The No Holds Barred Political Discussion Thread

[tomsnowman123]

Politics and government define almost everything we do as humans. So what better topic is there to discuss?

Now, there are a couple of things I really hope to see with this thread. First off, I would like to get people's opinions on what political system they support. Is capitalism the way to go? Do you believe in socialism, anarchy? Why do you support these views? What do you think the world, or your country could use in terms of political change? I am opening up this thread to all ideas and beliefs, so fire away, let this be an open area for discussion/critque. Free trade, fair trade, military action, the UN, whatever you want that involves political decisions.

Unfortuantely, a lot of people I know have no idea of where they lie in terms of politics. Now, I hope this doesn't sound like an advertisement (I don't want to get in trouble), but I have found that the Political Compass site provides the best means to determine your political standing. It is not too long, it is well written, and has some intereting data. I am putting this link here simply to give people a means as to determine their political status. I would also be interested in people's scores on the political compass test, as I have seen some people post it in their sigs, (maybe I'll post mine).

My goal is to have an open debate on what people think the government should be like; not the media, not the President, not Congress, not the Prime Minister, etc. Hopefully this thread will take off, I hope to learn some new ideas and get some thoughts.

Edit: It seems as though this thread has become a political compass thread, which I didn't want it to purely be. So, to narrow it down, what direction should the US go politically in the future, especially concerning current issues. For instance, should we continue to try to see our way into foreign countries? Or do you see a more isolationist view work out? And secondly, since most people here disagree with Bush (not all, I know), what do you think the next President needs to do to "fix" America, and bring the public opinion of the government back to stable ground?

 

[tomsnowman123]

If you have read my signature, you basically know where I stand in terms of politics. Let me further say that I am against capitalism, I think it creates greed. Many people I talk to think I hate technology, but that is not true. I believe some technology can provide a means of expression, which is important.

So that combined with my sig is basically where I stand, I would be interested to hear what people have to say about my views, besides the fact that I am considered a radical.

Oh, and here is my political compass score:

Economic Left/Right: -10.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -10.00

 

[bhsup]

I've taken this several times and usually end up around...
Left/Right: +4
Libertarian/Authoritarian: +3

 

[Mulholland]

You have noble values but I dont see how they can be put into practice. First off an anarchist lives outside the rule of a countries law. How do you propose people live green when there is not a central body of courts and police to enforce said laws. Humans can be benevolent by nature but they can also be callous, violent and greedy.

For arguments sake let's take an ecovillage, living outside the rule of a central govening authority. Things are good. People are healthy, relativley wealthy and unarmed.

Now take another anarchist group, we'll call them the Diablos. They belive in social darwinism, the right to bear arms, and have a firm belief in manifest destiny. The majority are greedy and borderline psychopaths.

Well, one day they decide to tax your land ie. extort you. You refuse. They shoot you and take your land. Your values were noble but your anarcist utopia is now relegated to the dustbin of history.

All I'm trying to say is a true peaceful anarcist society cannot exist, we need a benevolent big brother to enforce societies values, lest small armed groups take the law into thier own hands. Hobbes put it very well: "Might makes Right."

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

This is my latest:
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74

Obviously I strongly disagree with the OP's beliefs.

Economically I believe in a balance. Regulated capitalism with a social safety net works very well. The US and EU are good examples. Different levels for each, but same concept. I used to think the US was better at it, but recent data shows it is easier to move up the economic ladder in the EU, which I honestly find counterintuitive with the extra taxes, but it works probably do to the better social safety net for a better start.

Socially I generally believe in very strong personal freedoms, but tend to trust the US gov't doing extra to stop terrorism.

I think real pacifism is a silly notion that is only viable when there is a benevolent strong power to stop other agrressive powers. I think the US and EU are generally such powers now, but if Taiwan had such a notion on its own it would no longer be 'free', but would just be another province of China.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

This REALLY surprised me. I've always thought of myself as a little right of center, but this is what I got.
Left/Right -2.63
Libertarian?Authoritarian +2.62

So I thought I was a middle of the road conservative, but I'm actually a Democrat? how can this be? I'm taking it again...

