What political party am I?

Which political party am I voting for?

Are you confused about which political party to belong to?  Me too.  I have a political economy blog, and I live and breathe this stuff and yet, I do not feel strongly towards one party and for good reason.  The reason is we are all different and one size does not fit all.  With political parties, we really only have two sizes to choose from in the USA. That is not a lot.

However, the good news is I have pretty clear ideological views. I have a positive vision of my America, with ideals and concrete solutions based on my understanding of Economics and the ideas of the enlightenment.

Look, I do not make friends or enemies based on politics. I believe you can, of course, marry someone who believes the opposite of you (take the governor of CA for example). What is politics but an abstraction? Therefore, I do not want to turn you off, if you enjoy other parts of my blog. Do not worry if you are not in complete agreement politically with me.

Here are my political views. I a financial and socially conservative but also anti-war and pro-environment and pro services for the poor. Let me explain.

My Republican parties views

Don’t you want a smaller government?

• Balanced budget amendment – Even start paying down some of the debt slowly as it crowds out private investment.
• Radical reduction in government spending – Anything government can do individuals can do more efficiently.
• Reduction of taxes or near elimination of taxation – For the poor, for the middle class and even for the rich. You should not have to work half your days for another man’s wife. The money you will never really see it again and it will go into some black hole and not really benefit you, or anyone perhaps. America grew rich in the first 170 years without direct taxation (something the founding fathers warned against).
• Pro-life – You can dislike me on this one, but I believe life is sacred. I live in Krakow with an old WWII German ‘work camp’  2 minutes away. I walk through this camp often and  I can not imagine other humans having the power to determine who should live or who should not, based on convenience, usefulness or some other criteria. Life is a gift.
• School Prayer – Optional moment of silence and not forbidding the word ‘God’ in school. I am for the freedom of religion not the freedom from religion.

But the republicans really burned me when their promise to America was some abstract document. It should be clear: like balance the budget and pay off the debt. They basically promised to eliminate health care and replace it with more military spending for foreign wars, gee-whiz that sounds like a deal.

My Libertarian views

• Anti-Imperialist – The Bush wars were for the extension of the US sphere of influence, and to secure the free flow of oil (Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan) to protect our American way of life. There are many other more oppressed people we could have liberated and we do nothing about in the world. There are terrorist camps in many countries, like Syria for example, but we picked Kuwait and Iraq for the oil and Afghanistan for the oil pipeline.  Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are oil-rich and by coincidence sit on top of Afghanistan who we invaded and Pakistan who we pay. The money could have been better spending on fighting terrorist with improved technology and detection, rather than the WWII style of building tanks and submarines.  My father worked in the jet aircraft industry and the military is the largest special interest there is in Washington.  Wars are won with technology not listening to the generals who are thinking in conventional terms based on things they learned in past wars. If we could ask the generals of WWI in 1939 what went wrong, I think they would say, they were thinking in outdated ways and did not even know it. Focus on the defense of America, rather than imperialism, and we will have fewer enemies and people to fight and we the surge in innovation coming from the reduction in the crowding-out effect will give the USA a real advantage.  Firing million-dollar missiles in no man’s land on the opposite side of the globe is not as effective as implementing the best facial recognition, lie detection technology in every port of entry to the USA, or much deeper cloud profiling like search engines do, etc. Think of why the Soviet Union fell apart, massive investment in conventional arms build-up while it was outclassed by US technology.  I spend many years studying military history and to defend a country from foreign threats you do not need a bloated military. All the money we spend on this could have been channeled for better use. Ten years of war and it ruined our reputation, lost lives and drove us in debt. We need to be one step ahead of a terrorist with high technology or we will have a nuke in one of our cities, not spending our resources occupying some piece of desert on the other side of the globe. And no we can not do both. We have chosen the latter. If we had chosen the former we would be technologically in the future ten years. The Bush wars, in the long run, cost the USA national security and I feel a little bit safer in Europe than in a US city.
• Keep the Internet free – If the government could it would get its meat hooks into the web.
• Free Market – If you bailout, either big business like the Republicans do or throw money at the problem as the Democrats do, you will create inefficiencies that will result in years of economic pain. Let the markets work.
• School choice – Basically I learned very little in the public school years. Did you?  I mean you spent the most productive times of our life in terms of learning just going through the motions.  Why not have school choice?

My Democratic views

• Guns– I live in Europe and we do not have guns except for hunting and they are hard to get. I live in a large city people are not injured with guns. Sure the right to bear arms, but does that mean I can bear a nuclear device? No way. Freedom is a responsibility and a limited good. You can restrict guns.
• The environment – You can argue anyway you want, but I do not want to be breathing your pollution. There is something called a public good and taxation on pollution with an earmark for cleaning the environment is not a bad idea.  I think America would consume the world if it could.
• Social system – I pay US and EU taxes even though I live in Europe. In the EU I get health care and pension and my family gets a university education and many other things. What would I get if I moved back to the USA? Zero. I pay taxes but get nothing. Do you think that is normal? I have no reason to move back. Here in the EU I pay taxes and get something besides billion-dollar nuclear submarines. Either cut taxes and privatize social security etc or give working normal Americans a tangible benefit. But taxation and throwing money into a black hole is a waste and unjust. Even the great libertarian Milton Friedman said that a rich society like the USA could help poor. It could be done with a negative income tax or whatever, but not taxes with nothing but foreign wars and payments to lawyers and insurance companies for medical care with jacked up prices.
• Social tolerance – You know I am catholic and a family man but I do not really care about issues like homosexuality, etc. People can do what they want, we as a nation have bigger fish to fry.

What political party am I? I am a registered Republican but probably closer to Libertarian for life. I usually vote Republican and Libertarian. I do not vote libertarian for the offices of the President of the United States or tight senatorial or representative races for practical reasons. In for the President and tight races, I will vote GOP for now. But I have voted Democrat.

I think the Democrats put themselves out there are morally more compassionate, the Libertarians as intellectually superior and the Republicans as the true patriots. Of course, all three are not true. Well did you ever read the American folk tale about Rip Van Winkle? Basically the politics and parties changes, but nothing really changed. So yes I love politics but I do not make enemies based on my views. I do not have all the answers.

Mark Biernat’s vision of America

The government that governs least governs best.

My vision for America is a low tax, smaller government, debt-free country, that respects the rights of individuals from school prayer to other beliefs and cultures and ideas. I am for the promotion of safer communities with limited guns, a cleaner environment and much more wiser defense spending.  In the end, I really do care about pro-life. I am very pro-family as I love my family and think a loving family with two parents is the healthiest place for a child be raised. I think I am what the founding fathers might believe if they were alive today. A small libertarian government.

I wrote three two earlier posts on some pluses and minuses of the political affiliations.

• Why be Republican
• Why be Libertarian
• Why be Democrat – to be written.

I am very interested to hear what you have to think about my political views. Please comment and tell me what “political party are you” and your vision of America?