State Property... huh?

[Badtz Maru]

I think the "1/6 of the economy" talking point that keeps coming up is going to backfire in the long run. It's insane that healthcare is such a large portion of our economy.

 

[kochman]

I am not far left, except by American standards. Just left. I am pretty much mainline democratic socialist by European standards, although I'm more socially liberal than most. Many non-fringe parties are to the left of me. Barack Obama is right of center, and his voting record and policies would make him conservative in most European countries.

Economic libertarianism is far right. I know your sig says you don't care about the political compass test, but it would be interesting to see what you would score on it. I'm fairly sure you are farther from the center than me.

I'm sorry you don't see it that way, but you are almost 6 deviations away from the center by your own score. That means you are far left.
When did European countries become the designator of what is left and right? I understand what you mean, but again, that doesn't change the definition of socialist. If you want to call socialism center-right based on a comparison to Europe and "the rest of the world" (you know, where dictators rule 75% of the countries), then have at it. Obama is not a center-right conservative. He would probably score, if I were to guesstimate, pretty close to what you scored on the economic scale. His voting record was the most liberal in congress, I believe... and his current track record is hardly conservative.

I took the test, and my scores were...
Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.69
Using this test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

I'm fairly sure you are farther from the center than me.

Guess you were wrong on that one! lol


I find the test to be pretty loaded, but I guess it has to be to try to come up with results.
The truth is, I don't really believe in left/right wing, but use it in conversation because others do so much. I believe more in freedom/authoritarian differences, and believe that Dems and Repubs are just names that people put way too much credit into. Really, both parties seek power and go to great lengths and manipulations to get it.

 

[kochman]

I think the "1/6 of the economy" talking point that keeps coming up is going to backfire in the long run. It's insane that healthcare is such a large portion of our economy.

Its 1/6th of the private economy, so a bit of a mistatement.
I agree that the cost of HC is WAY too high... I just don't know who to trust to get it better... I mean, governments have proven pretty inefficient at the job. Insurance companies can't be trusted as long as they have no real competition... but this is a discussion for another thread.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I'm sorry you don't see it that way, but you are almost 6 deviations away from the center by your own score. That means you are far left.
When did European countries become the designator of what is left and right? I understand what you mean, but again, that doesn't change the definition of socialist. If you want to call socialism center-right based on a comparison to Europe and "the rest of the world" (you know, where dictators rule 75% of the countries), then have at it. Obama is not a center-right conservative. He would probably score, if I were to guesstimate, pretty close to what you scored on the economic scale. His voting record was the most liberal in congress, I believe... and his current track record is hardly conservative.

I took the test, and my scores were...
Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.69
Using this test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
Guess you were wrong on that one! lol


I find the test to be pretty loaded, but I guess it has to be to try to come up with results.
The truth is, I don't really believe in left/right wing, but use it in conversation because others do so much. I believe more in freedom/authoritarian differences, and believe that Dems and Repubs are just names that people put way too much credit into. Really, both parties seek power and go to great lengths and manipulations to get it.

Thanks for taking the test. I'm really baffled how you can be so close to the center economically when you say you are a libertarian.


The people who created that site have actually run various politicians through the test using what they know from their voting record. There's a graph here showing how candidates from the 2008 campaign ranked. Obama was to the left of every Democrat candidate except Biden, Edwards, and Kucinich, though he was really close to all of them but Kucinich. They don't give the numbers, from eyeballing the graph he appears to be about +2.7/+2.7. That's fairly (but not extremely) conservative by world standards - a little to the right of Austria, a little less Fascist than Portugal. Remember that with proportional representation, a wider range of political views are represented in government, so, though the center of a country and most of their policies may be a little right of center, they do have some policies and politicians who are far to either side. Pretty much all the mainstream politicians in USA politics are clustered together within 5 points of the middle of the right/authoritarian quadrant of the compass.

