My Political Philosophy

Over the past few months, I've begun exchanging letters with a long-lost cousin. In a recent letter exchange, we got into the question of political philosophy, which I thought would be hard to describe. But a few minutes later, staring down at a couple paragraphs, I realized maybe it's not.

Here's what I wrote.

That’s a hard one, because I’m so much more of a process than a policy guy, but in the context of Loudoun politics, I do know a few things. I’m skeptical of development. Not because it’s bad, but because we have such a long history of doing it badly. I’m pro-schools and teachers. It’s a huge part of our budget, and an enormous expense out of taxes, and it should be. 30% of Loudoun’s population is under 18, and we have a public duty to educate them so they will be stewards for the community when I’m old. I’m pro-equality. That means race, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic status. I don’t think there should be cut-lines for VIPs at airport security, for example. I think that every family should be recognized as a family, regardless of whether there are two moms or two dads. And I’m in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy to mitigate the hurt of the poor. Everyone deserves to be able to raise their family. Everyone deserves a good job on which to pay for that. And everyone deserves a hand when they find themselves in a hole they did not dig themselves. I believe in equal justice, which means that if you commit a crime, you go to jail, whether that crime is breaking into my car and taking it on a joyride (which actually happened to me a couple years ago), or that crime is defrauding thousands of homeowners out of decades of savings pursuing your own greed.

They say that a Republican is a Democrat who has been robbed, and a Democrat is a Republican who got laid off. All I know is that I’m a Democrat because I believe in the power of the public, through their agent the government, to help those who can’t help themselves. And it is only the government with the authority and legitimacy to do so equally and fairly. Sometimes they get it wrong, but they get it right way more often than any of the alternatives. For this, I cite the example of Catholic charities, which has pulled out of a lot of philanthropic projects over things like abortion and same-sex couple adoption. They put their politics ahead of the need of the people, and that is frankly despicable. Governments, in the long run, aren’t allowed to do that, because ultimately Governments are the people.