Where are you on the political spectrum?

Started by Ephemerid, February 08, 2008, 10:37:42 AM

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Ken B

Quote from: EigenUser on December 20, 2014, 03:25:39 AM
Woohoo!
I am further south but in the same general area as you two. Free market, lots of personal liberty, pro-welfare state, anti-nanny state. The state should pick up the slack where the market fails, not try to control the market.

And frankly I question how "libertarian" many here actually are. We had a raging debate over whether women should be allowed to choose their sex partners for any damn reason they want, and most GMGers, Florestan and me excepted, said no. I wonder how many here would end all narcotics laws, allow people to sell their kidneys, or defend S&M.

Mirror Image

I didn't take the quiz, but I can definitely say that I fall more into the Libertarian Left bracket.

ibanezmonster

Quote from: Ken B on December 20, 2014, 06:44:01 AM
Free market, lots of personal liberty, pro-welfare state, anti-nanny state. The state should pick up the slack where the market fails, not try to control the market.
Yes. Sounds good to me.

Florestan

Things are clear now: the three musquetaires of His Majesty the Liberty (Nat, Ken, Greg and me) fighting valiantly and gallantly against the much more numerous pinko-shirted guards of His Eminence the State... ;D :P >:D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Ken B

Quote from: Florestan on December 20, 2014, 07:28:08 AM
Things are clear now: the three musquetaires of His Majesty the Liberty (Nat, Ken, Greg and me) fighting valiantly and gallantly against the much more numerous pinko-shirted guards of His Eminence the State... ;D :P >:D

Dibs on D'Artagnon! And let's hear none of that "but I'm the young one and you look more like Porthos" stuff Nathan. Dids is dibs!

Florestan

There is yet another test whose questions seem to me a bit more balanced than the other one.

http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/POLMTX/thetest.php

I stand more or less on the same spot as the other one.

Result

Economic score: +2.58
Social score: -0.7

Your score pegs you as economically center-capitalistand socially centrist.

Center-capitalists often support free trade and low taxes, but take pragmatic stances on economic issues, supporting what they see as the best balance between encouraging business and maintaining free trade.

Social centrists generally believe in a mix of individual liberties and controls, corresponding to what they see as moral or best for society.




   
   
   


Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jaakko Keskinen

"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo

Sammy

Quote from: Alberich on December 20, 2014, 09:34:52 AM
I certainly lean towards left.

Me too, especially after drinking a few vodkas. 8)

Sergeant Rock

#188
Quote from: Ken B on December 20, 2014, 06:44:01 AM
And frankly I question how "libertarian" many here actually are. We had a raging debate over whether women should be allowed to choose their sex partners for any damn reason they want, and most GMGers, Florestan and me excepted, said no. I wonder how many here would end all narcotics laws, allow people to sell their kidneys, or defend S&M.

No one graphed at the bottom of the Libertarian south so obviously we aren't totally insane ;D

Mary Jane good (or at least not so bad), heroin definitely bad...I think most would agree with that. S&M? Since I've known three women who defined their sexuality in those terms, I would certainly not legislate against their choice.

Edit: Correction: amw is at the bottom, far left.

That explains so much  :D  (I keed, I keed)

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Gurn Blanston

I tolerate a great variety of political commentary on this thread and elsewhere, much of which I either don't agree with or don't give a damn about anyway. I don't tolerate intimating, either overtly or covertly, that people who don't agree with you are thus generically equated with Nazis or any other past pit of mankind. I deleted those posts; don't push further there.

GB
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Moonfish

Quote from: Florestan on December 20, 2014, 07:28:08 AM
Things are clear now: the three musquetaires of His Majesty the Liberty (Nat, Ken, Greg and me) fighting valiantly and gallantly against the much more numerous pinko-shirted guards of His Eminence the State... ;D :P >:D

Which one is which again?

"Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want...."
Anna Lappé

Moonfish

Quote from: Florestan on December 20, 2014, 07:28:08 AM
Things are clear now: the three musquetaires of His Majesty the Liberty (Nat, Ken, Greg and me) fighting valiantly and gallantly against the much more numerous pinko-shirted guards of His Eminence the State... ;D :P >:D

Unfortunately no pink shirts, but will this suffice...?
Images bring such clarity to the political spectrum!  ;D :D ;)

"Every time you spend money you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want...."
Anna Lappé

ibanezmonster

Quote from: Ken B on December 20, 2014, 06:44:01 AM
And frankly I question how "libertarian" many here actually are. We had a raging debate over whether women should be allowed to choose their sex partners for any damn reason they want, and most GMGers, Florestan and me excepted, said no. I wonder how many here would end all narcotics laws, allow people to sell their kidneys, or defend S&M.
Didn't even read this part of the post, but yes to this, too. All three- totally.

The thing about libertarianism is: aren't there two types of libertarianism?  Personal liberty is one thing, but I hear more about them being more concerned with corporate liberty. Like the brilliant opinion of being anti-minimum wage and anti-welfare state at the same time. Um... how would that work? Surely you could find some African country with such a brilliant economic model...?

