Political Stereotypes
Offline I'm frustrated.
Lately all I hear is "stupid religious, right-wing Bush lovers" versus "sensible, intelligent, Pro-life, Pro-choice liberals". I feel people are being ignorant about the whole definition thing.
I understand these comments reflect the current stigmas attached to the two dominant political parties, but there is a big difference between being a Republican and being a conservative.
I would consider myself a Libertarian. Technically, that is an extremely conservative position. Yet I am in favor of abortion and stem-cell research yet I am uncomfortable with added government support programs, more taxes, etc. Some might call me a moderate, yet that doesn't mean I don't have passionate social views.
This is what I know:
If you put the two dominant political ideologies in America on a spectrum:
LIBERAL would be, at the very extreme, Communism: More government control, Less freedom.
CONSERVATIVE would be, at the very extreme, Anarchy: More freedom, less government control.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't like the stereotypes. It creates too much tension.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
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I'm going to go with you're wrong.
The issue here, as far as I'm concerned, is the Anarchism vs Anarcho-capitalism debate. Anarchism is (at least) typically left-wing (anarchism there is a subtype of libertarian socialism). In addition, real communism would be stateless (queue up the whole convoluted history)
"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought
"Liberal" tends to identify with the dead center of political ideology. Socialism falling to the far left. Communism tends to fall even farther to the left but this would be traditional communism and not Stalin type communism which I think generally requires a vertical line mixed in there as well.
Anarchy would fall also to the extreme left, but on the opposite vertical of a Stalin type communism.
Facism fall under the extreme right, but on the same vertical. Capitalism would fall on the right side of the "Progressive versus Conservative" spectrum.
In Canada your political spectrum of major parties might look like this...
<-------Q----N-----|-L-------C------>
Q = Bloc Quebecois
N = New Democrat Party
| = Center of spectrum
L = Liberal Party
C = Conservative Party
The Liberals in Canada tend to fall under my general liking in that they are socially progressive and fiscally conservative.
eew... could we leave out the Bloc party and add in the other 3 you missed? ^_^
Green Party
NDP
and the home town favorite
Marijuana Party!
hahaha
What Would Kharn Do?
Anarchy wouldn't be the extreme of conservativism, fascism/Nazism would. I myself am at the left-end of Socialism. Conservativism only favors economic "freedom", not social freedom (abortion rights, no censorship, no forcing religion down our throat, civil rights, etc.)
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
I had always viewed it as the further to the left you go you get more social and fewer economic freedoms. Which is why I hate presidential elections because I would really like to have both economic and social freedom. Why is that such a difficult concept?
I also don't think you can put political views on a straight line because of this. Where would you put a libertarian?
The political spectrum It's really more of a square. With Financial freedom increasing as you move to the right, and social freedom increasing as you move up. This would put things like Communism and socialism in the bottom left, Republicans on the bottom right, Democrats on the top left, and libertarians in the top right.
http://www.nyu.edu/clubs/spectrum/politicalspectrum.gif
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
Socialism would be in the top left. The bottom left would be Statism.
I should remark that "economic freedom" is a rather complex subject because to some people it can be viewed as the same thing as "freedom to own slaves", yet others use it in a very different sense.
"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought
I know how you feel.
How is conservative --> Nazism? That sounds like an incredible stretch.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
Firstly: Political stereotyping is unhelpful bullshit. Just like any other stereotyping. Its an awfully tough sell that the world is divided into a bichromatic social spectrum.
Secondly:
Well, first we'd have to give 'conservative' a much firmer definition that it currently has, and then compare it to Nazism. Right now, this statement gets tossed around a lot because of certain similarities to a variety of Republican stances and our good buddy Adolf's stances. This is, of course, not exactly a fair litmus test of a supposed spectrum of people - but, then, the entire idea of 'political specturms' strikes me as arbitrary and absurd.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I guess that's the point: conservatives aren't all Bush-loving religious nutjobs. I know plenty of them who are normal, rational people. Liberalism and conservatism don't have anything to do with anarchism; a spectrum would assume too many positions.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
You have to make room for casual hypocrisy as well. A person can position themselves against the very government services they rely on daily. Or a person can hold two contradictory positions simultaneously: espousing "small government" while wanting to legislate morality. Or they can argue against property while owning significant amounts of it.
