I'm confused about what you're trying to accomplish with this discussion: Yes, the areas I suggested for agreement between liberals and libertarians were general and vague. The point was to cover the wide variety of possible issues, not actually identify specific policy options to agree on.
Policy debates should not appear one sided. At the moment at which it seems to you that as issue is completely on sided it's likely that you don't understand the actual issues that are at stake.
I also feel like the model you are using for different political actors is based on random partisans
No, my model of political actors is partly based on people actual political power in Berlin, which is the city I inhabit.
My reason for thinking this is that I live in Washington DC and hang out with a bunch of lawyers and law students who have thought about such issues for more than two seconds and tend to converge.
Basically you discussed law with people who aren't trained to think politically about law but technically about it. Those people might be thoughtful about the technicality but that doesn't mean that they are thoughtful about the politics behind the law.
I think you make a mistake when you assume that the way lawyers think about laws is representative to how thoughtful people in general think about laws.
I think people on LessWrong agree that Robert Hanson is in general a thoughtful person. Look at this post . There he proposes a way to make our tax system even more complicated. If you would ask Robert Hanson whether he wanted an easier tax code he would say yes. On the other hand he still makes proposals for increasing it's complexity. He isn't even a progressive who's big on government intervention in markets.
If someone like Robert Hanson isn't committed to tax code simplicity, why do you expect an average LessWrong reader to be committed to that idea?
If everyone here researched the mortgage interest tax deduction for a month I'm quite sure the progressives would mostly be on board with eliminating it.
If you get rid of the mortgage interest tax deduction, do you also get rid of support for 401k plans? If not, why do the people who buy real estage for their retirement get less support from the government than the people who invest in 401k plans?
If we don't have government incentives that get people to invest for their retirement, what does society do with those old broke people who can still vote?
My point is really simple actually which is why this extended exchange is so confusing. The question was basically: what are things liberals and libertarians can agree on. I just answered empirically. Look up the opinions of prominent American liberal writers, bloggers, think tanks and wonks on the mortgage interest tax deduction. Look up the opinions of their libertarian counterparts. Look at what economists say about it. There is a ton of agreement!
...Basically you discussed law with people who aren't trained to think politically about law but technically
I was thinking about the hazards of bad government, and wondering if there was a way for the LW community to do something to oppose them, and it occurred to me that we might be picking up the problem by the wrong end.
The usual way of thinking about political action is to start with one's political identity (progressive, libertarian, whatever), and that's likely to put one at odds with people who have opposed identities.
Instead, I believe there are projects which could appeal to rationalists across a wide range of the political spectrum. A couple I can think of are opposing the war on drugs and improving judicial systems. Any other suggestions?