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I started thinking about areas where I have different views from otherwise like-minded people. I came up with the list below (I may think of others to add later), and I intend to devote a post to each explaining my views. These are not issues where I am just in the minority, but issues where I would be lucky to find a single person who agrees with me.
1. Traveling
2. Charity
3. Saving
4. Voting
5. Abortion
6. Democracy
7. War
8. Health Care
Before anyone gets offended by my comments, please take note: There is no reason to think I am particularly insightful on these topics; I am just an ordinary dude who reads and thinks about these things probably an inordinate amount. And while my opinions on these topics are fairly strong, that does not mean they won't change. And in fact they have changed many times before -- yes, I admit, I'm a waffler. I am not posting my views to convince you that I am right or that I have anything particularly useful to say; truthfully, this is more of an exercise to understand myself better. My hope is that I will get some useful comments telling me why I am wrong.
I will begin by giving you some background on my worldview so that you might understand my opinions better. If you have read this blog for long enough, you probably already have some idea, but allow me to spell it out for you as best as possible ...
On Bryan Caplan's Libertarian Purity Test, I scored a 102 out of 160, which puts me in the "heady realm of hard-core libertarianism." For those not familiar with libertarianism, that means I am socially very liberal and economically very conservative. I think adults should be free to do anything except harm another person or another person's property. I think the government should be very small but not so small that they can't serve their role: to prevent the use of force and to define and enforce property rights. I believe strongly in the power of the free market, and I believe whenever the government steps outside of their clearly defined role, the burden of proof should be on them to show that a market failure exists. One area where I differ from some libertarians is in supporting subsidies or taxes in cases where there are externalities or proven biases -- so I am in favor of subsidizing parks and education, and in favor of taxing gasoline.
My religious views are hard to describe. I am certainly not very religious and I certainly do not believe in a human god. If there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that humans are not that special. We are not the end point of evolution. My girlfriend would probably call me an atheist, but I would probably put myself between atheist and agnostic, if that's possible. I am not opposed to religion, and I am not closed to the idea that there is a god or gods. I do believe there is likely something special about the laws of the universe and the way it all "works", but I do not hold hope that my feeble human brain will ever be able to understand what it all means.
