Poll: Do you think the current left/right political system is outdated?

[Timsup2nothin]

This has illustrated the problems with this left/right business. Not only is it overly simplified, but just in this thread we have seen that people have any number of different simplifications. So we have people saying "I'm a righty" grouping together 'against the left' who really aren't even coming from anything like the same place, and the same happening on the 'left'. If this 'shorthand' were disbanded people would have to 'earn' their allies, and also might find out that what they meant by 'right' is actually the exact same thing someone else meant by 'left'.

 

[Antilogic]

I largely agree with TF and a bit with plarq.

 

[Traitorfish]

Plarq certainly make a good point about the actual content of "left-wing" and "right-wing" politics changing over time. It's about orientation, is the thing to remember.

 

[Cutlass]

Science-fiction writer Dr. Jerry Pournelle has postulated a matrix:

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=105658.0

His horizontal axis is "statism," i.e. government is the "ultimate evil" on the left; "state worship" is on the right.

His vertical axis he calls "rationalism:" "Reason enthroned" is on the top, i.e. humanity's problems are capable of being solved. "Irrationality" is on the bottom, i.e. humanities problems cannot be solved.

IMHO, the simple left-right designations are generally useful in most situations. Buy where precision and/or acute analysis is called for, then sometime like Pournelles Axes are needed.

I had actually seen this in the past. Though enough years had gone by that I didn't recall it until you reminded me. The irony of it was that he also wrote that the good of the idea of a government by an absolute monarch was that one man, no matter how inclined, couldn't infringe on the liberty of the populace too much. He totally missed the fact that a government, no matter how much power is invested in the single ruler, is still a government with many parts. And a despot who can't oppress all of his people directly is also one who cannot know, or control, how much his subordinates are oppressing his people.

 

[Nares]

You put libertarians on the left? Because they start with the same letter?

Because they're always willing to subvert their economic views to their social views.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because they're always willing to subvert their economic views to their social views.

So are most people who call themselves conservatives? What of it?

 

[Antilogic]

Plarq certainly make a good point about the actual content of "left-wing" and "right-wing" politics changing over time. It's about orientation, is the thing to remember.

Yeah, especially that time period for the shift can be as short as a decade or two. Trying to apply a modern American left-right spectrum to, say, the 1896 elections would yield some pretty screwy results, and I can only assume that would hold for other nations as well.

Because they're always willing to subvert their economic views to their social views.

Are you thinking of any particular political parties or countries where this appears to be so?

 

[plarq]

Plarq certainly make a good point about the actual content of "left-wing" and "right-wing" politics changing over time. It's about orientation, is the thing to remember.

I think it is about unified front in politics. Either in multi-party or two party system, a group who do not align with other groups' will be insignificant, and in both systems, all groups lumping towards one big camp is not beneficial (it is equivalent that all smaller parties surrender to the biggest party, and letting the biggest party cutting slices of cake for them); lump into three groups will induce an effect where the third party wins after the first and second come to an inconclusive result . (From what I learned in game theory, a simplified model is three-way duel, it may be beneficial for the first player to shot the air and let the second and third dig each other's heart out)

In practice, grouping into two camps is the most beneficial choices for every political players in a system at equilibrium. If the equilibrium is lost when one camp split or something, then new opposition group will rise and form new bi-partisan situation. See the fall of Liberal Party in UK and rise of Labor.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Only insofar as "the left" is an outdated concept.

I you too V.

 

[brennan]

I'm shocked that I broke the tie between option 1 & 2, I would have guessed the intelligent crowd of CivFanatics would nearly unanimously vote for #1.

I think to take that view you have to accept Kochman's notion that it is impossible on principle to be completely consistent.

I think that's highly questionable in principle if not in practice. His example, using abortion is highly debateable for example.