Ideological Musings

(Satire, people. This is satire. I actually had someone not get that.)

If there's one thing I'm opposed to, which I think represents a very wrongheaded tendency in our society, it's this: traffic lights.

First off, just on basic principles: this nation was founded on an ideal of freedom, and yet somehow, we got to the point where the government is telling me when I can stop or go?!?

But it's not just the principle, I'm not just an ideologue: my real concern is because it's a very practical issue. The ill effects of traffic lights are a prime example of how the unintended consequences of well-intentioned overregulation can result in broad negative effects for everybody they're supposed to be helping.

Traffic patterns should be determined by free competition between the traffic participants, so nothing stands in the way of the best drivers getting where they…

You're permanently confined to a bed because someone has shackled you to it with iron chains. Are you free?

You're permanently confined to a bed because someone surreptitiously slipped you a paralyzing drug, which is preventing you from moving. Are you free?

You're permanently confined to a bed because someone is standing there threatening your life with a gun to prevent you from moving. Are you free?

You're permanently confined to a bed because you are immobilized by an incurable, debilitating illness. Are you free?

You're permanently confined to a bed because you are immobilized by a debilitating illness, which is curable but which you were not able to afford the treatment for. Are you free?

You're permanently confined to a bed and you don't know why. Are you free?

Reading an interesting and wide-ranging article on political analyst David Shor (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opinion/democrats-david-shor-education-polarization.html) I came across the following passage:

"[Shor] and those who agree with him argue that Democrats need to try to avoid talking about race and immigration. He often brandishes a table showing that among voters who supported universal health care but opposed amnesty for unauthorized immigrants, 60 percent voted for Obama in 2012 but 41 percent voted for Clinton in 2016. That difference, he noted, was more than enough to cost her the election.

"This can read as an affront to those who want to use politics to change Americans’ positions on those issues. “The job of a good message isn’t to say what’s popular but to make popular what needs to be said,” Shenker-Osorio told me.

"Shor’s rejoinder to this is that the best way to make progress on race and immigration policy is…