 

[sealboy6]

Economically I'm 5.5 or something to the right, and 3.2 or something to the authoritarian.

One thing about starting a thread like this: to get it started, you have to propose something without flaming. You wanted people to talk, but there was no foundation. Now it's turned into a political compass check...

 

[Aramazd]

Took it again, and I got
Economic Left/Right: 5.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian:-2.10

I believe in capitalism, with a safety net, probably closer to the U.S. one than the European one. I support free trade. I believe that the government should stay out of peoples lives for the most part. I support the legalization of marijuana, but not drugs such as heroin and meth. I believe that my country should stay out of wars and only join if it is threatened.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I took it again, this time i got
-1.31 Left right
+3.61 Libertarian/Authoritarian

I dont get it. I'm definitely for raising taxes, very nationalistic, do not support big buisness, am strongly against homosexuality and the exposure that sex gets in our society, for separation of church and state but still staunchly religious, and defintely for the government being involved in our lives, from the monitoring that the NSA has just been uncovered about, to laws that affect our personal lives. Oh, and I am for a regulated market and restrictions on big buisness.
Maybe its because I'm more of a traditionalist that I thought of myself as a Republican, oh well. Just the same, I still dont much care for Democrats, though I realize their importance in our system

 

[CaptainF]

Economically I believe in a balance. Regulated capitalism with a social safety net works very well. The US and EU are good examples. Different levels for each, but same concept. I used to think the US was better at it, but recent data shows it is easier to move up the economic ladder in the EU, which I honestly find counterintuitive with the extra taxes, but it works probably do to the better social safety net for a better start.

That sums up my economic stance. I'm an economic centrist.

I'm a social libertarian. Legalize pot, gay marriage, guns, flag burning, the whole shebang.

Anarchy doesn't work unless you pack heat 24/7.

Don't start wars. Finish them.

Against the war in Iraq.

Think eminent domain is stupid.

Communism sucks.

Imperialism sucks.

The United States is not gods gift to mankind, its just another freaking country along with all the others.

(Can't think of any other random personal political views to spurt out.)

 

[Aramazd]

I took it again, this time i got
-1.31 Left right
+3.61 Libertarian/Authoritarian

I dont get it. I'm definitely for raising taxes, very nationalistic, do not support big buisness, am strongly against homosexuality and the exposure that sex gets in our society, for separation of church and state but still staunchly religious, and defintely for the government being involved in our lives, from the monitoring that the NSA has just been uncovered about, to laws that affect our personal lives. Oh, and I am for a regulated market and restrictions on big buisness.
Maybe its because I'm more of a traditionalist that I thought of myself as a Republican, oh well. Just the same, I still dont much care for Democrats, though I realize their importance in our system

The Left/Right scale is for economic beliefs. All the beliefs in bold are economically left.

 

[GenMarshall]

Somehow, I noticed how I have shifted my stance after reverting into Catholicism.

Economic Left/Right: -1.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.21

 

[classical_hero]

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 2.56

It appears that I am getting more and more to the right each time I take this quiz, and more Authoritarian at the same time. Previous times I was alot closer to the middle.

 

[Zardnaar]

Can't stand greenies and socialists. Pack of hypocritical naive fools who should eb taken out and shot. Greenies I get sick of the fanatic mantra "we're all doomed, nukes are bad, save the whales etc while socialists are usually lazy who expect government handouts.

Moderator Action: If all you were going to do is try to insult people, maybe you shouldn't have posted at all? Warned. Eyrei.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[BasketCase]

Something that got started in some other thread:

I consider benevolent anarchy impossible. In an anarchy, the group with the most guns can pretty much do what it likes at the expense of everybody else. The only way to protect the citizens against such groups is to have a police force that's stronger than those groups. In which case it's the police that can do pretty much what they like (fortunately, most police forces have some sense of responsibility). That group, the one that can do what it likes without interference, is the government. In any social group larger than a small village, anarchy can't happen--some kind of power structure will generally assert itself by default.