Ken B

Quote from: Greg on December 20, 2014, 07:11:06 PM
Didn't even read this part of the post, but yes to this, too. All three- totally.

The thing about libertarianism is: aren't there two types of libertarianism?  Personal liberty is one thing, but I hear more about them being more concerned with corporate liberty. Like the brilliant opinion of being anti-minimum wage and anti-welfare state at the same time. Um... how would that work? Surely you could find some African country with such a brilliant economic model...?

Yes, I think there are two broad but different ideas here.

Libertarian is not a normative, value term. It is descriptive. The more you reject the involvement/interference of outside parties in agreements between people or in their actions, the more libertarian. This is as true of wages as of sex. A minimum wage is me interfering in your ability to contract with someone else, so it is libertarian to oppose it. The same applies to interfering in what I do alone, such as whether I take drugs.

Taxation is a slightly separate issue, but in general taxes are me laying claim to your assets even though we have not contracted or otherwise agreed. Many libertarians also feel that is unjustifiable.

So I agree there are two senses, overlapping sometimes but not identical.

I am generally (not always) libertarian in the first sense, but not in the second.

Ken B

#194
Quote from: Greg on December 20, 2014, 07:11:06 PM
Didn't even read this part of the post, but yes to this, too. All three- totally.

The thing about libertarianism is: aren't there two types of libertarianism?  Personal liberty is one thing, but I hear more about them being more concerned with corporate liberty. Like the brilliant opinion of being anti-minimum wage and anti-welfare state at the same time. Um... how would that work? Surely you could find some African country with such a brilliant economic model...?

I wanted to keep the corporate issue out of my last comment.
The argument is that corporations are a means by which individuals transact. Thus restrictions on corporations are just restrictions on the individuals who own and operate them.

This is not a foolish argument. Imagine Greg Inc which you control, as a way of running a house cleaning service, where occassionally you hire help, but mostly it's just you. Now a restriction on zgreg Inc is pretty directly one on you.
It is less clear with large companies. The equity argument is correct, the owners are just people transacting, but that is not the only issue. One goal of law is to control behavior. A large firm does not behave or make decisions analogously to you deciding the fate of Greg Inc. Malfeasance must be punished differently too. Hence the law cannot effectively treat the big company just as it treated Greg Inc. So the libertarian argument here seems naive and incorrect to me. (As I said, not a type 2 libertarian 😄)

NorthNYMark

Quote from: Ken B on December 20, 2014, 06:44:01 AM
I am further south but in the same general area as you two. Free market, lots of personal liberty, pro-welfare state, anti-nanny state. The state should pick up the slack where the market fails, not try to control the market.

And frankly I question how "libertarian" many here actually are. We had a raging debate over whether women should be allowed to choose their sex partners for any damn reason they want, and most GMGers, Florestan and me excepted, said no. I wonder how many here would end all narcotics laws, allow people to sell their kidneys, or defend S&M.

There are people who are against consensual S&M? 

Ken B

#196
Quote from: NorthNYMark on December 20, 2014, 09:04:35 PM
There are people who are against consensual S&M?
There are, and against sm porn. The porn was just banned in England. Needless to say, the libertarian position is to oppose that ban. You really think everyone will oppose that ban?

Some years ago the sportscaster, I think it was Marv Albert, was arrested following a sexual encounter in which he had bitten a woman. The biting was consensual, although there were other issues involved. at one point there was talk of charging him with battery. The advantage from the prosecutors point of view of charging him with battery is that a person is not allowed to consent to it. Nearly all sadomasochistic sex would fall under the category of battery. SM was thus illegal. At that time not a single homosexual rights group spoke up about this issue. Not a single person I spoke to considered it to be an outrage.
The sportscaster did plead to some lesser charge. I forget all the details of the case.

Sex shops in Cincinnati were raided and sm gear seized.

Some feminists want it to be illegal. https://books.google.com/books?id=D97doQ1iZx4C&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=opposition+to+legal+sado-masochism&source=bl&ots=dB-FcNCN-C&sig=J8SooSw2Q2UvJtgN-nneUWEZ-HI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nWaWVMKdA43hggS6kYLwBA&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=opposition%20to%20legal%20sado-masochism&f=false


Wiki has some on various laws http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM_and_the_law

And http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-sadomasochism-be-decriminalized

Fagotterdämmerung

  Libertarian seems to come in a lot of forms. I generally associate Libertarian with political views that involve low levels of state involvement in everyday life, not as being another term for "socially liberal".

  Though like just about everyone here, I am green, but if someone just gave me the chart and said "Where are you?" I'd probably put myself in lower middle of the red quadrant.

Florestan

Quote from: Sammy on December 20, 2014, 12:30:31 PM
Me too, especially after drinking a few vodkas. 8)

Hands down the funniest post in this thread.  :D :D :D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Jaakko Keskinen

Quote from: Florestan on December 21, 2014, 12:27:32 AM
Hands down the funniest post in this thread.  :D :D :D

I have to admit: it was a pretty good one.
"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo