Regardless of whether you end up being conservative or liberal, I want to encourage you to form your political ideologies consciously rather than by gut feeling, and base your votes on the principles that you consciously derive rather than on the personality and marketing of the candidates.

Most young voters (and a fair amount of older ones) in our modern American society base their votes on the personality of the candidates, i.e. which one inspires them, which one sounds more intelligent, which one they 'connect' with, etc. I call this the emotional approach to politics as opposed to the principled approach, and it is irrational, dangerous and increasingly prevalent.

The emotional approach to politics is very apparent in today’s public discourse. Rather than seeing, hearing and reading intelligent debate about the relevant competing principles like capitalism vs. socialism, protectionism vs. free trade, the merits vs. the consequences of a minimum wage, etc., the public is instead obsessed with emotional concepts such as likability, charisma, inspiration, and nebulous concepts such as ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘the middle-class’.

Rather than being influenced by marketing techniques, and rather than focusing upon the caricatures put forth by our candidates with their carefully scripted and spun images, instead, a simple analysis of a candidate’s record should take place in order to predict as accurately as possible what he or she will do in office. The principled approach to politics does not require you to hear a single lofty stump speech, TV commercial or wind-filled debate, or require you to attempt to make a character judgment of a human whom in truth, you will never really know the soul of.

All the campaign speeches, commercials, debates and most news stories are as manipulative and as credible as late-night television infomercials. The fact is, politicians and their supporters will say just about anything to get elected, so why listen to their nuanced sales pitches crafted by their professional writers, when instead you can simply evaluate their record? Why listen to the supposedly ‘neutral’ news media and subject yourself to their subtle spinning of the facts as they try to steer your towards seeing things their way? Why care about the irrelevancies that are deafeningly amplified to the forefront of importance? Why listen to the cacophony of personal boasts, personal attacks and promises of global salvation? Why give any weight to what a candidate looks like or sounds like?

When a violinist is auditioning to be in a fine symphony orchestra, they are required play onstage behind a black curtain so that the judges will be able to make their selection based purely on the music they hear, without being distracted by the appearance of the musician. There is a lesson there for voters.

Let’s face it - you don’t really want to vote for the black guy because he’s black, or the white guy because he’s white, or the woman because she’s a woman, or the war hero because he’s a war hero, or the handsome one with the deep reassuring voice simply because he is handsome and has a reassuring voice.

A more rational approach would be to eliminate these distractions from the equation and just vote for the candidate who will steer the country in a better direction than the other guy. But to know what direction is better than another, one first must educate him or herself to determine where he stands on key political issues. This is the principled approach to politics, and it requires that before ever even considering an actual candidate, one must first establish their own political principles. Once a principled person knows where they stand, he or she can then determine who to vote for by simply comparing their own principles with each candidate, based solely upon the candidate’s factual record.

As a teenager, I was encouraged by my father to figure out where I stood on the key political issues and why. Once I did that, voting became very easy for me, since I no longer had to sort through all the spin that virtually all political campaigns rain upon the public.

In each part of this multi-part letter, I will present a single political subject for you to consider. The subject of this first letter is one of the most basic political subjects of all: big government vs. small government.

Developing your position on this, along with the subjects of subsequent letters, will give you a well grounded set of political principles that will guide you past the confusing, irrational, manipulative politics of emotion that is plaguing today’s culture.

Big Government vs. Small Government
Let me begin by clearly saying that I am a small government guy, but I will try to lay out both sides of this foundational debate as I see them.

It sounds simplistic, but the two competing ideologies of big government and small government have dominated political debate since the very birth of our country. These two competing ideologies are at the root of dozens of sub-issues - that is to say, if you sit somewhere on one side of the spectrum vs. somewhere on the other side, it will likely dictate your position on each and every one of these sub-issues. Because of this, it is essential to figure out if, in general, you are a big government type of person or a small government type of person.

Big Government
Some people believe that our government should generally be bigger than it currently is –a government that assumes greater roles in people’s lives in areas such as healthcare, education, the arts, housing, food, the employer/employee relationship and a multitude of other areas. Socialism, in its purest sense, is near the extreme end of the big government side of the spectrum - and socialism is not a bad word, just a certain philosophy that, to varying degrees, many individuals believe in and many countries aspire to.