Out here on the real-world international stage, where there's no real central authority (i.e. basically an anarchy), the U.S. can do pretty much what it pleases--say, invade other countries. So, basically the U.S. is the "default government".

 

[ComradeDavo]

As i've said before, the political compass is only useful to an extent when determining someones political standing, because it doesn't take into account political situatuions in their countires and practicalities.

Anyways, this time round I am...

Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -9.23

Which doesn't really reflect the fact that I think private enterprise is ok as long as it's regulated and workers are paid/treated good and that I think people should be able to earn profit as long as they pay a fair rate of tax, which is used to support a wealfare state.

''Market Socialist'' I guess you could call me.

I like small buisness which is eco-friendly!

I hold very liberal views on issues such as sex, drugs, education and so forth.

 

[C~G]

That test is flawed IMO.

Makes me look like Gandhi while I'm definately more to the right in the economical issues as well as in some authoritarian issues.

Considering what would be perfect government, it should be noted that the country's history must be taken into account. We cannot ever start from point zero creating a perfect model for government, society or economy. That's why everything is difficult in real world. If something works in one place it doesn't mean it will work in some other place right then. The conditions are different. This doesn't mean it cannot evolve towards the desired result over time but there are lot of twists in the plot before it can happen.

 

[soul_warrior]

eco L\R -3.13
social lib -5.59

i was sure im about the same degree only on the Right side of things.

 

[YNCS]

Unfortuantely, a lot of people I know have no idea of where they lie in terms of politics. Now, I hope this doesn't sound like an advertisement (I don't want to get in trouble), but I have found that the Political Compass site provides the best means to determine your political standing. It is not too long, it is well written, and has some intereting data. I am putting this link here simply to give people a means as to determine their political status. I would also be interested in people's scores on the political compass test, as I have seen some people post it in their sigs, (maybe I'll post mine).

The "test" you offer is known as the "Nolan Quiz." It was invented by an American libertarian named Charles Nolan. There is a major flaw in the Nolan Quiz which requires a little analysis.

The quiz is two-dimensional. Rather than trying to put a person on the standard one-dimensional Left/Right scale, the quiz adds a dimension, drawing a distinction between opinions on economic and personal issues.

Of course such scales, one and two-dimensional, are mostly intended for convenience. When faced with a choice of two or more political candidates we cannot compare each candidate's stand on every issue with our own. We have to get a more general idea about where we land on some simpler scale, and how the various candidates compare. In reality, an accurate scale would have many more dimensions. Ideally, at least one axis for every major political issue. But that's not practical, so we reduce the number of dimensions.

The author of the quiz, however, has chosen two axes which unnaturally inflate the significance of libertarianism and authoritarianism in the space of political ideologies. The quiz improves the standard classification of political ideologies by recognizing that there are people who believe the government has a role in nearly nothing, and others who believe the government has a role in nearly everything. But the quiz author ignores very important political questions which determine not whether the government has a role, but the nature of that role. It leaves us with the same left/right dichotomy for those people who believe that the government has a limited role in society.

Indeed, if the quiz were written to address the variety of real political issues, it would include a number of other axes beside "economic" and "personal". The result would be a drastic increase in the number of potential data points which do not fall within the "libertarian" and "authoritarian" regions. We would see the prominence of libertarian ideology decrease with each new axis. For example, if marxists were to create such a test, they would use a different set of axes.

The second obvious criticism is typical of polls taken to show false levels of support: the questions are worded to elicit the desired response. This is called framing bias. For example, on a marxist test, you might see a question such as "Do you believe people should help each other?" Libertarians would answer "yes" to this question; the problem is the buts that are filtered out by the question format.

Many libertarians use this as an outreach (read: evangelism) tool. By making it easy to get high scores on both axes, subjects can be told that they are already a libertarian and just didn't know it. This is the same sort of suckering that cold readers and other frauds use.

Edited to try to fix whatever is wrong with the URL in the quote.

 

[Dann]

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -3.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.03

Hmm.... apparently I'm not authoritarian enough for my liking. Must be my answers to the sex and porn related questions screwing up the rest of the test.