Ideology

I'm working at least one, but potentially multiple, posts that will become tabs at the top of the page discussing the "ideology" of Freedom Democrats, to the extent that it's possible to summarize our ideology. I see several components and I want to generate discussion on how much explaining is needed in each:

- Traditional Left-Libertarianism. I define "traditional" as the school of thought within libertarianism that differs from right-wing or "royalist" libertarians in their view of private property in natural resources. I come from a Georgist background and I still think that concern over the appropriation of the commons is a hallmark of this site. I also think it combines with a concern for egalitarianism, while right-wing libertarians are notorious for not only not caring about egalitarianism but going out of their way to attack it.

- Mutualism/Cooperative Anarchism. Essentially, the schools of anarchist thought that promote cooperative enterprises and solutions. This further defines the site in opposition to libertarian and anarchist schools of thought that believe any man, or woman, can be an island.

- Libertarian/Agorist Class Theory. I want to have some specific discussion of class theory since this site really has adopted it into our discussions.

Others?

Some type of primer on our approach compared to what's usually imagined when you think of "the left" would be useful. Explaining that first thing when new people do show up to the site does get old.

Not just how we differ from the standard libertarians, but how we differ from the standard left.

First, I like the history post. I think that some visitors will use it to learn what this community is about, whereas others will prefer the more explicit (ideological) description. It's good to have both perspectives so that visitors can read whatever they think is relevant, or read both if they want a fuller perspective.

Second: did you hear about the Great Apes Protection act, which would ban research on chimps?

Okay, now to ideology: All of the above categories have the feel of libertarian navel gazing. It's interesting...and perhaps it's the best way to introduce this community to libertarians, but I don't think that "regular" people will get much out of it. probably, their eyes would glaze over.

To reach people coming from the mainstream (either ideologically naive, or deep in Democratic doctrine), I think it would be best to speak in terms of either policy proposals or general principles (or both). I'll shoot off a list of possibilities:

"consent of the governed": political decentralization (voting with your feet); US cannot be the self-appointed sheriff of the world. BTW: how do we deal with governments that come nowhere close to meeting this principle?
political equality: against political machines; how can regular people organize for elections?
social equality: wealth and power are not indicators of what a person has contributed to society.
economic independence; opposition to anything that looks like indentured servitude (anti-compete clauses). No neo-feudal relationship between employer and employee.
civil liberties (both process and substance)
lifestyle liberty (drugs, sex)
big business = big government; anti-trust; competition as a way to distribute wealth somewhat equally; against winner-take-all competitions (such as patents and elections)
non-nationalism; non-communalism; individualism; cosmopolitanism. Open borders.
Social safety net? Neither cause nor solution to poverty.
"government" is not just tax/spend. It isn't even primarily tax and spend.
The existing market is not a free market -- nowhere near.
Don't use "market" as a synonym for "voluntary relationships".

(Note: when I try to edit/update comments, I see raw HTML. Is that the norm?)

Aim for inclusivity.
Recognize that individualism is not trivial. We are a society (laws only have meaning in a society). We inherit. We have groups within the broader society. Injustices are often done by individuals and the benefits passed to their groups. Many major injustices have been done in the recent past, and our "individual" conditions are shaped by these injustices. This is important to separate us from conservative individualists who use "individualism" to hide their ill-won privilege. We are open to proposals to weaken/eliminate any institution that artificially reinforces group identity or inheritance and propagates the effects of these historical injustices.

hmmm. this has got me going....

Perhaps the Dem party platform would be a good model for this document. IIRC, it's got a bugnch of feel-good language. Being a smaller, more focused group, we have the benefit of being able to be more precise.

Other issues:

Market support (Keynsean policy): I dislike ad-hoc stimulus, but like well-considered automatic policies such as allowing tax revenues to drop an providing extended unemployment insurance. Of course, the budget must be balanced over the business cycle.
Banks? Heavily subsidized and bloated, concentrating economic power in the hands of a few.

Another big issue is the uses and limits of political activism. Many of the dieals that I listed will not be achieved with political activism alone; socail activism is necessary. We should avaid the tendency seen in both libertarians and Democrats to treat state policy as the be all and end all of a good society--as though everything else will take care of itself. We don't need to agree on non-political social activism, but we shouldn't ignore it or allow political activism to crowd it out. I think this may deserve its own article.

Along those lines, I really dislike how politicians are treated like heroes in our society. This is not compatible with social equality, or a proper critical relationship with power. However, we if we treat them like dirt (as libs tend to do), then this whole electoral strategy is pretty much dead on arrival. Also, running for office is hard work and costly, so there needs to be some sort of award that appeals to socially responsible people (who don't worship power)--otherwise all these positions will be filled by tyrants.

One final idea, is that we could have a set of "open questions" to guide discussion on this site. As a bonus, we could invite all Dem candidates (e.g. with their name on the primary ballot) to respond to any of those questions, and we would post their response here. I'm thinking of things like

what makes a good politician
how would you balance the budget
how would you de-escalate the drug war

First, on the history post, glad to have the feedback. I also wanted to tie in recent Democratic politicians we did organize around to establish some Democratic credentials. I'll also have a page highlighting other Democrats we like. Like Feingold. Others?

I'm on the record, many many times, saying that animal rights/welfare issues will become a more important topic in our political system. I haven't looked this bill specifically, but it seems to be moving in that direction.

I tend to agree that a lot of it sounds like libertarian naval gazing, but I do want to start with some founding principles. Especially ones that define us as distinct from your run of the mill libertarian. And I see that largely in that we like the word egalitarian and don't freak out over it, we think a large part of human nature is cooperative, we do treat natural resources a little differently, and we think that non-political direct action is an important part of bringing about real change in society.