I know.

I'm pretty sure this has to do with the site's cache plugin. I'll tinker.

Thanks, Glyph. Very glad to have you.

Stated goals are tricky; we've been amorphous in this site's goals somewhat on purpose. But largely it is to provide a community for discussion that includes as many perspectives as possible, so long as those perspectives don't eliminate other potential perspectives.

I do think the discussion of TVD, in this instance, has moved to meta, given the prominence of this dispute.

Yes sir, we aired the first one last week.

I haven't decided yet.

Mmmmmm...chocolate....

I'm glad you feel so passionate about this, but this whole chorus-response style comment rubs me the wrong way. Feels sort of disingenuous, like you're standing on a perch that makes genuine interaction with us impossible.

I'm remaining mums the word, but at this point I'm toying around with Structure. The architecture of the front-page / sub-blogs is going to undergo a shift, and hopefully that will make it easier for everyone and more cohesive.

Ethan, this is a lovely post. Well said, and not a bit too harsh.

As someone working in the so-called "gig economy" I am actually quite positive about what it could mean, especially for professionals and creative types, but it's hardly going to be much use to the majority of people until A) we get a much better internet infrastructure in place and B) we implement some sort of actual universal healthcare system.

Meanwhile, I would bet good, hard money that most people in said gig-economy are college graduates.

All this anti-liberal-arts stuff rubs me the wrong way, in any case. We should be working toward increased access (i.e. free college) rather than go the route these sorts are pushing for. Then we should increase standards and open up more avenues for non-academic education (i.e. the Finland approach) so that people don't just use college to get drunk and party.

Rather than just entrepreneurship classes, however, I think we should have more education earlier on about practical things like basic financing and economics in high school.

But I'm just rambling at this point. Excellent post.

Husbands. Sheesh.

More senior citizens vote GOP, but I would guess a pretty large segment of poorer senior citizens (those affected by these laws) actually vote Democratic.

Either way, this is pretty nit-picky.

Well...there's her video...?

I think that the name of the blog is offputting to women (or so I've heard) and that having more female writers here would result in more female interactions here. And the cycle is a vicious one, and the sexist comments don't help.

P.S. If any of our regular female commenters are interested in posting here, I'm all ears.

Agreed. That sums it up quite nicely.

NewDeal, I've referred to myself as a romantic countless, countless times. Everyone calls everyone dreamers. And sometimes they're right to do so! We can all be Utopian at times. Where am I being Utopian in this piece? Or romantic?

And I'm not a libertarian.

Anyways, don't just call bullshit. Give me examples. Don't just tell me what libertarians always do because frankly, Scarlet, I could give a damn.

Thanks, North!

I'm making two accusations. First, that the politics of Occupy Wall Street and the left-movement it's attracted are romantic (in a similar way to the politics of the Tea Party and their notions of the Founding Fathers, etc.) Populism in particular can be very romantic.

The second thing I'm saying is that politics is the one realm where we can play fast and loose with definitions. Neoliberal strikes me as a term used to bash any liberal that certain people on the left disagree with. If you think markets can be an efficient and useful tool, or believe that globalism is, in the long run, good for the world, then you're just a filthy neoliberal. But what does that actually mean? Clinton is often termed as a neoliberal, but he was far more war-like than I am, or than many libertarians are. But libertarians and market-oriented liberals are all lumped under the same banner. It starts to lose meaning.

I don't have an anti-ideological stance, either. Nor do I consider myself "centrist" - a term I find quite appalling actually. I do think that pragmatism is useful, and that determining policy based solely on first principles can be a waste of time. But I find most of the worst our government does is done in the name of bipartisanship, spearheaded by centrists.

I am a romantic, and I have to constantly temper what that can do to my political opinions. But I'm mostly a cynic these days. I mostly think that this political system we have is designed to craft abysmal laws and then have a very hard time repealing them. There's a decent flipside to this - good policies are also hard to overturn. But it's frustrating, and I'm pretty jaded and burnt out on politics right now.

Centrist false-consciousness though? Yeah, no. Thinking that economic freedom, civil liberties, non-violence, and robust safety nets are the best combination of guiding lights by which to craft public policy does *not* make me a centrist. Centrists want everyone to come to the center. I would prefer a total end to the war on drugs, a 75% slashing of our defense budget, a huge increase in the roll the federal government plays in public healthcare, and broad sweeping efforts to deregulate the economy and promote free trade...

Well this is a good question, and one that calls for something of a long answer. But I'll give the short version.

I think we should have as few restrictions over economic freedom as possible. At the same time, I think we should have as many programs available to create economic opportunity and stability as possible. So while I prefer a fairly deregulated economic system, I also believe in things like universal healthcare, public education, etc. I'm not really certain where I come down on school reform these days. I think there's good and bad that comes along with school choice and the status quo, and the fact is I think we have high cultural barriers to education reform largely due to class and geographical divisions.

When it comes to things like the soda ban, I'm totally against. It's nannyism and it irritates me. When it comes to something like the ACA, I'm all for it, and think it moves us closer to a system such as Germany's healthcare system, which is terrific.

I'm glad we have political parties and political labels. I'm just not sure they're always terribly accurate. I'm a free market social democrat when it all comes down. I believe in civil liberties, anti-violence, etc. which places me quite a ways away from many centrist Democrats, and I don't think of myself as a centrist at all.

Marriage is like running a small non-profit. So true...

Sure, but I'm not taking issue with his discussion over various tyrannies so much as I am with the blanket neoliberal statements and the notion that the root of libertarianism is a belief in private dictatorships. I think that's a stretch. I think valuing the family is not the same thing as wanting total power and dominion over your loved ones.

I think when we talk about the tyranny of the family we're speaking of potential tyranny rather than inevitable tyranny. Think of abusive families, or the fact that marital rape was legal until 1976. The family is ultimately very private and things can go on that are really, really bad. The state can't counter most of these things without taking extreme measures.

That's a good one. I also like their stuff on language.

I think you're responding to this post in an unfortunately expected way. Yes, markets do exist, in the same way culture exists.

Glad you like it!