My Political Compass

Democrat? Republican? Something else? What am I?

A really detailed political compass, which contains basically every common ideology that someone might have. It is aligned by two axes - economic policy (left-right) and social policy (authoritarian-libertarian). Source: u/s7ardus7 on r/PoliticalCompass

Recently,

Elle Griffin

of The Elysian published an article describing her stance on a bunch of issues as of late 2024:

Am I a Democrat or a Republican?

Elle goes into some detail on most issues that people care about: the economy, education, subsidization of healthcare, the environment, fiscal policy, reforming the American tax code, and the issue of free speech.¹ She states that her views don’t fully align with either the Democrats or the Republicans, but rather she is focusing on solutions to our problems.

Every person, of course, has a different view on each of these issues. This can be clearly seen in the house that I live in - I’m a blue dot in a red house!²

But let’s delve a little bit deeper. What do I believe is right? How does it compare to what the major political parties think? Can some dialogue be initiated to move towards a better system that helps us all?

We’ll start with the idea of the economy and jobs.

I do believe that an economy that has jobs for all people is important. This includes people with disabilities³. Companies should make efforts to ensure that all people that are able to work, can. This includes flexible work schedules, the ability to work remotely, and setting up accommodation systems so that work is accessible to all.

I also realize that while a strong economy is important, limitless growth is not possible. At some point resources will become a limiting factor, regardless of how much manpower a country has. As such, we need to ensure resources are distributed equitably to all economic sectors and regions within the country. This includes money.

One of the measures of how money is distributed to the people is the Gini index. For the United States, this value is 0.485 for 2023, down from the pandemic peak in 2021 but still higher than prior to the pandemic. More telling is the distribution per quintile, and the amount that the top 5 percent get. Over the past ~50 years, the share of household income going to the top quintile and the top 5% have gone up by 8.3 and 5.8%, respectively, whereas the shares for all other quintiles have gone down - indicating a transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes, to the wealthy.

This is a bit further evident by some people reporting that they have to work multiple jobs, just to squeak on by, or, in the case of some, make mutual aid requests⁴. This should not be the case - one should not have to break their back and have no free time, just to survive. This is where a universal basic income (UBI) can come in handy. This has been trialed in many different places, mostly in the United States, to good success⁵. Ideally I would like to see this expand to a larger scale (a socialist ideal), however, cost is a concern, especially if you are looking to expand the program nationwide.

This segues nicely into fiscal policy. I do believe that the federal budget can be better utilized. The US government has a website that breaks down how it spends its money as well as a site that breaks down the deficit and debt. One of the biggest places of spending is on the net interest on the US debt, which stands at over $36 trillion. Bringing this debt down would therefore reduce the interest, which in turn would reduce our net spending. However, to do that, we have to do one (or both) of the following:

• Increase the amount of funding we get from the people

• Decrease spending elsewhere

The first point, increasing the amount of funding we get from the people, could be done by raising taxes - something that the Democrats like. I would ensure that we tie up loopholes that the wealthy and some companies use to pay less than their fair share. I wouldn’t necessarily touch the actual tax rates, except for the super rich - perhaps, I’d add another bracket above the current top bracket of 37%.

This is likely not going to be enough - we will also need to reduce spending a bit as well - a Republican ideal⁶. Of course, I would not touch the social services such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, nor stuff that targets the social determinants of health, such as education, transportation, housing, environmental affairs, etc. This leaves relatively few areas that I can reduce, but there is one area that I believe we can downsize quite easily - the miltary. I am a pacifist, and I loathe war. Having a large military might be a deterrant, but it also does keep our rivals on high alert. Perhaps by downsizing our military, other nations will do the same, and we can ease tensions around the world.

Even though I say we should not touch the scope of social services, we should seek to remove inefficiencies in these. Streamlining processes of onboarding and using advanced technologies (such as AI) to target the upstream determinants of health can help reduce expenditures in the long run.

