Regarding the election:

Scots Taffer on 10/11/2006 at 04:26

lol drunk mispost

no seriously, I posted in the completely wrong thread.

Jennie&Tim on 10/11/2006 at 15:44

Agreed that people change as they grow up, I'm certainly more conservative about money than I was twenty years ago.

demagogue on 10/11/2006 at 17:00

Also, the mean age of the population is getting older, not younger; another reason to think we're not going to see another 1960's-era any time soon.

On a related idea, so much of politics is turning into who can "get out the vote" and get people who wouldn't otherwise vote to throw in a token statement (in particular younger people and suburban conservatives), e.g., against gay marriages or against Iraq or whatever.

I actually don't like this kind of trend because it makes politics more about token statements on relatively pretty sideline issues as far as the way policies actually control most of most people's lives (tax policy, social services, energy policy, increasingly environmental regl) rather than just one part of some other people's lives (things like abortion, gay rights, drug policy, etc). Politics to my thinking should be more about how you think society and the economy should be ordered on the whole.

Also, since the economy is becoming more globalized, I don't like the trend that people are being pushed to think smaller and more locally, on token issues, rather than pushed to think more broadly and more comprehensively. The old saying "politics stops at the water" isn't as true as it used to be. While I thought our decision to go into Iraq was dumb policy from the beginning, I think a new isolationism would be just as stupid a reactionary swing in the other direction (nb, I'm not talking about more military intervention here; I mean more generally, more engagement in "global" problems).

TheGreatGodPan on 10/11/2006 at 20:20

Reagrding token statements, that's the (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/05/back_to_normal.html) natural state of politics. (http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/11/04/policy-isomorphism-fiscal-domestic-as-civil-rights-foreign) This post at catallarchy seems to take a sensible view on what aspects of politics are more important than others, but since when does sensibility have anything to do with politics?

I'm a decentralist, so I'd prefer if politics avoid "comprehensive" issues. They'd just fuck them up comprehensively. If they just fuck up my neighborhood it's a lot easier to move to the town next door than another country, plus there are a lot more otherwise similar towns available than countries.

demagogue on 10/11/2006 at 21:24

Just quick, I can come half-way with you, maybe more. I think if average Joe people don't really care about politics, I don't want to force them to form an opinion, FAR LESS a comprehensive one ... for just the sort of reasons you are talking about. They should only mess with it when there's something they really care about.

So in that sense, I actually agree I'd rather politics in general by the little guy be pretty much out of their hands while they happily join bowling clubs or whatever, and they only rabble with things when they are really miffed about something, and ALL THE BETTER if that something is pretty small and trivial relatively speaking actaully affecting people's lives (abortion, gay marriage, Iraq after the fact) so if we have to muck things up to meet some public mandate, we can at least minimize it.

My last post, I'm thinking, is mostly about my own engagement, as an observer of gov't policies, or maybe the engagement of some gov't workers, beaurocrats, technocrats, or opinion leaders ... but definately not the normal Joe that I don't want him to care about politics if he doesn't want to. But for me, the little stuff really isn't on my radar to care much about. I want to know how it's all fitting together and really affecting the bigger trends. Big problems, like climate change, sometimes demand big problem solving that I can trust professional technocrat guys (anyone that actually, seriously studies the science, economics, & politics of it) before anyone else.

So I can understand why the normal Joe only wants to get involved when his emotions get in a huffy on some litmus issue, and I can even prefer it being that way in the long run as far as good governance goes. But I can still think he's being small minded for doing it.