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> You guys rule

: D

> hatred for increased taxes.

Well, I for one care considerably less about net revenue than how that revenue is extracted. I'm fine -- well, less not fine than I would be otherwise -- if the government extracts another $200 billion in revenue so long as it transitions the whole tax system to a consumption base, or raises it via a carbon tax.

> free improvements to quality of life

> I understand in a large society, it's not logical to want to hoard every penny for myself then demand the government give me everything I want for free.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Pretty much the only departments of government I would countenance expanding right now would be defense and state (possibly education or transportation, depending on how federalist we are). Nothing is really "free," such that, even if you're not directly paying the taxes to finance it, the incentive effects -- particularly if we're talking higher corporate taxes -- of somebody else paying those taxes is going to effect you in the form of lower wages or higher prices. It's a careful calculus, therefore, when we must way the value of social programs.

Personally I'm not really in the business of asking the government to give me, or anyone else, free stuff. I would of course support certain improvements to the welfare system, some of them rather expensive: I'd quite like to see the Earned Income Tax Credit expanded, the Child Tax Credit made fully refundable, TANF turned into a full-blown unemployment insurance program, and comprehensive jobs-training programs established, but all this is a drop in the bucket compared to the real drag on federal deficits. The real problem is entitlements: without reform, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are set to incur $210 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next seventy-five years.

If we can privatize Social Security, and look at alternative methods of healthcare delivery, we can achieve many of the same welfare goals as current programs with a great deal less long-run expenditure. A Universal Catastrophic coverage program or universal premium support, for instance, would drastically lower long-run costs, with just about the same budget impact today as current practices. Ultimately when it comes to healthcare, the greatest issue is in delivery policy, and how regulations effect pricing.

My real problem is marginal phaseout rates that can create welfare cliffs that prevent people from working. I'm more than willing to trade higher social assistance spending for entitlements privatization, and higher net tax revenues for reduced penalties on investment and lower long-run outlays.That most of my policy prescriptions tend to involve cuts in taxation, spending, and deficits is a preference, but not a hard rule.

(But don't worry, my real anti-government side comes out when we start talking housing and trade regulations).

> Christianity

I'm thoroughly agnostic, so I don't have to worry about that. I do, however, view Christianity as a wonderful force for social cohesion, such that government should incorporate those portions of Christian moral teaching which foster civil society, but not involve itself in imposing religious doctrines on its people. We do, after all, have a First Amendment, and as other posters have pointed out, it's not exactly charity if someone's forcing you to do it.

On a completely unrelated note, Peter Brown's Through the Eye of the Needle is absolutely fantastic if you're interested in the early development of Christian doctrine on wealth (or Late Roman stuff generally).

> Ted Halstead, who leads the Climate Leadership Council, applauded the new legislation. His group is pushing another proposal to tax carbon dioxide emissions and to return the money to taxpayers, an effort backed by former Republican political leaders including former Treasury Secretary James Baker and former Secretary of State George P. Schultz.

> Halstead said in a statement that the bill “provides a clear proof of concept that a conservative-inspired carbon dividends framework can attract bipartisan support.”

If you haven't before, watch Ted Halstead's TED Talk on this carbon tax + dividends solution that his current group endorses, as mentioned: A climate solution where all sides can win.

Ted Halstead co-founded the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank, and is co-author of the book The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics, which I also highly recommend!

I’m not an expert on foreign policy by any means, but I was a fan of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World by Walter Russell Mead. Mead taught Foreign Policy at Yale and the books provides a decent base for Foreign Policy over the history of America.

Link

The book as good reviews pretty much anywhere you look. Here’s a link to some, but feel free to look up more.

I think Reihan Salam has made a pretty good case that unless you are very confident in the upward mobility of low-skilled immigrant's children, it's probably best the U.S. pursue high-skilled immigrants more exclusively and the country back away from the status quo of heavily family-based policy. If you're interested there's a book he recently wrote on the topic, but I'd generally agree there's a reason most lasting low-skill immigration regimes are like the harshly enforced ones you can observe in Singapore and Qatar.

A Renegade History of the United States is a book I recommend to everyone. Lent it to my lefty father, who then lent it to my Trumpy brother. They both loved it.

lol. About what I expected. Have a good day!

Oh dear Lord.

This looks like the same sort of hyperbolic screeching as Jane Meyer's Dark Money. Some of these muckrakers need a heavy dose of Hanlon's Razor.

Especially when there are cool, modernized versions like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Action-Bible-Doug-Mauss/dp/0781444993

I think foreign aid has it's place, but people should be wary of the limitations of conventional aid in helping people in the long term.

Note: I am not advocating cutting foreign aid.

I am very tempted to buy this book.

It is extremely difficult to understand fascism without understanding European intellectual history, mainly how the French Revolution gave rise to nationalism, which replaced subcultures as a new identity. Here are some good books on fascism (which is not the same as Nazism) from a conservative perspective:

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https://www.amazon.com/Nationalism-Religion-Carlton-J-Hayes/dp/141286285X

https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Nation-France-Inventing-Nationalism/dp/0674012372

https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Materialism-1871-1900-Modern-William/dp/0313240825/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=generation+of+materialism&qid=1554230072&s=books&sr=1-1

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https://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Catholicism-Anti-Catholic-Nineteenth-century/dp/B00Y31I5TU/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_8?keywords=germany%27s+war+on+catholicism&qid=1554230134&s=books&sr=1-8-fkmrnull

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https://www.amazon.com/Giuseppe-Mazzini-Origins-Fascism-American/dp/1137514582/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=mazzini+fascism&qid=1554230156&s=books&sr=1-1-fkmrnull

Unfortunately, no, this is his book: Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060929081/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0SWqDbC69YFZD

I agree with your concerns for the future of the moderate left, especially when I see the likes of Sanders and Corbyn. But, honestly, the party’s are responding to the incentives given to them. The last generation of liberal politicians was the most moderate produced by either political system in a generation. And what did they have to show for it? Torn apart by both sides as out-of-touch elite technocrats, with the attack from the right feeling even more vicious for the party’s moderation.

A couple of decades of that also makes it pretty hard to muster the energy to say, “no, no, we should take the other side’s concerns seriously.”

Take Kevin Williamson. I honestly just don’t have much concern left for defending the author of this. Jonah Goldberg is another good example. I follow him on Twitter and like his dogs, but every time he says something about civility in discourse, this cover flashes through my head.

My grandparents emigrated from the bloodlands of Europe of world war 2. I was raised to be well aware of the horrors of totalitarianism from either side of the spectrum. Telling me that because I think government has a role in the solution to societal problems puts me on the slippery spectrum to Stalin and Hitler is both intellectually lazy and deeply personally infuriating. It’s better articulated and researched, but it strikes the same chord with me as old school John Birch Society crap. It’s exactly why the one point I reacted against in the first place was claiming that no one links liberalism and communism.

So what motivation do I have to come to the defense of thinkers who apparently are willing to lump my political preferences in the same camp as the 20th century’s worst monsters? Again, I understand that nothing I’m saying is particularly fair or constructive, and you could point to plenty of authors on the left guilty of similar rhetoric. But I also don’t see a groundswell of discussion insisting that those authors get a voice on Fox News or the National Review. I’m tired of being in the only camp (moderate liberals) apparently expected to take everyone’s views and preferences into account.