The NEW blog 2024
INTRO:
This is a work in progress, but I'm switching to a new blog system that allows me to sort by importance, rather than by reverse chronological order. Level 5 are the most important, Level 1 are the least important.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: (dates in YYYY-MM-DD)
This is a work in progress, but I'm switching to a new blog system that allows me to sort by importance, rather than by reverse chronological order. Level 5 are the most important, Level 1 are the least important.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: (dates in YYYY-MM-DD)
- Level 5 (high) Importance posts: (Located this page, below the Table of Contents)
- The 4 Cardinal Directions of Political Ideology (and their use in Puerto Paz):
- originally posted 2024-02-09 ; topics/keywords: politics; extremism; moderation ; Puerto Paz
- The Importance of Ranked-Choice Voting in Reducing Harmful Extremism
- originally posted 2024-02-09 ; topics/keywords: politics; extremism; Ranked-Choice Voting; moderation
- The Puerto Paz Department of Activism Page: An entire page (separate from the blog, click the link) dedicated to the most important reforms we need in the United States (originally posted circa 2020)
- The most important ways to improve our election process (Ranked-Choice Voting, Gerrymandering Elimination, Voting Day Holiday, Voting Machines that Print Receipts, Money in Politics, Electoral College)
- Re-balancing the lobbying systems that currently skew in the favor of corporations and the wealthy: Consumer and Worker Unions.
- Climate Change & Environment.
- Existing Organizations that may help with the above issues.
- The Downfall of Journalism and Its Importance in Serving as the Unofficial 4th Branch of the Government, Providing Critical Checks & Balances to Prevent Corruption. (not yet written)
- The 4 Cardinal Directions of Political Ideology (and their use in Puerto Paz):
- Level 4 (medium-high) Importance posts: (Link to a separate page)
- TBD
- Level 3 (medium) Importance posts: (Link to a separate page)
- TBD
- Level 2 (medium-low) Importance posts: (Link to a separate page)
- Re-evaluating Old Traditions: The Holidays of Puerto Paz (not yet written)
- Re-evaluating Old Traditions: Language (not yet written)
- Level 1 (low) Importance posts: (Link to a separate page)
- Examples of Puerto Paz Coming True in Real Life
- originally posted 2024-02-09 w/ the intent of occasional updates; topics/keywords: extremism; Puerto Paz
- Examples of Puerto Paz Coming True in Real Life
Level 5 (high) Importance posts:
The 4 Cardinal Directions of Political Ideology (and their use in Puerto Paz)
I see 4 main Cardinal directions of political ideology: order vs freedom, and liberal vs conservative. (This is partially influenced by A. Lawrence Chickering’s “Beyond Left and Right”)
freedom conservative= libertarian;
order conservative= bible thumper or war hawk or white supremacist, etc.;
freedom liberal= hippie;
order liberal= nanny state.
In between the extremes are moderates.
Order versus Freedom is self-explanatory.
For my politically themed novel I tried to define liberal versus conservative—no one seemed to do a good job of defining them—and settled on a lens of collaboration (liberal) vs competition (conservative). This seemed to fit my observations much better than any sort of financial/economic definitions or using personality traits like “openness to new experiences” or values like “equality” or “fairness” or “purity”. All of those seem to derive from the more basic spectrum of collaboration versus competition.
Competition means looking out for oneself, or one's perceived team/tribe. Everyone else is a potential threat/enemy. If you win, it means I lose, and I have to protect what is mine.
Collaboration views the world as non-zero-sum, seeks win-win compromise, resulting in valuing fairness & equality.
Freedom conservatives obviously see through a lens of competition… libertarians are the ones advocating for entirely free markets where competition determines who lives or dies. I think order conservatives also see through the lens of competition though: They try to enforce order via caste systems, hierarchy. People are not equal, everything is a COMPETITION of my caste vs yours, my tribe vs yours, my religion, my race, my country, my town, my family.
Both freedom and order liberals want to collaborate… they want a village to raise a child, for everyone to have a voice. All people are equal. Order liberals want collaboratively developed rules to prevent harm, and enforcement of those rules. Freedom liberals want a less rigid collaboration, where individuals do as they please, but use empathy to self-enforce a harmonious coexistence.
These are the driving forces of my novel “Puerto Paz”. In parts 1 through 4, I take each Cardinal direction of political ideologies in the direction of an extreme (but often not TOO extreme, enough to show its harm to society), to reveal how extremism of any can be harmful. Part 5 is a more moderate society of Puerto Paz… although I consider myself squarely in the liberal camp, I do find my fellow liberals annoying me from time to time, and as I wrote the book, I attempted to shift my thinking toward the center, to create a society where non-extremist conservatives might feel equally at home as non-extremist liberals. All of this buried in the background under a coming-of-age road trip foreground story featuring the relationships of young men.
