Summarize Previous Poster's Political Beliefs

[Redalgo]

Under my Twelve Colors Model I would describe Cathcon - from what posts of his I was able to turn up in under a half an hour and by making some cautious (but quite possibly off-mark) estimates - as a loyalist, communitarian, capitalist, conservationist, amalgamist, and nationalist. This suggesting to me that he follows a more traditionally-inspired than humanistic path of thought when answering political questions. I would describe him as stressing six political virtues - temperance, discipline, ambition, magnificence, reverence, and assertiveness.

In attitude he's committed to adapting at least some of the Founders' and/or contemporary political theorists' ideas and prescriptions to modern dilemmas, feeling their methods have been tried and true. The same cannot realistically be said for the policy proposals offered and at times in the past implemented by the American left. But if one of their ideas sticks, and turns out to have morally acceptable consequences, there is no sense in later rolling it back. In terms of institutional power, Cathcon appears to desire a small government in regards to how much it meddles in our lives in theory, but in practice - perhaps even without being aware of it – leans more toward a moderately strong, interventionist regime because he feels it is important for future generations to be taught in the ways of wholesome values, or at the very least to discourage the spread of customs that to him seem to be pretty egregious sins. He is neither authoritarian nor libertarian, fully liberal nor corporatist. His approach to communitarianism is less overbearing than it would be from most since the values he seeks to nurture in the community are derived more from the American heritage of liberalism than any temptation to micromanage the behavior of individuals or punish those who deviate from the teachings of his Church.

On economic matters he is clearly in favor of protecting individual property rights and maintaining a highly competitive, yet not entirely "free," market since without a basic set of regulatory rules in place actors could threaten to destroy the system form within and prevent it from delivering its optimal benefits to society. On the other hand, he seems to display some subtle signs of neo-mercantile views as a weaker influence; for he is, on rare occasion, inclined to let the state restrict or distort to pursue national interests. This is done to afford the people of his country extra competitive advantages over, or some protection from, others. In lieu of seeing Cathcon’s posts on the environment, my default assumption would be that he supports managing natural resources primarily for the benefit of humanity with at least a little bit of emphasis being placed on pacing ourselves so some of those resources (e.g. national parks, game animals, clean water, etc.) will be available for the benefit of future generations. However, the needs of our generation are probably given more weight in his considerations than those of generations to come in the distant future, and in at least some situations it seems acceptable to pursue development even if it harms the environment.

On normative issues it is harder for me to decide quite where his views lie. The impression I get is he is OK with our society being diverse and people being outspoken about what makes them different - so long as the relative newcomers and immigrants are willing to eventually conform with mainstream customs and norms to such as extent as they aren’t forcing native Americans to experience marked shifts in their communities’ traditional ways of life. In other words, welcome aboard everyone, but please sit down and do not rock the boat because things are nice as they are and we don't want to get capsized. A similar attitude may apply to foreign affairs - where it is important once again to protect the boat from the uncertain, potentially dangerous intentions of foreigners. Cathcon wants the States to focus on pursuing its interests abroad - namely by maintaining enough military and economic might to ensure we as Americans - not the peoples of other lands - shall have control over shaping the States' destiny both today and in the foreseeable future. Being a moderate neo-con of sorts, there is sometimes a sparkle of idealism in his eyes when it comes to seizing convenient, low-risk opportunities to promote his values abroad for their long-term benefit and ours.

Am I anywhere at all near to close here? It is more difficult for me to do this when I haven’t read hundreds of recent political statements from a person or are not close enough to them as a friend to know where they are coming from. Corrections would be interesting to see since I would like to get much better at doing this.