Part of the problem with political labels is that they are not on a line. I'd actually say it's more akin to a cube. On one axis, you have social policy. Liberals would favor personal liberty and laws that protect it. Conservatives would favor limiting individual freedoms for the greater good, and laws attempting to 'normalize' behavior. On the second axis, you would have economic policy, with conservatives favoring less regulations, less taxes, and more laissez-faire, free market approach. Liberals would favor higher taxes, more public support structures, universal healthcare, insurance, etc... On the last axis, you would have foreign policy. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what the current interpretation of conservative vs. liberal would be. It's changed so much in the last century, I wouldn't know how to start.
For myself, I fall far left of center socially, slightly right of center on economics, and in foreign policy, I believe in bilateralism, moderate regulation of international markets, and binding international environmental regulation. I have no idea what these views make me.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I would fall about as far to the left as you can get on all 3 axes.
I had the NDP in there...Green Party, though gets about 2% of the vote, holds no seats so no reason to include them since they aren't relevant to the spectrum of political influence. I don't believe the Marijuana party really does much better than the Communist party, which isn't saying much.
Like I said "Anarchy would fall also to the extreme left, but on the opposite vertical of a Stalin type communism."
To include Anarchy on a single line spectrum I think is dishonest as it would be to include facism which is why I said that if you want to add those in there you need the vertical as well as the horizontal.
Yeah, this is why we need the vertical, because they are technically "conservative" but they are not your standard political conservative much like anarchy is not your standard socialism.
The vertical values would be "authoritarian" versus "libertarian". Facism would be an extreme of both conservative and authoritarian values where as some communism would go down to extremes of authoritarian and socialism. Anarchy would be an extreme of Socialism and Libertarianism.
I think thats about right...*shrug*.
The problem is that social and economic values have so much inter-dependence. If you believe that something like socialized health care is a neccessity, then you can still be economically conservative about it and everything else, but its existence alone I don't think has to fall under economically conservative if its a social requirement.
I'm getting tired and my posts are getting drunk, so I hope my point is getting across properly lol.
Right. I think we've just hit at least a four dimensional cube. In fact, you've pretty much described me. I think universal health care is the only civilized way to run a country, but I also believe that all things being equal, I can do a better job with my retirement fund than the government, and I am all about giving tax breaks to small businesses, etc...
Anyway, it's an interesting dilemma. I still don't know what to call myself.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
This is why our "Liberal" party qualifies themselves as "fiscal conservative" despite being "Liberal". But "Liberal" is a centrist term, not a left-wing term. At least in Canada you would fall under that political alignment though every country is different in that regard.
Most liberals I know are for less government control, not more. Most conservatives I know are for more government control, not less.
Basically. both views are a like a word repeated over and over until it's lost all meaning. I believe the whole thing is an artificial construct designed to keep the two dominant political parties in the US afloat, and to make everything black and white for the voters. Shades of grey are harder to debate.
I can't speak to other countries, but the US political system is broken. Part of that is due to the constant delineation of political ideology along "liberal" and "conservative," when in fact there's no such thing.
Me, I'm a political mongrel. I'm almost socialist in many ways, and very libertarian in others. I believe in personal liberty, for instance; but I believe corporations should have strict limits on what they can and can't do. I believe it's the duty of all able-bodied adults to own and know how to safely operate firearms. I believe nationalized health care is the only sane way to efficiently take care of the entire population, including the 90 million who don't have health care today. And so on.
I think most people are political mongrels. I think the whole left-wing/right-wing dichotomy is perpetuated by intellectual laziness, and the self-interest of those currently in power (the two dominant parties).
It all comes down to information. We require information to make sane decisions in our lives. It is in our best interest to have solid, factual information. It is in the best interest of corporations, government agencies, organized religion, and other irrational organizations to provide us with false information.
We live in a polluted information environment, in which it is almost impossible to tell what is factually correct from that which is either biased, or outright disinformation. The only way for our society to heal itself is to clean up that environment. Until then, we'll have political spectrums along which we align people. Until then, we'll have irrational behavior from all people, as rational thought applied to incorrect information is indistinguishable from irrational thought.
(As an aside: the left banner has the "Conservative Book Club." Ann Coulter, The Church of Liberalism: Godless. Bill O'Reilly, Culture Warrior. Yes, there's rationalism for you.)
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
I ignore what American political parties look like because they've melded into this one super-parasite that doesn't particularly resemble any actual political philosophy.
When I'm talking about liberal vs. conservative, I'm trying to approximate what a non-U.S. citizen would be most likely to identify with.
FWIW, in the 1970s, Hillary Clinton would have been tarred as an ultra-conservative and Barak Obama might just have been liberal enough to be accepted by the democrats.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Liberal vs Conservative aren't even accurate from a political spectrum perspective seeing as you're basically arguing between centrist and right when it should be left and right.
Social values versus Conservative values are perhaps more accurate.