I see 4 main Cardinal directions of political ideology: order vs freedom, and liberal vs conservative. (This is partially influenced by A. Lawrence Chickering’s “Beyond Left and Right”)
freedom conservative= libertarian;
order conservative= bible thumper or war hawk or white supremacist, etc.;
freedom liberal= hippie;
order liberal= nanny state.
In between the extremes are moderates.
Order versus Freedom is self-explanatory.
For my politically themed novel I tried to define liberal versus conservative—no one seemed to do a good job of defining them—and settled on a lens of collaboration (liberal) vs competition (conservative). This seemed to fit my observations much better than any sort of financial/economic definitions or using personality traits like “openness to new experiences” or values like “equality” or “fairness” or “purity”. All of those seem to derive from the more basic spectrum of collaboration versus competition.
Competition means looking out for oneself, or one's perceived team/tribe. Everyone else is a potential threat/enemy. If you win, it means I lose, and I have to protect what is mine.
Collaboration views the world as non-zero-sum, seeks win-win compromise, resulting in valuing fairness & equality.
Freedom conservatives obviously see through a lens of competition… libertarians are the ones advocating for entirely free markets where competition determines who lives or dies. I think order conservatives also see through the lens of competition though: They try to enforce order via caste systems, hierarchy. People are not equal, everything is a COMPETITION of my caste vs yours, my tribe vs yours, my religion, my race, my country, my town, my family.
Both freedom and order liberals want to collaborate… they want a village to raise a child, for everyone to have a voice. All people are equal. Order liberals want collaboratively developed rules to prevent harm, and enforcement of those rules. Freedom liberals want a less rigid collaboration, where individuals do as they please, but use empathy to self-enforce a harmonious coexistence.
These are the driving forces of my novel “Puerto Paz”. In parts 1 through 4, I take each Cardinal direction of political ideologies in the direction of an extreme (but often not TOO extreme, enough to show its harm to society), to reveal how extremism of any can be harmful. Part 5 is a more moderate society of Puerto Paz… although I consider myself squarely in the liberal camp, I do find my fellow liberals annoying me from time to time, and as I wrote the book, I attempted to shift my thinking toward the center, to create a society where non-extremist conservatives might feel equally at home as non-extremist liberals. All of this buried in the background under a coming-of-age road trip foreground story featuring the relationships of young men.
The Importance of Ranked-Choice Voting in Reducing Harmful Extremism
The 2-party duopoly of Republicans and Democrats has resulted in politics heading toward increasing extremes, and I fear it is going to tear this country apart. The cure likely involves multiple steps in different arenas, but I see ranked-choice voting as being the one that needs to happen first, and the step that is most critical. Here’s why it could work:
Our current, first-past-the-post voting system causes us versus “them” extremism to flourish. Everything becomes a binary yes versus no, black versus white when there are only 2 viable choices provided. Primary candidates race to prove how anti-"them” they can be, because there is only one “them” to compare themselves to, becoming increasingly extreme to demonstrate their anti-them-ness. One singular enemy to scapegoat. Why are there only 2 viable choices? Because in general elections unholy alliances form between freedom (libertarians or hippies) and order (bible thumping war hawks or nanny staters) factions of the bigger conservative and liberal ideologies, to gain the numbers needed to not let “them” win. No chance of libertarians joining with hippies in agreement for freedoms, and no chance of bible thumpers joining with nanny staters in agreement for order. Third party candidates, including more rational moderates, cannot be voted for because they’ll siphon votes from your 2nd choice candidate and deliver victory to the “them” you hate. They become spoilers.
Imagine a ballot with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), Trump (R), Mitt Romney (I), and Tim Kaine (I), now versus after ranked-choice. Now, Trump or AOC would win and half the country would be angry as hell. After, Romney and Kaine have a chance, and moderates might actually bother to vote instead of just riled-up extremists.
We desperately need more nuance in politics to curb the extremism... viable 3rd and 4th parties that allow voters to hop between parties depending on who they agree with on their most important issues. Moderate parties that can pull us back from the extremists. Less holding your nose while voting. More parties involved leading to shifting alliances to break the stalemate of us versus them. I see a lot of things needing to be accomplished, but no way to accomplish them until that stalemate is broken.
But as noted, 3rd and 4th party candidates don’t work in first-past-the-post voting systems. They can be viable in ranked choice voting systems though. With ranked choice it stops being a choice between 2 viable extremists versus throwing away your vote on a 3rd party candidate. You get to vote your conscience, choose the 3rd party candidate, and have the lesser of 2 extremist evils be your backup vote, to try to avoid the most undesirable extremist from winning. Candidates would no longer be able to position against an equal but opposite extremist “them”. They’d have to show why they’re better than 3rd, 4th, or 5th party candidates who have varying positions. Extremists couldn’t win by pandering to a riled-up extremist base. Nuance would return to politics. Extremism would be diluted. Moderates could thrive. Rational, cooler heads could prevail.