Here's a good chart that shows where the EU nations were as of 2008. There has been a strong shift to the right over recent years, and countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain are some of the strongest proponents of free market neo-liberalism. This page has a graph that shows where the major parties in the UK are on the compass, and below it is a graph that shows how they have shifted since 1972. You can see that even the conservative party was fairly centrist, occupying a slightly less authoritarian position than Barack Obama but being about the same economically, while the Labour Party was MUCH farther to the left. A similar, but smaller, shift has been occurring in the USA during this time frame. Barack Obama would not have been out of place in the Republican party until the latter half of the 1970s. Nixon, for instance, was actually to the left of Bill Clinton and proposed a health care reform that was very similar to the one the Clinton administration tried to get passed. Note that in the late 1960s, the minimum wage was around $9 (adjusted for inflation, of course) and the top tax brackets were paying around 75% income tax, and this was about 15 points lower than what it was when Kennedy took office (of course, there were more brackets at the top and people who would now be in the top bracket would not be anywhere near it). The USA was far more liberal in the past, and has taken a very large jump to the right in the last 30 years.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: any and all personal attacks stop here - discuss the posts, not each other
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Badtz Maru]

I took the test, and my scores were...
Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.69
Using this test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

By the way, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about in how the Far Right has convinced people who are not really right-wing politically that this country is center-right and they are too. You self identify as a libertarian, yet your actual political beliefs are very centrist, and to the left of most mainstream politicians. I am much more of a social libertarian than you. A politician that you believe to be far left is actually a good distance to your right on economic issues and significantly more authoritarian (he is strongly for drug prohibition, for instance). You are politically far closer to Barack Obama than me, and closer to him than any of the Republican or Libertarian candidates.

The American people have center right politicians, but their actual beliefs are much more libertarian and leftist.

 

[3drawegroeg]

To bring this back towards the game, I think it's rediculus that free market only allows +1 trade route per city. It should add a trade route to every city in the game to reflect exactly how much more awesome free market is than state property! Also, free market should add a research bonus, a +100% commerce multiplier, and +2 food from every tile because it's just really that good! k.thx.bye

 

[3drawegroeg]

How could I forget, free market should also give a happiness bonus because people cannot be truly free:happy) when the market is not!

 

[jabberwalkee_]

The problem with the political compass is that it asks you value based questions on economic issues, it doesn't ask you how your ideal economy would be run. I consistently score fairly close to the middle on economic issues, when I know that my economic views would be considered relatively right leaning by anyone other than an American (American economic views are considerably further right wing than those of europe or Canada/Australia)

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Both free market and state property are just methods by wich the state ensures Bread and Circuses for it's people.

100% "state property" is the ultimate Bread side while 100% free market is the ultimate "Circuse" side.

 

[kochman]

By the way, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about in how the Far Right has convinced people who are not really right-wing politically that this country is center-right and they are too. You self identify as a libertarian, yet your actual political beliefs are very centrist, and to the left of most mainstream politicians. I am much more of a social libertarian than you. A politician that you believe to be far left is actually a good distance to your right on economic issues and significantly more authoritarian (he is strongly for drug prohibition, for instance). You are politically far closer to Barack Obama than me, and closer to him than any of the Republican or Libertarian candidates.

The American people have center right politicians, but their actual beliefs are much more libertarian and leftist.

Except this idea is wrong because I have opposed 99.9% of what Obama has done or tried to due when it comes to economic stuff (as opposed to social stuff, where I tend to agree with him more). In fact, I can't think of one thing he has done regarding spending or economics that I support even one iota.
That test, some 60 questions or whatever, all of which are loaded, is not really a good indicator, is what I am taking from this. The problem with the test is, I think, that it asks a lot of questions about how you view ideal situations, such as should a corporation do things for the greater good. I think they should. It doesn't say how that would be enforced really... as I don't think that government should do it, but that customers should support good corporations with their wallets... for example.

It's pretty funny to me that you thought I would be this far right wacko, when really, I am the one in the center.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The questions are not loaded at all.
It is just that they are created from the global and not the american version of left and right.

You americans are so far shifted to the right that you see things that are not even center but center-right as being left.

On a quick run I for example score like this: Economic Left/Right: -8.62 and if you read my answers it would probably be off all your american charts.

The question you posted for example, I would answer: "Yes and the state should enforce that with any means nesecary."

 

[kochman]

The questions are not loaded at all.
It is just that they are created from the global and not the american version of left and right.

