I am NOT Elliot Weinstein the Boston-area attorney (best known for defending Neil Entwistle) who spells his name with 2 “L”s in Eliot.

Here are some mostly useful descriptions of me:

My Politics

I am a classical liberal, which means that I divide my time between fending off modern day “liberals” and their well-intentioned but ultimately detrimental policies, criticizing Republicans for betraying their principles for the sake of petty moral disputes and temporary power grabs, and telling libertarians that I agree with them in theory but that they need to spend more time in the real world. When I took the Political Compass test, I scored Economic Left/Right: 7.75 and Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.95. This places me in the vicinity of Milton Friedman. I believe that the true heirs to the liberalism of John Stuart Mill are so-called neo-liberals and moderate libertarians such as Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Gary Becker, and Thomas Sowell. I generally agree with the late Gerald Ford’s view of government, “If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.” I also (mostly) support Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.’s definition of true liberalism, “Government in a liberal society does not protect individuals from themselves, strive for a particular distribution of wealth, promote any particular region or technology or group, or delineate the distinction between peaceful vices and virtues.”

I am constantly frustrated that the American Left believes that it is just to give citizens freedom over what they do with their bodies and minds but not over what they do with their money and property, while the American Right believes that it is just to give citizens freedom over what they do with their money and property but not over what they do with their bodies and minds. It is further depressing that what in America today is called lowercase-l libertarianism is an unrealistic and extreme application of valid principles, and one that goes much farther than Mill or even Hayek would have countenanced (while often missing the point entirely). The point should not be whether “taxation is theft”, but how to take our bloated and corrupt governments and make them (even slightly) less harmful to human flourishing and less restrictive of human freedoms, in that order of priority. In this sense, a good way of situating my classical liberalism within the modern political landscape would be to call it “market pragmatism”, a term which–in this context–I have coined (to the best of my knowledge) to signify a practically-oriented merging of Third-Way-ism and neoliberalism. I want to use free markets and social freedoms, coupled with limited and carefully-designed economic and social interventions, to address society’s problems, especially as many are caused or exacerbated by a lack of economic and social freedoms or a lack of consequence-recognition and cost-benefit analysis in policy making. If the end result is “less government” and less restrictive laws overall, that is also desirable (given that governments in the developed world are larger and more restrictive than they need to be to accomplish nearly all policy goals), but this is not as important as fixing the unpleasant outcomes caused by our past abridgments of economic and personal liberty and our past reliance on social-scientifically illiterate policies. Along the way, we may shift freedom backwards and forwards along the necessary margins to get better outcomes, but my lowercase-l libertarian friends would pound their fists on the table and declare that freedom must always march forward. Traditionally-conceived “leftists” or “rightists” in the US sense are even farther afield, as they are typically seeking some greater good, such as “social justice” or the preservation of “the old ways”, that is seen as superseding the simple goal of unleashing human potential (even if it is sometimes accompanied by suffering, inequality, abrupt change, or the disruption of previous systems of social order or morality).

Without debating the various benefits and detriments of their policies and lapses (herein), I have immense respect for Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan because they were the first modern politicians who had the courage to explain that smaller government can improve people’s well-being just as surely as, if not more than, bigger government. In addition to Thatcher and Reagan, the contemporary politicians whom I respect the most–principally for their courage, conduct, and the methods they chose to accomplish policy goals, rather than their particular ideologies–are (in descending order of importance to me) Tony Blair, John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, John W. Howard, Rudolph Giuliani, and the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

