I’ve been accused of being a centrist, despite basically being to the left of everyone in American politics, and I think it’s because people tend to over-weight the economic left/right spectrum (or project other non-economic issues onto the left/right spectrum), and not place enough effort into thinking through:

• Ideological purity versus pragmatic deal-making.
• Actual governance skill, kinda a technocratic versus populist view.
• When and where it’s appropriate to break the law to accomplish goals, like the lawfu-to-chaotic alignment in the D&D memes.

None of that is left/right or centrist in itself, but my positions (pragmatic, technocratic, lawful) sometimes put me at odds with other voices on the left.

Other criteria that don’t map onto left/right include authenticity, consistency/predictability, coherence across issues, and plain old network connections, and political effectiveness (influencing the public and other politicians to follow your lead on issues).

Mamdani is awesome because he exudes authenticity (like, I’m not a Knicks fan but he can give a great mayor’s speech for his favorite team winning), gets things done (actual stuff around city governance, like snow shoveling), and seems to know how to get policy passed (working with Hochul to get some big ticket legislation on taxing the rich accomplished, even if it will contain some compromises). He is, in other words, an effective politician. We need more people like him scattered throughout different jurisdictions.

I will gladly support a coalition of centrists and leftists to move things to the left, especially if they can flank the current Republican party on plain old competence and honesty/fairness in governance.

I would be 100% in favor of an amendment that clearly spells out that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are limited to actual humans, and any corporation or other group of people are not entitled to any more inherent rights than the humans who make up the corporation are entitled to collectively.

How does that change the current law, though?

I’d be in favor of a rule that explains that organizing into associations doesn’t change the rights of the individuals who form the association, but also that the association would only have rights that relate to the actual purpose of forming the association in the first place (whether it’s a corporation, LLC, partnership, joint venture, other unincorporated associations).

So a church gets religious freedom. But a sandwich shop does not. A newspaper gets freedom of speech and may exercise editorial discretion on what goes on its pages. A telephone company does not, and cannot discriminate against the viewpoints expressed over its phone lines.

There are trickier issues: can a government ban halal slaughter, and would a Muslim-owned butcher shop be entitled to a religious exemption (if, assuming, individuals were granted that exemption)? I’d argue you have to look to the nature of the business or organization to determine whether that particular right applies to that organization, so the butcher shop can invoke the religion of the human butcher, and possibly even the human customers who want to buy halal meat.

But the framework makes sense to me, and is closely related to the principle of organizational standing, where something like a nonprofit association of apple growers can sue on behalf of apple grower rights, despite not being an organization that actually directly grows apples. That’s how corporate rights should work: look to the reason for incorporating and the nature of the organization, and how it relates to the nature of the right at issue.

The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.

This is an area where it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.

So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn’t enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it’s morally reprehensible, and I’d prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.