You americans are so far shifted to the right that you see things that are not even center but center-right as being left.

On a quick run I for example score like this: Economic Left/Right: -8.62 and if you read my answers it would probably be off all your american charts.

The question you posted for example, I would answer: "Yes and the state should enforce that with any means nesecary."

We are shifted to the right... but your score is -8.62... meaning if anyone is shifted off center... its the 8.62 score, really. I grant the average american score would be to the right of an average French score... This doesn't mean we are right of center though... it just means we aren't a left...
I still believe the average american score would be to the left of zero. This is just a hypothesis, and we will never know of course. The evidence is in the fact that we have a supermajority in both houses of congress and a president all on the left. Foreigners all want to say things like well, the american leaders are actually all to the right... but I guarantee that if congress took this test, the average would be solidly to the left of zero.

Anyhow, when your score is -8.62 (I think -9 is the furthest extreme) you are hardly in a good position to say what the center is, because that line is just a dot from -8.62... Its a common ploy of the far left to act like they call center a new position which is to the left of the actual center. I see it all the time, and I know its true because so many to the far left love to post their scores in their signature
I have seen this on other sites too...

@Ori, perhaps you could put this entire thread in the off-topics forum for us?

 

[kochman]

The question you posted for example, I would answer: "Yes and the state should enforce that with any means nesecary."

And I am thankful that this vote isn't being cast in my country. Governments could screw up a wet dream! Give them power to enforce by any means necessary is called a tyranny, because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. History shows this... "evidence is clear"

 

[kochman]

(American economic views are considerably further right wing than those of europe or Canada/Australia)

And our economy is tops in the world... hmmm....

 

[Badtz Maru]

Except this idea is wrong because I have opposed 99.9% of what Obama has done or tried to due when it comes to economic stuff (as opposed to social stuff, where I tend to agree with him more). In fact, I can't think of one thing he has done regarding spending or economics that I support even one iota.

Can you give some examples? He hasn't done too much regarding spending since taking office, and his voting record in the senate was pretty centrist economically. The one thing I can think of would be the stimulus, which would be tied to a right leaning question on the quiz (it was something like "Do you think it's more important for the government to control inflation than unemployment"). Regarding the health care plan, he has worked with pharmaceutical companies against the interests of what would be correct to a socialist, and he's lost a lot of respect from the true left because of his lack of support of the leftist agenda. He's also pretty socially conservative, stating that he does not believe in gay marriage, is against drug decriminalization, etc.

It's pretty funny to me that you thought I would be this far right wacko, when really, I am the one in the center.

Well, you described yourself as a libertarian, which is usually synonymous with "far right wacko" in the USA. That's as inaccurate as if I had described myself as a fascist. You also described someone whose policies are right of center as a socialist, implying you were even farther to the right, when you are to the left of the majority of the Democratic party. You essentially said "I'm a far right wacko" and then think it's funny when people think you are on the far right when you really would be considered in the far left by most Republicans.

I think this is why people outside the USA think we are all far right wackos, because most Americans (A) don't understand what left and right mean on the economic spectrum and (B) are convinced by the far right that the right should be the default political position and people who are slightly less right are actually the far left.

 

[Badtz Maru]

Except this idea is wrong because I have opposed 99.9% of what Obama has done or tried to due when it comes to economic stuff (as opposed to social stuff, where I tend to agree with him more). In fact, I can't think of one thing he has done regarding spending or economics that I support even one iota.
That test, some 60 questions or whatever, all of which are loaded, is not really a good indicator, is what I am taking from this. The problem with the test is, I think, that it asks a lot of questions about how you view ideal situations, such as should a corporation do things for the greater good. I think they should. It doesn't say how that would be enforced really... as I don't think that government should do it, but that customers should support good corporations with their wallets... for example.

It's pretty funny to me that you thought I would be this far right wacko, when really, I am the one in the center.

You should answer the questions as if you are a politician and you are following your official platform. If you don't believe governments should enforce a position that you hold, you should probably select "Disagree". If it's a position that you disagree with completely, then choose "Strongly Disagree".

