Skip to main content

I Think I Just Brought The Average IQ Here Down to Triple Digits.

Well, fancy that. By my count, this will be the third blog to which I contribute.

For those of you who don't know me (due either to my hiatus between March and September or the fact that I'm just not quite famous), I'm a contributor over at Down With Absolutes (which, to be fair, contains about a third of my family in its list of contributors). I'm a senior in high school, currently grappling with college admissions. I like music (with a recent progression towards jazz and jam), history and a well-executed debate. I'm an officer on the Executive Committee of the Young Democrats Movement. I campaigned heavily for Democratic candidates over the past election cycle, I hope to someday run for office, and I'm a libertarian.


I should clarify that this is a relatively recent development. When I could first solidly identify my political views, I was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. I mean, a tax raisin', gun hatin', borderline socialist liberal. That was probably five years ago or so. However, over the past two years, between studying government and economics in school, and working closely with many a libertarian (not the least influential of whom was Tyler Nixon), my political philosophy has tweaked itself ever so slightly, sending several of my formerly leftist viewpoints on a right-bound crash course. I consider myself a classical liberal, of the same brand as John Locke. I believe that we have very basic and equally important rights which we, as human beings, are born into. I believe that government has little responsibility outside of protecting these rights for me, and that it has no privilege to deprive me thereof. I believe that an intrusive state—be it the Orwellian 'Big Brother' model or a New Deal/Great Society model—is harmful to everybody in the long run. Most importantly, I believe that personal freedom should be unlimited until your actions deprive another human being of the rights afforded to them.

I'm not as strongly libertarian as they come, mind you. Granted, I'm right of center on gun control. I believe that any and every drug should be legalized (be it for recreational or medicinal use). I think that government subsidy of industry is, as a rule of thumb, a very poor choice. I will differ with some of the contributors here in that I do support some form of universal health care (not 100% government funded “single payer” care, mind you), as I think that among the rights afforded to mankind is a right to their health. I strongly support public education, both as an anti-poverty and as an ideological model, and I believe that environmental controls are an end result which need to be realized if the human race is to carry on, period. Moreover (and this isn't a position that libertarians will have anything close to a monolithic stance on, if I'm not mistaken), while I believe that military service should be 100% voluntary, I do think that well-equipped, well-funded Armed Forces are essential to our survival, both on a combative and diplomatic front.

I look forward to posting alongside Steve, Tyler and Brian. Hopefully this will be both a teaching and a learning experience for all parties.

- Mat Marshall

Comments

Delaware Watch said…
Matt, is there a virus afflicting your family? First your mother and now you? Geez. :)
Way to go, Mat. In addition to your intellect, I appreciate your intellectual honesty.
Dana,

We slipped it into his drinking water.
Anonymous said…
Welcome to the freedom side of the fence, Mat. Interestingly enough, my own journey to libertarianism seems to have paralleled yours fairly closely except for the ultra-right military-as-diplomacy bit (and if your experience continues to resemble mine, you'll drop the support for universal health care and public education in about a year, not because your values have changed but just because you'll realize that they both fail to achieve their goals and actually hinder them).
Anonymous said…
Welcome Matt, If you only knew how liberal I used to be, you wouldn't let me near a tax form. Now I'm pissed and going for rebates. Must talk to you about that drug stance though. Why do you think they call it dope?

Popular posts from this blog

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba