What are the most important political issues?
September 27, 2008 10:46 PM Subscribe
What are the political issues that a rational, pragmatic person should most care about?
In Friday's presidential debate, after John McCain promised to halt pork-barrel spending, Obama put it in perspective by saying that although the $18 billion dollars in annual pork-barrel spending is "important", the $300 billion McCain wants to reduce in government revenue through tax cuts for the rich is "really important".
Disregarding the intricacies of taxation, I think comparisons or relative importance like Obama's are made too rarely. I feel that although certain political issues are orders of magnitude more important than others, the American voting public and news media don't weight these issues by their importance and scale. (There are a number of political issues I have a strong opinion about, but that I wouldn't base a voting decision on because I don't think they significantly impact the future of America and the world.)
From a utilitarian perspective, what are the most important issues in terms of their impact on the future of America and the world? For example, what are the trillion-dollar issues that we are ignoring in order to debate the million-dollar issues? (Note: I am not asking people to take sides. For instance, I am sure smart Democrats and Republicans will agree that energy policy is objectively one of the most important issues, even though they have different solutions.)
Some of my thoughts and motivations for asking this question:
I believe that some unimportant issues become popular because of any of the following:
- They are "sexy", especially have to do with culture wars, scandals, religion, race, or sex
- They require little education or intelligence to take a position on
- It's easy for a politician to get people scared about them
- Their immediate effects are easily seen and tangible
- They have an iconic poster child or bad guy that represents the issue and gets people emotionally involved
- They have corporate/lobby interests behind them
Equally, I believe that some very important issues do not get the attention they deserve because:
- They have to do with subjects that are considered boring by the public (hence do not get shown on CNN or FOX News)
- They have many intricacies and require a lot of education to understand (especially when they involve numbers)
- Their effects are not immediately and tangibly seen
Obviously, this is an impossible question to answer in a way that everyone can agree on. It's difficult to quantify the effect of many issues, especially non-economic issues that can't be reduced to dollar amounts. Also, people who are personally involved/uninvolved in an issue are prone to overestimate/underestimate its importance or scope. But I'd be interested to see if anyone has attempted to produce a quantification or even ranking of political issues by their objective scale of impact.
In Friday's presidential debate, after John McCain promised to halt pork-barrel spending, Obama put it in perspective by saying that although the $18 billion dollars in annual pork-barrel spending is "important", the $300 billion McCain wants to reduce in government revenue through tax cuts for the rich is "really important".
Disregarding the intricacies of taxation, I think comparisons or relative importance like Obama's are made too rarely. I feel that although certain political issues are orders of magnitude more important than others, the American voting public and news media don't weight these issues by their importance and scale. (There are a number of political issues I have a strong opinion about, but that I wouldn't base a voting decision on because I don't think they significantly impact the future of America and the world.)
From a utilitarian perspective, what are the most important issues in terms of their impact on the future of America and the world? For example, what are the trillion-dollar issues that we are ignoring in order to debate the million-dollar issues? (Note: I am not asking people to take sides. For instance, I am sure smart Democrats and Republicans will agree that energy policy is objectively one of the most important issues, even though they have different solutions.)
Some of my thoughts and motivations for asking this question:
I believe that some unimportant issues become popular because of any of the following:
- They are "sexy", especially have to do with culture wars, scandals, religion, race, or sex
- They require little education or intelligence to take a position on
- It's easy for a politician to get people scared about them
- Their immediate effects are easily seen and tangible
- They have an iconic poster child or bad guy that represents the issue and gets people emotionally involved
- They have corporate/lobby interests behind them
Equally, I believe that some very important issues do not get the attention they deserve because:
- They have to do with subjects that are considered boring by the public (hence do not get shown on CNN or FOX News)
- They have many intricacies and require a lot of education to understand (especially when they involve numbers)
- Their effects are not immediately and tangibly seen
Obviously, this is an impossible question to answer in a way that everyone can agree on. It's difficult to quantify the effect of many issues, especially non-economic issues that can't be reduced to dollar amounts. Also, people who are personally involved/uninvolved in an issue are prone to overestimate/underestimate its importance or scope. But I'd be interested to see if anyone has attempted to produce a quantification or even ranking of political issues by their objective scale of impact.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Yeah, this is pretty much chatfilter. -- cortex
in deomcratic society, i think it is important to vote on "your" issues.
for instance i never go to hospital, ever.
so i shouldnt try and vote on issues regarding hospitals.
i am not a teacher, so i shouldnt vote regarding an issue of working conditions for school teachers - but if i have kids, then i should take note of it.
or for instance, i am not gay, so i feel i shouldnt get emotional and vote on issues that effect gay people.
to put it another way, if everyone objectively voted on the issues that directly effect them,
then the hype is taken out of it. Instead of tring to vote on an overall morality for all of society.
posted by edtut at 11:17 PM on September 27, 2008
for instance i never go to hospital, ever.
so i shouldnt try and vote on issues regarding hospitals.
i am not a teacher, so i shouldnt vote regarding an issue of working conditions for school teachers - but if i have kids, then i should take note of it.
or for instance, i am not gay, so i feel i shouldnt get emotional and vote on issues that effect gay people.
to put it another way, if everyone objectively voted on the issues that directly effect them,
then the hype is taken out of it. Instead of tring to vote on an overall morality for all of society.
posted by edtut at 11:17 PM on September 27, 2008
that energy policy is objectively one of the most important issues
actually government policy isn't /that/ important. We do theoretically have a $14T economy, not to mention a global economy several times larger than that full of smart people looking for marketable solutions and research directions.
Government is important in empowering the disadvantaged via subsidized health care, education, transportation, etc, since if you don't have already money the free market basically wants you to FOAD already.
To me, the central policy issue is the fiscal solvency of the USG, its ability to raise capital via debt offerings, to pay its debts, and to improve and not worsen its fiscal condition over time.
The past 8 years have basically been an unmitigated disaster in this area, which is doubly disappointing since the late 90s were reasonably positive on this score.
"Thanks, Ralph."
posted by troy at 11:23 PM on September 27, 2008
actually government policy isn't /that/ important. We do theoretically have a $14T economy, not to mention a global economy several times larger than that full of smart people looking for marketable solutions and research directions.
Government is important in empowering the disadvantaged via subsidized health care, education, transportation, etc, since if you don't have already money the free market basically wants you to FOAD already.
To me, the central policy issue is the fiscal solvency of the USG, its ability to raise capital via debt offerings, to pay its debts, and to improve and not worsen its fiscal condition over time.
The past 8 years have basically been an unmitigated disaster in this area, which is doubly disappointing since the late 90s were reasonably positive on this score.
"Thanks, Ralph."
posted by troy at 11:23 PM on September 27, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
In a pluralistic democracy such a ranking could never be objective. For some the tens of millions of "murdered babies" per year is the number one issue. For others its the fact that we espouse equal protection under the law, but then disenfranchise millions of Americans who want to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage all because they happen to have the same reproductive organs...
Anyway, this is very chat-filtery, so flagged...
posted by wfrgms at 11:04 PM on September 27, 2008