This type of system looks to government as the solution to many of society’s problems: as the caretaker of the needy, as the educator of the masses, as the doctor of the sick, as the benefactor of the arts and many other roles. Of course, all these things cost money, and so this form of government also requires each citizen to be beholden to the government in the form of higher taxes.

At the extreme, you can see how this type of society is not very attractive to highly productive individuals, for the burden is upon them to support the non-productive members of society (i.e. if you work, you pay high taxes; if you don't work, you get free stuff). Not only is it unattractive for highly productive people to immigrate to such a society, but it causes a disincentive for people raised in such a society to ever become productive; after all, why take the risk of starting a new business if you don’t get to keep the rewards? Why not let someone else do the heavy lifting? A more socialistic type of society actually attracts the unproductive. In European countries that have more entitlements than their neighbors, they are seeing an influx of immigrants who are coming for the sole purpose of living off the welfare state.

While most Americans on the left don’t believe in 100% pure socialism, they do tend to want our government to move in that direction. Think of it as a sliding scale: the more government entitlements, the higher the taxes on the productive members of society, the less incentive there is for individuals to take risks and be productive. Because of this fact, you see higher unemployment rates in more socialized countries such as France and Sweden, because with all the government handouts that exist, life without a job actually isn’t all that bad. Conversely, working hard isn’t all that great because you have to pay so much of your salary in taxes.

On the plus side in such a society, nobody goes hungry, nobody is homeless and everybody gets a free education. Beyond the economic trade-offs of this system, there is the matter of individual liberty. Obviously, the more beholden you are to your government, the less personal freedom you have. To illustrate this, let’s look at some extreme examples: if the government were responsible for feeding everyone, then people would not get as much freedom in their choice of food (think of an American grocery store compared to one from the old Soviet Union). If the government is responsible for providing all the jobs, you wouldn’t have as much choice in your career path (you’d have to choose from a list rather than open that poodle grooming salon that you’ve always dreamed about). If the government is responsible for your medical care, you can’t choose that holistic doctor who is doing that groundbreaking new procedure that you read about. The more socialistic societies generally place a greater value on 'civic duty' and a lower value on individual rights such as free speech (In Canada you can get sued for saying your opinion if it is offensive to another party), the right to bear arms in self-defense, and freedom of religion in more extreme cases.

Small Government
On the other side of the spectrum are the classic libertarian philosophies akin to those of our founding fathers: smaller government that is limited to essential functions (national security, a justice system and perhaps some decent roads). This philosophy holds that a government should guarantee, above all else, that its citizens have the basic right to live free, work as hard as they choose, and pursue their own happiness –to live their life on their own terms for better or worse - so long as they do not harm anyone else in the process. This form of government, in its pure form, does not guarantee success or grant entitlements such as healthcare, education, welfare, a job, a minimum wage, a hot meal or a descent home. These are things that each person must either work for and earn, or receive from voluntary charitable contributions. However, this system tends to attract productive individuals and encourages new ones to emerge, for in this society productive individuals get to retain and enjoy more of the fruits of their own labor. This society gives people the freedom and incentive to succeed based upon their individual effort and ability.

The concept of limited government is based upon an attempt to, above all else, prevent oppression from government. It is based upon a theory that a society of free individuals will always be better off if they are allowed to flourish without the oppressive hand of kings, dictators or other tyrannical regimes holding them back.

As I said, these two competing philosophies represent a spectrum, somewhere within which we each lie in our personal beliefs. Each individual voter should look in their hearts and figure out where they sit on this spectrum. While few people are on the extremes, it is fair to say that most people are clearly either ‘big government’ types who want to move us in a more socialistic direction, or ‘small government’ types who want to move us in the other direction. Which are you?

In just about every election, you will find that one candidate’s philosophy is clearly more ‘big government’ and the other is more ‘small government’.

Taxes
A basic extension of the above subject is taxation. Are taxes a necessary evil or a tool for social progress?– Those who believe in a bigger government generally believe that raising taxes is totally fine in order to pay for more government services. Small government types prefer smaller taxes and fewer, more basic government services. Small government types believe that, in general, it is always good to reduce taxes.

Once you figure out if you are a big government type or a small government type, you will find it surprisingly easy to make sense of out which candidate to vote for and which ballot measures to support, by simply seeing if they propose to expand or reduce the size of government.

-YPR

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