loveablehydralisk

Mr. Levin,

As a lifelong liberal, I've had a difficult time understanding the philosophical basis of conservatism, despite numerous attempts at doing so. Specifically, I'd like to know what you think the bedrock moral and political principles underlying conservative attitudes and policies are.

For instance, on the liberal side, I can see a few baseline principles:

1. Substantial personal freedom: All persons should be as free as possible to engage their own opportunities and express themselves, excluding only interference with other's personal freedom.

2. Protection of robust options in life: Making sure that the freedom in 1 is genuine, and not merely nominal, requires a social effort.

3. Multiculturalism: Our governing body should transcend our cultural, ethnic and religious life, and be neutral between different such groups. Implicit here is the belief that diversity fundamentally strengthens society, while homogeneity is its own punishment.

Are there comparable conservative principles that drive your political views?

Congressman,

Since it looks like your colleague from the 7th is going to make a run for governor, who would you like to see replace him?

Also, what do you think it's going to take to win the 6th?

Governor Johnson,

My question is very simple. If our metric for judging our civil executives is simply their ability to meet a bottom line for our governmental entities, why should we not dissolve civil government altogether, and accede to direct corporate rulership?

Well, there isn't much correlation with any active US politician and the political left at all, with the Sanders exception. So, take issue with the first assertion.

Each of your complaints has a slightly different reply so I'll keep it brief. But the general point is that most liberals see freedom as something more than mere absence of restraint. While we value this negative freedom too, we value it slightly less than a more robust positive freedom: the ability to do as you chose. So, in practice:

Hate speech: The freedom to verbally assault your fellow persons is not a freedom that's high on my list for protection. The thought is that a high prevalence of hateful language being directed at you substantially decreases your positive freedom. So, hate speech laws, the argument goes, trade up on freedom overall. An objection to this view that I'm sympathetic to is the worry about legislating based on someone's beliefs: it's practically tricky, and might allow prevailing social winds to hijack the judicial process, lowering the value of the law in the first place.

Gun Control: There's two good arguments from the liberal side, which together stand up well against the conservative bulwark of personal freedom. The first is that weapons technology radically multiplies the damage possible from social outliers. Guns have reached a technological point where the social disruption possible from regular gun violence is too extreme to ignore, and thus is worth the trade down in negative freedom to prevent. The second point is that most of us are comfortable with some restrictions on privately owned weapons. A bomb capable of cracking the planet in two should not, most agree, be in private hands. So we're not debating on the moral permisibility of restricting weapons tech, we're just arguing about where the line is drawn.

Soda bans: I agree that this an overly paternalistic measure that has little to no payoff in positive freedom. These should be nixed.

Sugar taxes: Conversely, it is reasonable to believe that taxes should be used to make the real cost of goods more salient. This is the thought behind taxing products based on the pollution caused by their production: we pay the cost somewhere so we should make that cost visible, and ensure that we can use the collected funds to alleviate the problem. If obesity has significant public health costs, and sugar contributes to obesity, then making that cost visible helps people make more informed choices.

"Other substances they decide are bad for you": Assuming you mean drug regulation, most liberals are pro-legalization of most substances. A substantial conversation should be had on how best to transition to such a state, and how much regulation should be present in that market.

Regulation as a whole: I find the idea of being pro-regulation or pro-deregulation to be silly. It's like being pro-hammer or pro-screwdriver. The tools themselves are there to get results, the interesting question is what results we want. If the results are getting jobs for your buddies so you get rich, yeah, I disagree with that as public policy. If the results making sure that labor standards are followed and fraud is not being committed against the public, then regulation is necessary. I don't know enough about those two cases to comment on them, however.

Religious expression: Religion from a public policy standpoint is a lot like drugs. You legislate against it, and you've just made it stronger. People really like it, but it has clear social costs that are not frequently being borne by the people inflicting them.

I'd prefer we engage religion similarly to narcotics: legalize it, regulate it, and so long as you're a functional user not harming anybody, go ahead. You can even form religion clubs. Just don't suggest that everybody do your religion, or that your club is a requirement of public service.

And for God's sake, don't give to your kids.

Edit: so much for brief...

My questions are ethical, and may not be very nice. I apologize in advance.

In order to accomplish your personal revelation and update your beliefs, you needed to lie to many people for quite some time. Meanwhile, many of your co-religionists were able to shed some of their more archaic and reprehensible beliefs without engaging in a campaign of deception.

So, the questions are: if the only outcome of your experience is that you now treat LGBT persons as persons, do you believe that justifies the lies you told? Do you believe that you are now morally required to do more with your improved perspective in order to justify your actions? If so, is there anything you'd like to say about what those things are? If not, why not?

Thanks for the ama!