Left? Right? Center?

What's a moderate? What's a liberal? What's a conservative?

I have decided to remove the phrase "liberalism" from the title of this blog because I found it ultimately self-defeating. All of my views could either be described as liberal, moderate, or conservative. Therefore, because each label is so stigmatized, I decided to toss them all in favor of something more universal. Also, "Yankee" and "Liberal" is somewhat redundant. So I redacted both words completely.

For starters, what is a conservative? One would think that a conservative would not run a budget deficit during a period of economic expansion. One would believe in conserving natural resources, and making wise investments for the future. In other words, balance the budget through reasonable taxation, use care and consideration with the extraction of fossil fuels, metals and minerals, and rebuild highways and bridges before they collapse and kill dozens of people.

Obviously, political "conservatives" jettisoned these principles eons ago. I could say that I am a "conservative" because I don't think I should be able to set my kitchen tap water ablaze, but apparently, in today's climate, that makes one a liberal. C'est la vie.

Is there a middle ground in all this? Good question.

Funny how the "center" leans towards the left.

What bothers me most about the term "moderate" is that it is a complete mental shortcut. To subrscribe to any of the "big three" political labels is a sin; none of them are sacred. Rather than explore all sides of an issue (because there are more than two sides to each issue), a "moderate" simply decides that between two arbitrary points is the answer. Between left and right, there is truth

Granted, that's sort of true. If one says that Karl Marx is left and Ayn Rand is right, then one could reasonably say that the truth lies exactly in between. Between an economy where the state owns everything and an economy where the state owns nothing lies "truth."

The inherent problem with this philosophy is that is assumes, without justification, that every ideological argument is between two equally spaced polar opposites.

The politics of guns in America is a shining example of this flawed ideological examination. The
media loves to portray the gun safety dialogue as a political battle between two opposite camps: Those who loves guns and those who hate them. While these factions do exist, it is a very small subset of a much broader spectrum. Universal Background checks is a fine example. Public polling showed somewhere between 85 and 90 percent support for a measure that would make it harder for criminals to get guns and give law enforcement a tool to apprehend wanted criminals. And ten percent of the country wants criminals to buy guns unencumbered because they need them to overthrow the government should they feel the need.

First of all, where would the "center" be in this equation? How can a person show up in a public place with an assault rifle strapped to his back, make vague threats about killing American soldiers, and wear a button that says "Another Responsible Gun Owner?" Nay. It should go without saying that a responsible gun owner is somebody who understands that a gun is dangerous in the hands of a criminal, and any American citizen who would make allusions to kill an American soldier is a treasonous fool. Period. Maybe it support for universal background checks isn't centrist, but, well universal, because support is virtually uniform across party lines.

So if you're one of those 85 to 90 percent of all Americans who thinks the government should actually do something, where do we fit in? Even though public polling shows that roughly one quarter of all Americans self-identify as "liberal," large majorities of Americans support issues that are identified with the political left, be it marriage equality, a progressive tax structure, or universal Medicare. Let's face it: what the right brands as "socialism" is just another word for organized compassion. And it goes without saying that organization and compassion are both very good things.

So if somebody asks me what I am, or what I believe in, I say I am an organized compassionist. Or a prairie populist. Or just a decent human being. What can I say? My parents taught me to help my neighbor, even if my neighbor lives a thousand miles away.

Fund Medicare with More Jobs

Jobs are good for the economy. This fundamental tenant is so basic, that it is beyond my comprehension that anyone could think otherwise. Sadly, many people do, and some of them are in positions of power. In the midst of an election for the Office of President, now would be a good time to state the obvious in hopes we can get our country on the right track.

A job creates many jobs. That is the reality of the marketplace. We are all based on a system of interdependence. Working together to solve problems creates prosperity. One such system that we have is Medicare.

Jobs are a good thing. Let's not lose sight of this.

Medicare works on the same tenant as Social Security: younger workers pay into a general fund, and that fund becomes available to them once they retire. Various cost-saving measure, some prudent (Obama's), some nefarious (Ryan) are the topic of discussion right now, but a policy that would be both a necessity to the viability of Medicare would be to simply add more people to the workforce.

The premise is simple. Right now, the unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. By most accounts, approximately 14 million Americans are looking for work. If the Federal Government were to seriously make an effort providing jobs, such an effort would not be onerously difficult.

Our highways are literally falling apart. Our mass transit is dysfunctional in most of our major cities--if a city even has any form of mass transit at all. Even in New York City, home to its iconic subway system, is not without its flaws.

Take construction of the Second Avenue Subway. Not only is this project a full seven decades behind schedule, but once complete, it will provide a lower level of service than the elevated train lines it was meant to replace! Not only are we plagues with high unemployment now, but simply getting to and from work in this country is a disaster!

This is a problem of which we, as a society, have direct control over. We can increase our budget allocation to hire workers to fix bridges, plug potholes, and yes, update our crumbling mass transit system to something that was at least good as what we had at the turn of last century.

14 million jobs should be a major campaign issue. The median annual income for the American worker currently stands at $26,363. If 14 million people were to be added to the workforce, it would add an extra $369 billion into workers pockets. At current tax rates, these new workers would increase Medicare receipts by over $10.7 billion annually. Projected over 10 years, this would over $100 billion to Medicare.

With more workers, we could actually build this stinkin' thing!

And that's merely projecting the median salary. Most jobs created by government pay substantially more than that, much to the ire of today's modern conservative. Most workers employed in such a massive, large scale jobs program would make more than a paltry $26k per year. If we project the same number of jobs with a salary that is typical for said job, amount of money earned would likely to double, to nearly $540 billion in salary, and an extra $22 billion into Medicare per year.

How would the Feds finance such a program? Well, we may have to raise taxes on job creators like Lindsay Lohan and Alex Rodriguez, but I'm sure they will find it in their infinite wisdom to deal with it. And in the meantime, the rest of us can enjoy getting to work on fixing America.

As Michael Jordan would say, Just Do It!