My Personal Tastes, Habits, and Conduct

My tastes are eclectic but (usually) rational. I spend perhaps an unhealthy amount of time reading, everything from the Bible to newspaper style books. My favorite modern fiction author is Harlan Ellison, and I am eagerly awaiting the summer some free time when I will finally be able to read his 50-year compilation (I may even post a review here). My favorite non-fiction writer is Matt Ridley. I have been playing the trumpet for over twelve years, but I have nowhere near the musical talent of Modus Operandi, a band featuring my friends Ben, David, and Eli. I also play the bass guitar, the piano, the viola, and the shofar with less expertise and consistency than the trumpet. I am a supporter and student of classical music, and while I love the symphony orchestra, I annoy my compatriots by refusing to admit that symphonic band music is inherently inferior. A teacher, mocking me for this preference, challenged me to name even one good symphonic band composer. I promptly surprised him by naming three (John Philip Sousa, Percy Grainger, and Ralph Vaughan Williams). I (non-professionally and as a hobby) compose classical music; more information and maybe some samples will be added later. The major influences on my personal composition are the Second Viennese School, John Corigliano, Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, Charles Wuorinen, and especially John Coolidge Adams. Classical composers of whom I am particularly fond (this means that I will listen to their music over and over even if I know it very well already, it is not a statement about their overall quality or that they are “the best” or even my favorite composers) include Grainger, Hector Berlioz, Leonard Bernstein, Dmitri Shostakovich, Samuel Barber, J.S. Bach, and Johannes Brahms. My favorite living classical conductor is Sir Colin Davis. My second favorite living classical conductor is Leonard Slatkin, but it gets more difficult after that. My favorite contemporary musician is Paul Simon. I also want to be on the record asserting that I have nothing against Lady Gaga (unlike my favorite contemporary comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who seems to have some kind of feud with her). I am an admirer of G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Samuel Johnson. I love root beer and sparkling water, but I don’t drink diet soda, and not because I think that it causes cancer.

My Economic and Social Scientific Philosophy

I am personally fond of and intellectually impressed by the material, social, and cultural prosperity that is created in and due to the contemporary capitalist system. However, I am aware that: a) this system can and does alter interpersonal and collective relationships in ways which cause individual harm, civic discontent, and even alienation in a Marxian or existentialist sense; b) no present economy or society demonstrates truly “free markets”, and the structure of much of the developed world is closer to a quasi-syndicalist or quasi-corporatist state in which large interest groups seek to restrict personal and economic freedoms for their own benefit; and c) there exist a variety of situations–both theoretical and actual–for which the idealized free market system does not produce socially or even individually desired outcomes, and for which collective action and government intervention may be desirable. I do believe that if we want to improve human well-being and to solve or ameliorate the problems of contemporary society (particularly those within the purview of political systems in the developed world), then we will be more successful with an inclination towards fewer restrictions on personal conduct and interpersonal commerce and a thorough understanding of the market system and the consequences of interfering with it than with the opposite premises.

I seek to understand the nature, causes, and origins of individual, group, organizational, and societal economic interactions and institutions, and to learn what might result from changing these structures and processes. The goal of this inquiry is both to advance human knowledge and to gain the tools to help people and nations experience greater prosperity. This inquiry can and should proceed through multiple modes of experience, including a variety of intellectual and academic disciplines, but the methods in which I have the greatest trust and thus in which I have acquired the greatest training are the procedures of the social sciences (particularly economics and statistics). I place great importance on approaching the previously mentioned important questions in a manner that is scientific and that lends itself to some kind of empirical scrutiny or falsification (again favoring economics and statistics). In the absence of strong evidence one way or the other, the burden of proof for both social-economic and ethical-philosophical arguments should rest upon those who seek to expand government authority or restrict freedoms in the name of some greater good.

My Morals

I consider myself a “moralist” not in the contemporary sense of the word, but in the sense that Chesterton was a moralist (or perhaps slightly less so), because I hold moral positions that many of my peers would consider old-fashioned. As an active adherent a nominal adherent of Reform Judaism who is currently “between churches” (as my Protestant friends would say), I believe that by embracing both personal responsibility and and the desire for virtuous actions, every individual can and should contribute towards the betterment of society (if only along a small margin). I am not a moralist like modern-day “values evangelicals” (a term I take from Harvard law professor Noah Feldman), who are not all Evangelical Christians but who share some desire to impose their ideas of moral conduct upon others, or to compel others to join in the struggle to improve society. Unlike the James Dobson type of moralists, I have enough confidence in my beliefs that I can let them stand on their own instead of using the government or the media to coerce others into accepting them. In other words, I may criticize how you choose to live your life, but I will not support government restrictions on what you do, unless it harms someone else. I don’t view my old-fashioned moralism as contradictory to my classical liberalism; I believe that a classical liberal must have a strong moral grounding to prevent the slide into anarcho-capitalism or Objectivism. In a sense, a commitment to morality rescues “libertarianism” from its most destructive excesses, and a commitment to liberty rescues moralism from its most totalitarian instincts. As Chesterton said, “Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.”