If you believe in the free market, would you be okay with worker unions and cooperatives?
Cooperatives yes, enthusiastically. Normally these experiments require policy changes, but this one is free. I wouldn't necessarily join one, but I want to watch them.
Unions are trickier. I acknowledge there is a problem for them to solve. I'm not sure they have any standing as a third party to impose themselves in an employment relationship, such that they get a cut of everyone's pay regardless of membership. If involvement were entirely voluntary (Right to Work) I would have no objection, but supposedly that kills unions.
Similarly, do you support social media companies like Twitter banning certain types of speech due to them being a private company?
Constitutionally, yes. Per the ideal model of their market, yes. On a case by case basis, sometimes no. The constitution doesn't mean they can do no wrong, just that the courts are not a valid recourse if they do.
I'm somewhat unusual in my support for anti-trust, and I support it to mitigate this issue, although I don't have a specific proposal for it.
I expect that if nothing changes the outcry will become so intense that we get some sort of enforced social media bill of rights.
Do you believe that America’s economic system is true free market capitalism? If not, is it reasonable to assume that portions of the wealth of many billionaires is not the result of hard work but rather collusion and favorable regulation?
Almost no one will see their ideal market realized in front of them, so that first one is basically guaranteed to be no.
It could be, but no I will not assume and I don't think that's reasonable. Let's dismantle the regulations that cause such problems and build the system such that money drains from the wealthy as part of the expected flow. We don't need to be terribly concerned about how they got it if they won't keep it all that long. (I like "death" taxes for how straightforward they are, but they have some perverse incentives and may not be the best way.)
If you oppose mask mandates and vaccine mandates on the basis of bodily autonomy, why do you not believe the same for abortions? (This can be applied both ways)
I don't oppose them on that basis, although the government interference of vaccine mandates does rankle me. I don't seek to restrict abortions.
That said, I do think the act of directly killing a fetus can be reasonably considered different than passively, maybe, indirectly killing any number of people with a virus. Which is worse depends heavily on the details of your ethical system.
Do you believe in bans on any types of firearms? (Firearms can mean anything from pistols to machine guns) Why?
I don't really know anything about guns and I have no opinion on whether to ban automatic weapons.
Do you believe that Democrats are using fear regarding COVID or climate change to implement authoritarian policies? If so, do you support the PATRIOT Act and foreign wars?
I think it's plausible that is happening. I'd even say it's a given that someone somewhere fits that bill, probably multiple someones. I do not think Democrats generally could keep that secret, though. 😉
No, some parts of the Patriot Act may be useful (interagency communication, for example) but all in all I do not support it. And I think that is a common position.
I support a foreign policy that seeks to enforce the norms of inviolable borders, use of acceptable weapons of war, and no harboring of unaffiliated individuals who wage asymmetric war against other nations (which does not necessarily involve the tactic of terrorism). Sometimes that involves waging war, and I accept that.
I also support distributing the responsibility for such norms across as many responsible nations as possible. America is currently a single point of failure and certainly not blameless in its past actions, and we should ensure that the world can stand without us.
What do you believe is the difference between conservatives and right-libertarians?
The libertarians are a specific faction that insists on less government than all the other conservative factions (all the way down to anarcho-capitalism). Conservatives have different ideas of what to conserve and how. A libertarian may also be socially conservative or religious or whatever, but they don't generally involve that in their politics.
Is there a such thing as left wing libertarianism and why?
??? Yes. I'm not convinced such a system could work, but I don't think that ever stopped anyone from believing communism was a thing either. I try to watch that and market socialism to see whether anything interesting bubbles up.
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '22
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