This post is a companion to a prior one I wrote about the criteria necessary to find a place to live, and is maybe required reading before this one. I will attempt to speak vaguely about political ideals without bringing up specific policies or politicians, although I do consider myself a liberal (possibly democratic socialist?). While my ideals align more with that side, I believe government should work to find out what is true and works best rather than simply attempting to score points for their own teams.
I’ve written about the concept of choice and privilege before, and I can’t help but see how this is related here. My wife and I are fairly privileged with the jobs we have and our collective debt (most of which from my student loans). We are lucky to be working in jobs that we like and that treat us well, and we are privileged enough to be looking at possible places to move to in the next few years. Even given this privilege, other aspects of our life have essentially given us 3 real options for living next, which lie in 3-4 states (if you extend Kansas City and St. Louis to cover Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois).
Having a weak federal government and strong state governments is an ideal many argue for. The main idea it seems is that this would then create choice – one could live in the state whose policies most align with their own needs. We have 50 states, so surely one of those 50 would have a set of policies that would work for you. Except given the criteria I have outlined, I don’t have 50 options – I have maybe 4. Two of my city options have metropolitan areas spanning two states, so I may need both Missouri and Illinois to have favorable policies before I could pick St. Louis.
Granted, Lauryn and I are white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian-raised individuals with European ancestries, so most policies are likely to be created to directly benefit people that are like us. But, what if our gender and sexual identities were different? We would need these states to have policies that acknowledged and addressed our needs. If we had different ethnic backgrounds, we would need these states to have policies set up to make us feel welcomed and safe in our communities.
Even taking identity politics out of it (which I can easily do given the first sentence of this paragraph), I would generally want to live in states where gun owners receive the proper training for using and storing their firearms or where initiatives exist to promote high-speed internet access to rural areas (it is crazy to me that the best internet my parents can get is DSL that can barely support a single Netflix stream). I would want to live somewhere where abortions are acknowledged as something that is necessary and is available for women – especially in cases of rape, incest, dangers to the infant’s or mother’s life, changes in financial situations that would lead to inadequate childcare, body autonomy, and likely a hundred other reasons I hadn’t thought of because it isn’t something I have to personally think about.
It isn’t all that helpful if my prior criteria identified Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana as places to live but my personal and political needs would put me in New York or California. This is why I believe we need baseline political policies set from the federal level rather than the state level. Even with my ample privilege, I am still limited in my ideal state from other criteria in my life. Given that I am in a majority category for most demo- and psychographic markers, I can worry somewhat less about policies affecting my choice of state (although I do still have needs to be addressed). However, those that would not have the identity privilege that I do would likely need to pay more attention to exactly what policies are in place for each state they are considering. If, however, federal laws were in place to ensure all needs of all people are met in every state, one wouldn’t need to consider individual state policies when choosing a place to live and start a family. I certainly went into this more (better?) in my prior post, so feel free to go read that.
This is also why anyone that says “go back to where you came from” isn’t exactly thinking straight. There are so many other factors that play in to why any one of us is where we are at any given time. “If you don’t like it, just move” isn’t all that helpful when 100 other factors in your life are pointing you to be in this exact place. It is our work then to ensure the spaces we are in are open and accepting to all people and all needs.
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