This would be difficult to do from the outside. Third parties are less likely to succeed in accomplishing ranked-choice. It would be much more likely to succeed from within the current 2-party system. Non-extremist Republicans and Democrats need to make a pact, similar to Grover Nordquist’s no-tax pact, that they’ll join forces on this one issue, to save America from the extremists.
I'm asking what moderates or non-extremists are left from both parties to start that pact. Reach out to moderate Democrats and Republicans you trust most and agree to make ranked-choice voting a reality before the extremists force you, and our country, into political extinction. Moderate Republicans, I’m especially looking at you, as it is your party that is currently threatening democracy and on the verge of leaving you behind.
If the 2 party system can’t make this happen, then my only thought is a 3rd party that can somehow siphon relatively equal votes away from Democrats and Republicans. A moderate conservative presidential candidate paired with a moderate liberal vice president, or vice versa, for example, with ranked-choice as their top agenda.
The 2-party duopoly of Republicans and Democrats has resulted in politics heading toward increasing extremes, and I fear it is going to tear this country apart. The cure likely involves multiple steps in different arenas, but I see ranked-choice voting as being the one that needs to happen first, and the step that is most critical. Here’s why it could work:
Our current, first-past-the-post voting system causes us versus “them” extremism to flourish. Everything becomes a binary yes versus no, black versus white when there are only 2 viable choices provided. Primary candidates race to prove how anti-"them” they can be, because there is only one “them” to compare themselves to, becoming increasingly extreme to demonstrate their anti-them-ness. One singular enemy to scapegoat. Why are there only 2 viable choices? Because in general elections unholy alliances form between freedom (libertarians or hippies) and order (bible thumping war hawks or nanny staters) factions of the bigger conservative and liberal ideologies, to gain the numbers needed to not let “them” win. No chance of libertarians joining with hippies in agreement for freedoms, and no chance of bible thumpers joining with nanny staters in agreement for order. Third party candidates, including more rational moderates, cannot be voted for because they’ll siphon votes from your 2nd choice candidate and deliver victory to the “them” you hate. They become spoilers.
Imagine a ballot with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), Trump (R), Mitt Romney (I), and Tim Kaine (I), now versus after ranked-choice. Now, Trump or AOC would win and half the country would be angry as hell. After, Romney and Kaine have a chance, and moderates might actually bother to vote instead of just riled-up extremists.
- Extreme liberals could rank candidates 1) AOC, 2) Kaine, 3) Romney.
- Moderate liberals 1) Kane, 2&3) AOC or Romney.
- Moderate conservatives 1) Romney, 2&3) Kaine or Trump.
- Extreme Conservatives 1) Trump, 2) Romney, 3) Kaine.
We desperately need more nuance in politics to curb the extremism... viable 3rd and 4th parties that allow voters to hop between parties depending on who they agree with on their most important issues. Moderate parties that can pull us back from the extremists. Less holding your nose while voting. More parties involved leading to shifting alliances to break the stalemate of us versus them. I see a lot of things needing to be accomplished, but no way to accomplish them until that stalemate is broken.
But as noted, 3rd and 4th party candidates don’t work in first-past-the-post voting systems. They can be viable in ranked choice voting systems though. With ranked choice it stops being a choice between 2 viable extremists versus throwing away your vote on a 3rd party candidate. You get to vote your conscience, choose the 3rd party candidate, and have the lesser of 2 extremist evils be your backup vote, to try to avoid the most undesirable extremist from winning. Candidates would no longer be able to position against an equal but opposite extremist “them”. They’d have to show why they’re better than 3rd, 4th, or 5th party candidates who have varying positions. Extremists couldn’t win by pandering to a riled-up extremist base. Nuance would return to politics. Extremism would be diluted. Moderates could thrive. Rational, cooler heads could prevail.
This would be difficult to do from the outside. Third parties are less likely to succeed in accomplishing ranked-choice. It would be much more likely to succeed from within the current 2-party system. Non-extremist Republicans and Democrats need to make a pact, similar to Grover Nordquist’s no-tax pact, that they’ll join forces on this one issue, to save America from the extremists.
I'm asking what moderates or non-extremists are left from both parties to start that pact. Reach out to moderate Democrats and Republicans you trust most and agree to make ranked-choice voting a reality before the extremists force you, and our country, into political extinction. Moderate Republicans, I’m especially looking at you, as it is your party that is currently threatening democracy and on the verge of leaving you behind.
If the 2 party system can’t make this happen, then my only thought is a 3rd party that can somehow siphon relatively equal votes away from Democrats and Republicans. A moderate conservative presidential candidate paired with a moderate liberal vice president, or vice versa, for example, with ranked-choice as their top agenda.
© 2020 Jefferey J. Reese - All rights reserved.
