Lessons from the Farm
I recently joined a shared farm in Waltham, Massachusetts. It's basically a non-profit that has leased land from a university to start a little organic farm. My $250 share means I get to go pick up fresh fruit and vegetables every week in my own canvas bags. Good stuff.
But when I went out for a visit, I realized that I was quite a bit different than most of the other farm sharers. Not only do I eat organic veggies, I eat plenty of organic meat – that which I shoot myself. In my freezer are rows of little white packages of deer, quail, turkey, rabbits, and ducks that my family kills in Texas every year. This grade A free range bounty comprises most of our meat diet, supplemented by organic carne from the grocery store.
While I am an organic food consumer, just like these folks, they did not appear to be hunters. When the farmer mentioned that some woodchucks had taken out a few rows of beets recently, I considered offering to come at dawn with my .22 and do some volunteer work. But noticing that several of my fellow sharers arrived in Toyota Priuses with John Kerry stickers still intact, I thought better of it. My hunting would not mesh with a peace-love-and-granola constituency, despite the fact that we all wanted beets on the table.
This led me to think about political parties. Though we all have very personal views about things like guns, stem cells, and taxes, we all have to fit ourselves into one party or the other. My affiliation with the Dems is like my visit to the Waltham farm: it’s a coalition of vegans, hunters, and city families who want their kids to experience a real working farm. All have distinct, firmly-held values that are hard to dispute, yet they all show up at the same farm every Thursday with their canvas bags.
This got me thinking about what my values really are, and what my own ideal party, the Porterman Party, would be like. This would be our platform:
1) Progressive taxation. Make more, pay a higher percentage. Unearned income taxed at a higher rate; middle class less burdened.
2) Living longer, working longer. The retirement age and the average life expectancy number must move up together.
3) Individual rights and freedoms. Protect gay marriage, abortion, and habeas corpus.
4) Much decreased hard power and military R&D spending, much increased soft power (cultural attraction) spending.
5) Deprivatized prisons.
6) Give up your handguns, keep your hunting rifles and shotguns.
7) Environmental sustainability and biodiversity preservation in US and abroad.
8) Pay as you go federal government.
9) Incentivize alternative energy technology and let the market do the rest.
These are my initial thoughts about my ideal party. Some other issues are in the too-hard pile for now: terrorism, welfare, health care, No Child Left Behind, genocide intervention. But by the time I get this party launched, I should at least have a part-time staffer to help me work that stuff out, right?
I encourage your critique of these issues, in order to strengthen the Porterman platform.
But when I went out for a visit, I realized that I was quite a bit different than most of the other farm sharers. Not only do I eat organic veggies, I eat plenty of organic meat – that which I shoot myself. In my freezer are rows of little white packages of deer, quail, turkey, rabbits, and ducks that my family kills in Texas every year. This grade A free range bounty comprises most of our meat diet, supplemented by organic carne from the grocery store.
While I am an organic food consumer, just like these folks, they did not appear to be hunters. When the farmer mentioned that some woodchucks had taken out a few rows of beets recently, I considered offering to come at dawn with my .22 and do some volunteer work. But noticing that several of my fellow sharers arrived in Toyota Priuses with John Kerry stickers still intact, I thought better of it. My hunting would not mesh with a peace-love-and-granola constituency, despite the fact that we all wanted beets on the table.
This led me to think about political parties. Though we all have very personal views about things like guns, stem cells, and taxes, we all have to fit ourselves into one party or the other. My affiliation with the Dems is like my visit to the Waltham farm: it’s a coalition of vegans, hunters, and city families who want their kids to experience a real working farm. All have distinct, firmly-held values that are hard to dispute, yet they all show up at the same farm every Thursday with their canvas bags.
This got me thinking about what my values really are, and what my own ideal party, the Porterman Party, would be like. This would be our platform:
1) Progressive taxation. Make more, pay a higher percentage. Unearned income taxed at a higher rate; middle class less burdened.
2) Living longer, working longer. The retirement age and the average life expectancy number must move up together.
3) Individual rights and freedoms. Protect gay marriage, abortion, and habeas corpus.
4) Much decreased hard power and military R&D spending, much increased soft power (cultural attraction) spending.
5) Deprivatized prisons.
6) Give up your handguns, keep your hunting rifles and shotguns.
7) Environmental sustainability and biodiversity preservation in US and abroad.
8) Pay as you go federal government.
9) Incentivize alternative energy technology and let the market do the rest.
These are my initial thoughts about my ideal party. Some other issues are in the too-hard pile for now: terrorism, welfare, health care, No Child Left Behind, genocide intervention. But by the time I get this party launched, I should at least have a part-time staffer to help me work that stuff out, right?
I encourage your critique of these issues, in order to strengthen the Porterman platform.
posted by Porterman at 7:09 AM
2 Comments:
If you really want the Porterman party to succeed, you're going to have to take out all that thoughtful crap and replace it with something like "upholding the American way of life" or "representing the will of the people".
I have to agree with Rovo. Platforms don't matter, ideologies matter. Find the ideological thread that unites your platform and you win. Hopefully you'll come up with something better than "America is good; terrorists and liberals are evil" though that one seems to resonate.
Maybe "America is good; terrorists, liberals, and genetically-engineered foods are evil?" Certainly that might work in Europe. Once you win on that ideology, you can implement whichever platform, attack whichever country, and nominate whichever judges that you like!
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