Both Can Be True

These are not contradictions

I am for this and against this:

For | Against

Union workers | labor unions - progressives don’t understand this

Police officers | police unions, militarization of police, qualified immunity, et al. - conservatives don’t understand this

Scholarship | scholarships - elites and conventional thinkers don’t understand this

Strong military | most military spending - nationalists, strong-military conservatives, and interventionist progressives don’t understand this

An active and engaged foreign policy | an intervening foreign policy (not limited to but including basically all war engagements of all types) - those who want America to lead the world by force rather than by example don’t understand this

Covenants (contracts) and norms guiding land and property use | zoning laws and government boards - urban planners, exclusionists, and NIMBYs don’t understand this

Legalizing ALL drugs (thereby ending the drug war) | unfettered drug use - those suffering from FOOL (Fear Of Others' Liberty) and FOOM (Fear Of Others' Mistakes) don’t understand this

Students & teachers | government school - those who (perhaps intentionally) confuse the process as being the goal don’t understand this

Credentialling | occupational licensure - both those who seek permission and cronyistic actors don’t understand this

Sex workers | coercive¹ prostitution - modern puritans don’t understand this

Women’s equality | the modern feminist movement - those caught up in virtue signaling and virtue hegemony at the expense of balanced thoughtfulness don’t understand this

An orderly immigration process including a calm border | immigration restrictions - those who mistakenly think harmony and stability comes through limitation and governmental planning don’t understand this

Strong punishments for serious crimes | the death penalty - those who seek vengeance rather than justice don’t understand this

Altruism | most charity, privileging non-profit organizations, and forced charity (vis-à-vis government) - those who elevate intentions above results don’t understand this

Euthanasia as actually practiced | euthanasia as it is feared - well meaning people who allow themselves to ignore difficult tradeoffs don’t understand this

Farmers | government farm subsidies and programs - those who wrongly assume stable agriculture depends on government help don’t understand this

Appropriate standards for speech | censorship both actual (aka, government driven) and quasi (aka, private actors in public places) - those who do not understand that bad speech is defeated by good speech rather than no speech don’t understand this

I think I’ve confused enough people; so I will stop there.

1. I added “coercive” 2/21 so as to make a bit clearer my point. Prostitution is a vague term, but I wasn’t making a pedantic semantic point. What I mean by prostitution is that I can be generally against the practice in many cases for moral reasons and specifically against the practice when it is nonconsensual including when vulnerable people are taken advantage of. At the same time I respect the right for adults to consensually trade in all ways including those that involve sexual activity. Remember as Don Boudreaux says, “a society truly free tolerates all peaceful actions, from the sublime to the self destructive”.