Though I’ve always felt that the way we nabbed the word “progressive” is unfair — kind of like how IBM managed to make “PC” mean their particular hardware standard, instead of being a generic term for any personal computer, which it was before. Non-progressives who also believe in “progress” (whatever that means) must be mad every time they hear the word used in the sense we’re using it, and one can’t really blame them. Not to mention its use as a term of art in taxation jargon: “progressive” vs “regressive”. I mean, it’s like calling the two tax strategies “motherhood” and “terrorist” respectively. How is anyone supposed to have a reasonable policy debate with terms like that?

I like the “Conservative Leftist” identification, though my own definition varies from yours. I think I’m personally a progressive fiscal conservative, and I think the main goal of government should be to constantly evolve towards more efficient ways of coordinating the populace (without taking away privacy), for the good of all, with the minimum expenditure required. I believe this is possible because of dynamic self-organization systems, that sometimes arise with minimum interference, like much of cooperative capitalism, and the OSS phenomenon itself. There are places where government must intervene for the long-term fiscal good of all though, like anything involving far-reaching external costs (the environment), or areas where gaming the system temporarily benefits the few over the many (false SEC filings, predatory lending, protection rackets, patent trolls, etc.). That’s why I don’t see my progressivism and fiscal conservatism in conflict — I think progressive government action is often the “cheapest” long term method of populace protection, overall. The “Republican” methods over my lifetime, including constant war and badly placed glad-handed deregulation, have certainly proved costly. In many ways current Republicans are the exact opposite of fiscally conservative.

I think Barack Obama is the one candidate that sees things the same way. Any notion of “conservation” or “progress” should include benefiting and preserving the rights of ALL people — not the rich elite few, over the many under-represented (we can’t all have lobbies, Hillary). Hillary forgets that foreign nationals and businesses sometimes have more ability to contribute to lobbies than real American citizens — lobbies DO NOT represent real Americans, and definitely not proportionally. I was a McCain supporter in 2000 for some of the same reasons, but he sure changed his tune since then, when W forced him to decide that being a warmongering hypocrite is the only way to win in the Republican party nomination. Obama is the only real choice left, so thank goodness he’s a smart one too.

“I found the BEEF - Obama’s Senate Record”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/21/164117/783/290/461422

http://blog.johnjosephbachir.org/2008/02/10/barack-obamas-technology-platform/

Also, I made this site a couple weeks ago

http://yeswecanhas.com/

Of course, if he goes with public financing, then it’s not clear what we small donors do. The big donors, it’s clear: they buy TV time and produce ads themselves, loosely coordinated with the campaign’s talking points, and meanwhile the campaign can honestly say “We had nothing to do with it! We couldn’t stop them!”

Ah, the delightful intersection of campaign finance reform and freedom of speech…

Obamarrific!