Essay Instructions: Topic your political philosophy
how do your specific opinions on current political issues relate to your positions on the fundamental problems of political thought? Are your political ideas grounded in a world view? How does your concept of human nature influence your think about politics? What are your fundamental political values? How do you define and rank other those values? How do you think government and society ought to be organized? Can you defend your answers to these questions on intellectual grounds? Do your ideas fit together in a coherent framework that could be called a politics philosophy? Are the various parts of your philosophy consistent with one another? To what extent, if any, are your ideas similar to those of the great political thinkers? Can your philosophy be categorized as conservative, liberal. moderate. anarchist...etc?
You can choose not to answer all of these questions,the goal of the paper is to present your political ideas in an integrated framework that is comprehensive , coherent, consistent and clear.
Focus on, given your world views and goals, your values would be applied to specific issues.
I hold a Modern conservatives view
A belief in the value of free markets, limited governemnet and self reliance in economic affairs. Emphasis on order, tradition and gradual change.
World view
For me, politics is a very important part of the world; I have lived under three unique political systems and have seen many more on my travels. Different states have different political philosophy and it developed to be different kinds of governments. For me, people are rational and intelligent, they have the ability of reasoning, but it does not imply that they can do good reason. We see the fire and imply that there is a god behind that fire, or we can think that there are some other things to cause the fire. From this, we can see that people can develop a completely different conclusion from the same premise, and this tell us that there is a difference in our reasoning. There are differences in our genes composition and that implies that we will be difference in terms of size and color. Inequality of wealth and income are root from the nature inequalities of talent , so people should choose what they are best at in order to gain their own maximized interest.
I believed there is objective truth in this world, but human do not have the ability to attend it, they may get very close to it, but they can never reach it. Our world is bound by a lot of “facts”. But these facts can be temporary “facts”, it is subjective to the current power. For example in the middle ages the pope said that the sun is surrounding the earth, and that was the “truth” at that time. The “facts” that we perceived is just the prevailing information, sometimes research say coffee is good for our health, sometimes it is bad. The solar system was consisting of nine planets, now eight. People easily misinterpret facts as truth. Meanwhile, tradition is the accumulation of human’s reason, and it is being challenged for long time, it is much better than our own rational reason.
Value:
Freedom is an important term for every societies, but they define it differently, some think that marijuana is ok, some say it is not, I think that following our own will is the best definition of freedom, however, since we are bounded by the society, we cannot kill others as we like, so the definition should better be doing what you want as long as it will not hurt other individual as your action’s consequence.
What is justice? Plato think that justice end in itself and it has harmonious mean. I think that Justice is the bearing of responsibilities of one’s action. People get the appropriate result from their action represent justice, people get what they deserved. However, since different people have different kind of view, so justice for one may not be justice for others. It is a kind of subjective value judgment. The killer’s mum may think that her son is very good and should deserve fewer penalties, but the victim’s mum may think that the killer must die to pay for his fault for killing her son. From different standpoint, justice is completely different. Believer of God may say that Will of God means justice, non-believer will not think so. Justice is a kind of subjective standard that generate from human’s reason. Law is the collective body and guideline for justice for a society. It may not be justice for one, but rather for all the people.
Goals:
Political power should be centralized in order to create a coercive response for solving problems. The centralized body can be served as a coordinator for different opinions in different place and generate a collective response that represent the greatest overall interest of the nation. It should be responsible for providing the environment for the free market and free will to do what people want but not controlling what people do.
Rank ordering of values
It is better to let innocent person go free than to wrongly punish an innocent person.
I will sacrifice some degree of freedom to live in a less violent society.
Strategy and Tactics
The best way to effect change is to participate in the system, Join interest group, speak out to influence people….
Although sometimes law is unjust, we should still obey it but seek the way to change it to maintain the stability of society.
Violence should be minimized, we should seek non-violence way to solve problem against oppression.
The political system is never perfect, and corruption can never be stopped, we should try to adapt to the way it works and then try our best to shape it gradually.
Economic issues:
Capitalist system work best with minimum government intervention. Welfare will create free-rider problem, it should be minimized. Individuals are responsible for their economic situation, they should be paid for the economic decisions that they made, there is no way to blame others as they make their own decision. Government programs are not necessary and will hurt the market’s mechanism.
Crime
Harsh penalties are necessary for combating crime. Grey area should be minimize to let guilty people get what they deserved.
Civil Rights
We are doing too much in protecting different people’s right and it is creating reverse discrimination.
Affirmative action is likely to create reverse discrimination and is not fair for all. People should be doing what they are best at, and it is their own choice to do it or not. We cannot ask other people to give off their advantage for not discriminate you for the reason that you are minority.
EX:University are giving priority for minority and it will be unfair for those who have better ability than them.
Women rights
Women should make use of their own advantage of the opportunities that are provided by the free market system, they can do their best to change their own situation with other’s approval.
Environment
Environment should be fully making use; we can choose our way to make use of the environment. There should not be too many regulations for the environment but guidelines, the market can solve the problem. For example the organic products are more advantageous than normal one. Recycle stuff are competitive too. Fuel efficient car models will be more attractive.
Specific issues
Financial Crisis
The financial crisis is root in the greed of people, everybody are chasing resources irrationally and it exceeds the carrying capacities of them, so it collapse. It is natural and people should be responsible for decisions they made. They were earning money and enjoyed great return previously. Now they paid for what they have done, some people may say that they are not involved in those great profits and they are suffering now, but it is only their problem, they should maximize their own profit, they choose not to involve in the great chance before, that was their decision and they should pay for that. They can also try to stop the greed of others but they did not, so they are responsible too. We are all responsible for our action. Government step away from the crisis and let the market perform its recovery.
Please add 2 more issues for me. The paper is like 1600-1800 words
and please modify my points to make it consistent, you can change it as you like. Thank you so much for your help
