Georgism: the evidence behind your profile

A government that cannot monitor its citizens cannot protect them.

Emergency powers granted during a crisis are rarely given back afterwards.

National security sometimes has to come before an individual's privacy.

Protesting an unjust law is legitimate even when the protest is disruptive.

The state should be able to shut down organisations that openly seek to overthrow the constitutional order.

A free press must be allowed to publish material that embarrasses the government.

Identity checks and travel records are a reasonable price for public safety.

The burden of proof should always rest on the state, never on the individual.

Order breaks down once citizens believe the law will not be enforced.

Police should need a warrant before reading anyone's private messages.

Major decisions should be taken by people with relevant training rather than by popular vote.

Referendums are a healthy check on elected politicians.

Voters reward short-term promises, so some budgets should be shielded from politics.

A parliament that ignores public opinion loses its legitimacy.

Central banks and constitutional courts work better when insulated from electoral pressure.

Ordinary citizens can be trusted with complex political questions.

Scientific advice should carry more weight in lawmaking than campaign slogans.

Recall votes and citizen initiatives should be available at national level.

Representatives usually understand the trade-offs better than the people who elect them.

Political authority comes from the consent of the governed, not from expertise.

Prices set by supply and demand allocate resources better than any committee can.

Essential industries such as energy and water should be publicly owned.

Lower taxes and lighter regulation are the fastest route to prosperity.

Governments should direct investment towards the industries a country needs.

Competition between firms serves consumers better than state ownership does.

Some services are too important to be run for profit.

High minimum wages and powerful unions price young workers out of jobs.

The state has a duty to break up monopolies and limit concentrations of private wealth.

A country grows by letting failing businesses fail.

Strategic planning is more reliable than market luck when a crisis hits.

Welfare should be a safety net of last resort, not a way of life.

Healthcare should be available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.

Lower taxes leave families better able to look after themselves.

A wealthy society should guarantee a minimum income to every citizen.

Long-term dependence on benefits damages communities more than it helps them.

Public housing and free childcare are investments, not expenses.

Charity and family networks help people more than state programmes do.

Poverty is a structural failure, so relieving it is a public responsibility.

Benefits should be conditional on work, training or community service.

Extreme inequality undermines the social stability that markets depend on.

Countries should control their own borders, laws and currency.

International institutions should be able to bind member states on shared problems.

Trade agreements that override national courts go too far.

Migration enriches receiving countries and should be broadly welcomed.

A country's deepest ties are to its own people, not to a bloc.

Climate change and pandemics cannot be solved by countries acting alone.

A state that surrenders sovereignty gains nothing lasting in return.

Regional unions have made war between their members unthinkable.

Domestic law should take precedence over international treaties.

Global rules on tax and trade are the only way to discipline multinational companies.

Military strength is the most reliable guarantee of peace.

Sanctions and patient negotiation resolve more conflicts than soldiers do.

Defence budgets should rise when rivals are rearming.

Armies are a poor instrument for building a stable international order.

Alliances are worth little unless members are willing to fight.

Peacekeeping missions and development aid prevent more wars than deterrence does.

Waiting for diplomacy while an aggressor gains ground is a costly mistake.

Compulsory military service is an unjustified limit on personal freedom.

Nuclear deterrence has kept the great powers from open war.

Military ceremony teaches the wrong lessons to a democracy.

Old institutions survive because they encode lessons we would otherwise have to relearn.

A society that stops questioning its traditions stops improving.

Family, faith and local custom are the foundation of a decent society.

Art and literature should challenge the values of their audience.

Rapid social change leaves more people behind than it lifts.

Restrictions on language and lifestyle have no place in a modern country.

Patriotism and a shared national story hold a country together.

History classes should teach the uncomfortable parts of a national past.

Public ceremonies and monuments should present the nation at its best.

Inherited hierarchies deserve to be challenged rather than preserved.

Law should reflect the moral traditions a country was built on.

The state should remain strictly neutral between religions and non-believers.

Religious institutions care for the poor more effectively than state agencies do.

Faith belongs in private life, not in public policy.

Schools should be free to teach the religious tradition of their community.

Public money should not fund religious schools, symbols or ceremonies.

A society without shared moral foundations drifts into cynicism.

Elected officials should not invoke divine authority to justify laws.

Church and state work best when they support each other.

Religious law must never override civil rights in a modern state.

Economic growth should not be sacrificed to distant environmental targets.

Climate change is the defining constraint on this century's politics.

Environmental rules should be judged by their cost to ordinary households.

Governments should tax and ration activities that damage the climate.

Technology and wealth, not restraint, will solve environmental problems.

Protecting ecosystems matters even when it slows the economy.

Energy security is more important than emissions targets.

Consumers must accept higher prices to decarbonise the economy.

Green regulation often exports pollution rather than reducing it.

Species and wilderness have value beyond their use to humans.

Slowing down useful technology costs more lives than deploying it quickly.

New technologies should be proven safe before they are widely released.

Artificial intelligence and biotechnology will solve problems that politics cannot.

Automation is being deployed faster than societies can adapt.

Regulating emerging technology usually helps incumbents and hurts newcomers.

Governments should be able to pause a technology they cannot control.

Space exploration and frontier research justify their cost.

Platforms that reshape public debate should be accountable for the results.

People should be free to enhance their own bodies and minds.

Facial recognition and predictive policing go a step too far.

A strong central government is needed to make a country equal.

Local councils and regions should decide most of what affects daily life.

Shared national standards are better than a patchwork of local rules.

Capital cities should not decide what happens in distant provinces.

National crises expose the weakness of fragmented authority.

Cities and regions should be allowed to run their own tax and welfare systems.

Infrastructure and health systems work better when run nationally.

Communities understand their own problems better than ministries do.

A country divided into regions can be played off by its rivals.

Decentralised decision-making is the best available defence against tyranny.

Courts should be able to strike down laws that the majority clearly approved.

Judges who overrule elected legislatures undermine public trust.

Some rights are so fundamental that no majority can vote them away.

In a democracy, the will of the many should outweigh the objections of the few.

A written bill of rights is the best protection for unpopular minorities.

Public opinion, not judicial review, is the proper judge of a law.

Constitutional limits on power matter more than winning an election.

A determined majority should be able to change any law it dislikes.

Entrenched rights are worth the friction they create.

Referendums should be able to overturn court rulings.