In a quick break from my normal “here is what we did on Friday evening” blog post, I thought I throw out a deeper thought that has been on my mind over the past few months.  I was trying to figure out why I am becoming more liberal from decades of being rather staunchly conservative.  Data suggests people get more conservative as they grow up and maybe California is just wearing on me but I have a different option: Jake has changed it.

The overall premise of this has to do with wealth.  I am believing more and more that wealth provides protection and isolation from political decisions.  Rich people don’t have to care about welfare policies, health care for the uninsured, public schools, etc because they don’t interact with those services.  Its an overly simplified stereotype but I think you will find some truth in it

Andrea and I have been very lucky over the course of our professional lives to have worked hard, been in the right place at the right time, and capitalized on opportunities to not have to worry about finances on a day to day basis.  In a way, that gives us some isolation from many of the political topics of the day.  One thing we do not have nor are on a track to achieve is “generational wealth”.  I am 100% sure that Jake is going to have to work for a living.  We hope he achieves more than us (as any parent does) but in all likelihood, playing the odds, he will have a happy middle-class life.  This makes me think about how the politics of today will impact him.  I want him to be able to stay on our health insurance until he is 26 and have some support if times get rough (and we are not around to help him).

There is very little on the conservative platform today that aligns to that.  I would say that the platform is doing everything it can to help me achieve my own generational wealth status (which is hard to scoff at) but very little to help Jake if we don’t get there.  He will be taught self sufficiency, hard work, and all of those great capitalistic values but I will also teach him that luck and timing play a non-trivial roll and to be aware of that before thinking less of someone who hasn’t achieved as much.  I guess these things are weighing on my mind more and so I have started to become more liberal hoping that we have services in place to be called upon when needed and I am happy to pay for those with my tax dollars today.  Now… I don’t trust the idiots we send to Washington to efficiently spend my tax dollars but without an alternate plan, it seems better than betting on the tiny percentage chance that Jake will never need a public school,  or job assistance, or public transportation.

I would be all for more local ownership and support structures giving us a tighter bond with how our tax dollars are spent.  Maybe I’ll work on that over the weekend or maybe I need to stay heads down on my own work, bill out more hours, and get a little closer to that generational wealth thing.