People told me “If you aren’t liberal when you’re young you’re heartless. If you aren’t conservative when you’re old you’re brainless.”

F.T.N.

I’m still (real) conservative – I believe in “user-pay” and balanced budgets. As in, let corporations pay the full cost of the water/bandwidth/full-circle-disposal/pollution-mitigation and all the other social resources that they try to exploit for free; and balance the budget by increasing taxes on corporations and by indexing taxes for the rich to the point where those who consume the most also pay the most.

And as I get older, I am becoming more (real) liberal – I believe that natural monopolies and essential services should be controlled by the government since competition cannot effectively regulate those industries, and the free market must be rigourously protected by strong anti-combines regulations and strong workplace protections for all workers.