Education is a key thing that should be emphasized. The United States ranks 31st in education, behind a bunch of other first world countries. Furthermore, the education system we have is generally focused on efficiency - pumping out as many “educated” people as possible. Also, the system fails to effectively deal with those that think differently than the norm. The following cartoon describes this well:

A cartoon that shows “fairness” in selection/education. Here a monkey, penguin, elephant, fish, seal and dog are receiving instructions from a man sitting at a desk: “For a fair selection everybody has to take the same exam: Please climb that tree” (original source: anonymous, taken from Stimpunks)

The education system really ought to focus on each individual student - essentially, a person-centered approach where we take into account each person’s strengths and weaknesses, and tailor their education accordingly⁷. Such education can include, but not limited to, traditional classroom work, experiential learning and world traveling⁸. A step in this direction was proposed last year by New York State.

The education process should be free for everyone, regardless of level - this is a Democratic ideal.

A bigger issue that has come up recently with regards to education is what agency would oversee the country’s education system. At present, the Department of Education does this, which also allocates extra funds to schools to ensure persons with disabilities receive free and accessible public education. I am generally in favor of keeping this department alive - going against Project 2025’s goals of removing this and giving control of education back to the states, however, the role of this department under a person-centered approach would be a bit different. I will discuss this in more detail in a future post.

One of the things that most concerns me is the environment. We should strive to phase out fossil fuels such as coal and oil as quickly as possible to limit future global warming⁹ - another Democratic ideal. We also should do whatever we can to protect wild lands as well as not ruthlessly exploit the earth for its resources. After all, Earth is our home, and is the home of all life that we know about. Hence, would it not make sense to extend the ideal of protecting life¹⁰ to include all forms of life and the Earth¹¹?

Free speech is an issue that has arisen, particularly with regards to censorship. I do believe that free speech should not be infringed and there shouldn’t be censorship, however, more effort needs to be taken to tackle misinformation and disinformation. These tactics have the potential to undermine the very underpinnings of democracy. The government should also ensure that information is transparent and accessible so that people can be informed and take action if they believe that the government isn’t going in the right direction.

As I close this, I’ll quote something from Elle Griffin’s post that really struck me:

“I’m sure your laundry list doesn’t look the same as mine, but you probably have similarly conflicting beliefs that don’t neatly line up on one side of the aisle or another.” - Elle Griffin

This is where dialogue comes in. Spaces like this exist for us to discuss and come up with ideas to solve the various issues that we are dealing with. We can then see which ideas might work the best and then either implement them, or work with the government to see if such ideas can be supported.

So I will turn it to you, the reader. What sort of issues are of most concern to you? Do you reasonate with my ideas? Leave a comment:

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1. Now, there are more issues that one could mention. As I’ll mention here - ensuring disabled people are able to contribute to society and can do everything that they desire is one of my highest priorities.

2. To be clear - I am not registered to any party. However, I voted a straight blue ticket, as the candidates running under that party were the closest aligned to my views. Everyone else went red, to my knowledge.

3. Typically, bills dealing with people with disabilities get bipartisan support. A recent example is HR 7213, better known as the Autism CARES Act of 2024. The bill overwhelmingly passed the House (374-15) and the Senate and became law.

4. I am all for this - we should strive to work together to improve our own living situations. Some of course dismiss this as begging.

5. NPR covers some of these programs, as well as the people’s reactions. Per the map cited above, as of early 2024 192 experiments have been run.

6. Especially if a UBI is implemented!

7. Now, of course students need to know certain things - how to do simple math (add, subtract, multiply, divide), how to read and write at the general population level, know how to do taxes, and other things that are essential for daily living. Learning things above and beyond the basics should be the decision of the person being educated.

This in turn would likely require a reworking of a lot of things - in particular, job and testing requirements.

8. This built-in flexibility would be great for some neurodivergent minds that do not fit well with the current education system.

9. Per NASA, 2023 was 1.36 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average. 2024 is virtually certain to be at least 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than this average. Copernicus will reveal this data on 1/10.

10. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are endowed the right to life. This would extend it to all lifeforms.

11. This is not a new idea! Back in 2022, a court in India ruled that nature has the same legal status as humans.