Logan McHone

Hi, my name is Logan McHone, I’m a Communications major with an emphasis in Public Relations with a minor in Political Science.

I’m a member of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater Speech Team.

This is our photograph we took when we won the Wisconsin State Title for the first time in program history last year.

I am an award winning public speaker that has been recognized at the state and national level for extemporaneous speaking.

For non-speech folks, extemporaneous speaking involves answering a given question of a political or economic nature through a seven minute speech, and you are given 30 minutes of preparation time.

Here’s a few sample questions that I have answered:

With its acquisition of Souq, is Amazon ready to break into middle eastern e-commerce markets?

Who will be the Wisconsin GOP candidate running against Tammy Baldwin in 2018?

 

But beyond speech, since I decided to start this blog, particularly with an opinion section, I think it is important to give you a basic idea of where I stand politically, and what my thought processes are. These will obviously become more clear as I write more, but I think it is important that we establish a bit of a base-line here for you to understand where I am coming from.

The easiest way and simplest way to find out where you stand politically is to take The Political Compass quiz. It is a short(ish) quiz that gives you a series of statements that you either agree or disagree with, either strongly or not. When you finish it, it gives you a graph that shows where you stand.

The X-axis is the economic axis of the grid, and put simply, tells you whether you are economically left-wing or right-wing. This isn’t necessarily Democrat/Republican, but it’s close.

The Y-axis is the social axis of authoritarianism vs libertarian. Simply put, when given the choice between freedom and security, which do you pick?

Here’s my results:

In the past I tended to be a little farther to the left on the X-axis, typically about two squares over. This time however I’ve finished closer to center.

I consider myself a center-leftist with strong libertarian streaks which is shown in the graph.

Here’s a short list of issues that I tend to be left leaning on:

• I’m in favor of a single-payer healthcare system. (aka Medicare for All)
• I believe racism is real, exists today, and is very much a problem.
• I am in favor of environmental regulation and believe that climate change is an existential threat.
• I am in favor of publicly funded elections and oppose the doctrine of “money is political speech” that was established in 1974.
• I am in favor of the UN, and think the US should continue to play a role in it.
• I believe we should reduce our military budget.
• I believe the Confederate flag should not be flown over any government (important distinction) building.
• I believe in raising taxes on the rich. (In fact, I believe in raising taxes on everyone, temporarily)
• I support an easier and simpler path to citizenship for non-criminal immigrants to this country.
• I’m a big fan of NPR, and believe in public funding of education programs.
• I believe in expanding education funding.

Here’s a short list of issues that I tend to be right leaning on:

• I believe in the 2nd Amendment, and believe in the free right of qualified people to bear arms.
• I have a very fundamentalist view of the First Amendment. Hate speech is protected speech under the Constitution. Calls for violence are very narrowly defined legal terms and are not nearly as common as many people would like to believe.
• I believe in fracking as a acceptable form of energy while we figure out more green energy technologies.
• I believe that GMO’s have an unfounded stigma against them.
• I believe that a business should have the right to not serve anyone, for any reason.
• I believe in the free market, and “voting with your dollar” to control business conduct.
• I think at their core, the only responsibility of a business is to make money, and it’s a government’s job to tell them what they can and cannot do.
• I am pro-vaccine. (Anti-vaxxers tend to be left-leaning, so I define this as a right-ish issue)
• I believe that the left feels some form of intellectual superiority and make false assumptions about right-wing ideas, and they tend to engage in hyperbole about right wing ideas and their larger political meaning. (This happens the other way too, it just is less common)
• I don’t think free college tuition is a good idea due to it’s prohibitive cost, but I support far greater subsidization of education programs including universities and technical colleges.

These are just a few of my beliefs, and without a doubt I am going to expand on my beliefs on all of these issues and provide more context and my insights into these issues in the future. This is just a simple explanation of where I tend to stand on issues, so none of my positions will be a surprise in the future.

Most importantly, I don’t believe in “left” or “right” ideas. I believe in correct ideas. It’s a challenge, but I’ve resolved to try to put aside labels and try to abandon ideas that I believe and find out to be wrong. I think it’s important to be willing to change your beliefs in light of new information. There is nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. Now, obviously I’m not perfect at this because it’s extremely difficult and goes against human nature, but it is something we all can work towards.