Monday, January 26, 2004
(11:03 PM) | Anonymous:
How to be a moderate and still care about things
My sleeping schedule is a like a hot piece of tin; ultimately malleable. I have recently been going to bed at roughly 9 PM, and waking up refreshed at 5 AM. It is heavenly. Tonight I'm burning the midnight oil for two reasons; I went to see Return of the King for the sixth and final time, and I wanted to contribute to the Blog before the week got under way. So, before I hit the sack, here it goes.
Today, after my 9 AM class, I was waiting in the lobby of the Dorothy U. Dalton Center, which is the School of Music and Dance at Western. I often sit there if I'm bored or just dreading going outside. I sat with my friend Emily Cox. She is a funny girl - we both have horrible last names, so we generally get along just fine. I used to call her Emily Plural, and myself Michael HanSingular.
I'm not very funny.
Anyway, I was sitting with Emily, and we were discussing the recent talks about Roe v Wade, and where the feminist and conservative movements have gone since they last butted heads so long ago. I told Emily that I thought it was odd that the women's rights movement would ever think of pregnancy as a form of male oppression, to view a fetus as an unwanted burden. She agreed with me, but I went on to say that if a woman feels that way, it is not right for me to outlaw her actions against said fetus. Emily is similarly moderate in her beliefs; she describes herself as being a liberal with a conservative streak. I suppose you'd say I'm the opposite.
Which is better? Well, I am inclined to think myself right, of course. The primary difference in my mind of moderate-ness is that I am willing to live with liberals and conservatives, but they seem largely unable to live with each other, and some unable even to live with my tolerance. I would argue that liberals are more likely to tolerate conservatives, if only because the argument is for abortion rights, and not for mandatory post-rape abortions. The liberal view, in this case at least, is not to enforce the liberal viewpoint, but to allow it. The conservative viewpoint, again perhaps only in this case, is to force the conservative agenda on the entire law-abiding country.
However, the tide can be turned pretty easily if you start discussing taxation and the size of the bureacracy. Garrison Keillor, one of the first NPR liberal pundits, has written that a conservative is someone who thinks all bureacrats are evil, and a liberal is someone who probably wouldn't mind being one. In the world of business and money, conservatives are right on; governments are bad business, and have relatively no control over their employees (bureacrats), and efficiency and affordability are not built into the system. For example, in a budget crisis in a private business, employees would be encouraged to cut costs, and try to come in as far under budget as possible to ensure their continued employment. The opposite is true in government, as a division that fails to spend their allotted budget will be immediately cut and the funds re-allocated to another division that keeps over-spending.
Well, that's about it for now. Remember, I'm full of it, and actually a communist at heart. I would have voted for Eugene Debbs.
This post was written to the strains of Frederick Delius.