For instance, on the abortion question, I'm one of those "Lesser of two evils" pro-choice people - I don't approve of abortion, but I approve even less of the government forcing people to have babies against their will. So I chose "Agree" on the question about whether women should always be able to have an abortion - I have no problem with voluntary first trimester abortion for any reason, am a bit queasy about second trimester abortions for non-health reasons, and I would strongly disapprove of a woman who had a late term abortion for no good reason. But I also do not want the government making that decision for anyone, even late term abortions, so I chose "Agree". If I chose "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree", it may have more closely reflected my personal views, but it would have been an inaccurate description of my political beliefs. If the question was "Should women always be allowed to have abortions in the first trimester" I would have chosen "Strongly Agree".

BTW, there were only a few questions I chose "Strongly Agree" or "Strongly Disagree".

So, try re-taking the test not as if it's asking your personal feelings on everything, but on how you think a country should be run.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The questions are not loaded at all.
It is just that they are created from the global and not the american version of left and right.

You americans are so far shifted to the right that you see things that are not even center but center-right as being left.

On a quick run I for example score like this: Economic Left/Right: -8.62 and if you read my answers it would probably be off all your american charts.

The question you posted for example, I would answer: "Yes and the state should enforce that with any means nesecary."

Some of those questions have answers that are conditional, but there is no option to do anything but agree or disagree...strongly if you wish. Loaded? Maybe maybe not. Poor for the response choices available? Absolutely. Which way the question leads somebody (if at all) is irrelevant to this complaint. It's poorly constructed even if completely unbiased politically (I'm not convinced it is). Controlling inflation vs unemployment? Is it good for business to be responsible? Seriously?

Also, please don't make garbage generalizations based on nationality. For some reason, it's socially acceptable to do this with the United States in a lot of places (including here in the US), but it is just as indicative of ignorance as profiling someone by race, gender, or any other country.

 

[kochman]

Can you give some examples?

Please stop saying Obama's voting record in the Congress was centrist. He was found to be the number one top liberal democrat.

Now, for some examples of Obama economic moves that I have opposed... as I said, 99.9%... in fact, it would be easier to try to find one I agreed with than list all them out... but for a taste of what I object to
*Stimulus (without which we would face 8% unemployment, but if enacted immediately, we would not... here we are at 10% with no real end in sight).
*

He hasn't done too much regarding spending since taking office

Doubling the budget while inheriting a deficit... remember when pres candidates used to talk about balancing the budget? Yeah... not anymore... from either side of course. He doubled the spending in a matter of months (which Bush doubled in 8 years... believe me, much of this could be applied to Bush as well... who I also detest)
*Quadrupling the deficit
*Keeping interest rates unnaturally low, thereby debasing the dollar... inflation is a tax for those who don't realize it, so that leads me to...
*de facto tax increase on all citizens, because inflation, planned by the government, is a tax to devalue the dollar in order to make paying back debts easier... this doesn't hurt the rich (like Obama), but it hurts the middle class and poor because things cost more than before...
*Recently printing some astronomical amount of new money, further debasing the dollar
*Cap & Trade that he supports
*Single Payer Health Care that he supports (whether he gets it or not is still in the air of course)
*Not allowing Free Trade with Colombia (I think this happened recently, would have to verify)
*Reducing embargo strain on Cuba, thereby allowing the brutal dictatorship to be propped up that much longer than it would be otherwise... I would also like to thank European tourists for this, on behalf of my friends and estranged Cuban immigrants in Florida and elsewhere in the USA
*Raising the debt ceiling
*do you see where I am going with this?

As for the test, I did take it as how I think the country should be run. I am the same as you on abortion, for example... but I don't think that's an issue we should touch here... people get very sentimental about that on both sides and I don't want to get blown up.

Well, you described yourself as a libertarian, which is usually synonymous with "far right wacko" in the USA

Not really, unless you are far left. I think you should look at the libertarian party platform... some seriously non-conservative stuff in there, all of which I support with maybe one minor exception.

 

[kochman]

Also, please don't make garbage generalizations based on nationality. For some reason, it's socially acceptable to do this with the United States in a lot of places (including here in the US), but it is just as indicative of ignorance as profiling someone by race, gender, or any other country.

I think we all know what US bashing is REALLY based on...