I think a lot of political discourse is bound by a sense of “us versus them” mentality that clouds our thinking. Largely because of the rise of the two-party state, people have begun to section themselves into ever widening camps of individuals who support certain values, while eschewing those who do not. This group think not only leads to isolation in the sense that it divides people, but it also creates radicalization as the center in each of these camps is forced to adopt the most radical positions over time. This is because of political drift toward action. People believe that they have been mistreated or duped in some way and are willing to incorporate radical philosophies into their political framework. This causes a paradigm shift on all sides because each political philosophy has to compete by making itself more extreme to cancel out the extremity of the other groups. Part of the reason why George Washington did not want a two-party system was because he thought that it would change election priorities from being about the issues into being about party alignment, both for the politicians and the voters. He was correct. Many voters now simply vote along party lines and politicians realizing that often make purely partisan arguments that they do not believe. Understanding why political discourse has come to this is the first step in fixing it. A lot of our problems come from partisanship. Maybe to fix some of our problems, we should get rid of it.

Steve Bannon is not someone that I sympathize with. His economic nationalism seems based in economic literature that does not match up with what I have researched. His geopolitical strategy is purported to be non-interventionist, yet military budgets continue to skyrocket under the Trump administration. His view of Americanism as an entity rather than a philosophy is extremely dangerous; nation-states are not real constructs that wax and wane with the passing of time, but collections of individuals willing to carry on the idea of the nation state. His focus on the nation state is also extremely unfounded; I agree that global governance is evil and economically unfit, but nation states have the same problems of global governments, just on smaller scales. However, I believe that the progressives have massively mischaracterized Bannon to the point where it has become trivial, unprofessional, and unattractive. The progressive left has completely ignored Bannon’s arguments in an attempt to make Bannon sound like a racist and an ethno-nationalist, when he clearly opposes both of these movements. By focusing on non-issues, Bannon has been marginalized to the point where no one is listening to him and instead they are interpreting what they want onto what he says. Bannon cannot win with some people no matter his arguments, and those people are the losers.

Are engineers more important than businessmen? This age old question is a misleading one, partially because it presents a false dichotomy and partially because it shows that the proponents of the “yes” answer of this question have little understanding of economics. The argument that engineers are more important than businessmen is fixated around the belief that profits are an unnecessary middleman to production. Engineers are preoccupied with creating things while businessmen are consumed with marking those products up and limiting their production to limit costs and make profits. Such is the movement around this belief that there is a term for it:artificial scarcity. The problem with this view is that it makes no sense in a broad, long-term macroeconomic view. Consider socks. An engineer could sit and design socks all day and factory workers can produce socks,but without an economic template for how many socks they should produce, the engineers and factory workers will keep doing their jobs and producing socks. In this scenario, we would have socks in such abundance that they would essentially cost nothing. However, because we have dedicated all of our resources to making socks, there is now no shelter, no food, no water, no anything else. There would only be jobs for sock designers and factory workers, and the only hope this nation would have would be trading away socks for other goods. Saying that profits are unecessary to production is like cooking a ton of inedible food-you have cooked a lot, but no one can eat it.

I would not want to live in California. There are several reasons why not, but the top three illustrate very clearly the quality of life is not all its seems there. First, let me say that I admire several aspects of California, including the startup scene and the nice weather. However, it has come to my attention that these advantages come with trade-offs. California is a very expensive place, and the more successful the area, the more expensive it is. Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive geographical locations on the planet, besting almost every other place in America save Honolulu. For example, the average home in San Francisco costs about $1.35 million, a crazy sum considering that most of these buildings are under 3,000 square feet. California also has high state taxes. These taxes make their wealthy constituents pay ten or hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes every year, a painful burden to be borne. It’s also difficult to start and run a business in California, despite the start-up scene, simply because the state imposes such heavy restrictions and regulations on what businesses can and cannot do. Lastly, California seems a bit politically indigestible. The paradigm is just too liberal. I am not opposed to people being liberal, nor do I think I can only live in a conservative area, but in California, the richer it becomes means the worse it gets. I don’t think that I could be frustrated like that for so long, especially with people (my neighbors) that I’d have to build a symbiotic relationship with.