympathizes with economic conservatism, I have to agree. Things I'm concerned about include: net neutrality, attacks upon social security, the privatization of facets of our government that should remain public. What do you think about that in general?

For the three topics you specifically mention, I have differing opinions on. For net neutrality I am not at all surprised it has become a partisan issue. I am concerned about it, but likely not for the same reasons some people are. In truth, my knowledge of the issue, and telecommunications in general, is lacking so I don't wade into those debates too often because of it. My basic viewpoint of it is that as of right now, internet is not a public good and so as of right now there is less of an argument to mandate net neutrality. The debate should be (and maybe it is, I'm just not paying enough attention to it) whether or not internet should be a public good. Then that becomes a whole other ball game.

The attacks upon Social Security are interesting. I have, myself, discussed my issues with it in the past. I am in favor of a public social security system, but what that needs to look like is not something I know. I've made it no secret that I am more of a fan of some of the European models of social programs, but making that work here would likely be very problematic. I'm in favor of keeping the system, we just need to rethink it ans improve its longevity making it more viable for the future.

The last one is the one where I tend to get more into the issue. I focus on a couple of policy issues, but primarily I am just a generalist bureaucrat. I understand finances and administration. A lot of people have misconceptions about government efficiency. I'm not going to lie and say there aren't areas that can be improved, but in a lot of areas the government does things in a more efficient manner than the private sector could or would. Not to mention if we are talking about something that is a public good, we don't want to privatize that. When you privatize administration of public goods it often results in rights/liberties being infringed upon.

I think a lot of problems with these issues and the public opinion regarding them is that even though we have access to so much information today, but people are lazy and don't search for it. They instead ingest information passively and that is often partial, or just plain wrong, information. Because of this people think they have informed opinions about things, but in reality they have a very misinformed opinion.