[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Political Spectrum Poll (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 2/16/2011 6:11:46 PM EDT
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Right Slightly Right In the MIddle Slighly Left Left Far Left |
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Social liberal, fiscal conservative, limited government type here... think Founding Fathers without the powdered wig. Close to this. I think the Federal Government derives its power from the Constitution and should adhere to a strict interpretation of it, i.e. provide military protection, border protection, and act to safeguard the rights of the citzens of the US, and to weild limited power over interstate commerce (think establishing a monetary system, not saying "a finished product moved over state lines, it's our jurisdiction now, no matter what!") I don't think marriage, abortion, health care, or other social and morality issues are under the purview of the Federal Government. If anything, they're the individual state's perogatives to regulate them within the limits of the Constitution. So where is that on your spectrum? |
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So, libertarians in the middle or what? When depicted in linear fashion libertarians are extreme right.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE
I've seen that video and it has a number of inaccuracies. Certainly not a good educational tool. |
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So, libertarians in the middle or what? I don't think libertarians are 'left leaning' Only Bill Maher. Outside of the U.S. libertarian refers to a type of socialist not dissimilar to the anarchist types. Within the U.S. it was a term adopted by some true liberals due to the fact that the term in common American political discourse was essentially turned on its head. Others called themselves conservatives. In America it generally connotes somebody on the Right, usually the far Right. |
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Poll fail. There is more than left and right on a continuum. There are various other arenas in which political though should be classified. You are correct in that there are a number of factors but any effort at non-linear classification, like the political compasses, simply fall flat on their face because they are too simplistic and don't take everything into account, resulting in a skewed classification system that ultimately makes no sense. There are dozens of vectors one would need to take into account with each one having a different value and thus it is simply too complex to be practical. Given that there are traits that are exclusively Left and exclusively Right and few that are in-between or common to each side, one can essentially use this to place something in its appropriate place on the political spectrum. Occasionally something comes aroudn that defies classification but this would also be the case on a multi-vector scale. Such ideologies are uncommon and usually very tiny so it is not a big deal. The linear Left-Right spectrum is the superior political classification spectrum when understood and utilized correctly (unfortunately in academia misuse is common, which is why many in that area for example classify things like fascism or nationalism as being on the Right when the opposite is in fact the case). The whole Left-Right thing is based on semantics that have been nearly universal in cultures across the globe going back a few thousand years, i.e. left has a negative connotation and right has a positive one (Ecclesiastes 10:2 is a perfect historical and religious/cultural example). This semantical expression was ultimately applied to the seating of the French legislative chamber, which was U-shaped, with the conservatives/monarchists on the far right flanked on either side by the liberals, moderates and the like in the middle, and the revolutionary/radical types on the left. It is ingrained into the Western thought regarding American political classification. I think the reason why some people (mainly libertarians, especially the more rebellious types) reject it so much is that they seem to be engaging in a sort of transference whereby they apply the Republican versus Democrat battle into the Right-Left spectrum respectively when this is simply not appopriate. They are tired of the 2-party system and falsely equate it to the Left-Right spectrum. This sort of thought is almost exclusive to the United States. It has no real merit since it is based on an error. |
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A more accurate poll would have been: Libertarian Conservative Moderate Conservative Moderate NeoConservative Moderate Liberal Liberal Communist/Socialist Same difference. The poll is more generic while your chart is very specific to the American use of terminology (for example, liberal as applied here would not be considered a liberal anywhere else except maybe to a limited degree within the rest of the Anglosphere). Essentially liberal and libertarian would be reversed in terms of the side of the chart they are on. Some conservatives would be liberals and some would not. Neoconservative is a very uniquely American term that connotes false conservatism just as much as the American use of liberalism connotes false liberalism. |
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So, libertarians in the middle or what? I don't think libertarians are 'left leaning' Only Bill Maher. You mistake libertarian for libertine. He only favors his own vices. He is very far from libertarian. He can say he's a libertarian, but he's not. He favors no liberty except his own. Libertarians do not spout opinions like this: “You know, they’re talking about 60 votes they need,” Maher said. “Forget this stuff. You can’t get Americans to agree on anything. Sixty-percent? Sixty-percent of people don’t believe in evolution in this country. He just needs to drag them to it. Like I just said, they’re stupid. Just drag them to this.
“Make the gang of six an offer they can’t refuse. This Max Baucus guy – he needs to wake up tomorrow with an intern’s head in his bed.” The HBO host also suggested Obama use some of the tactic Bush – or what he perceived as President George W. Bush’s administration’s disregard for what the public thought. “I’m serious – you know, I said this months ago when people criticized me – this is where the president needs to be a little more like Bush,” Maher said. “Bush had horrible ideas – torture, deregulation, massive tax cuts for the rich, preemptive war – horrible ideas. But you know what – he had that swagger that said I’m just going to get it through. Suck on it America if you don’t like it.” And he's caught at a loss for words when he's confronted spouting his socialist ideals. Poll is flawed. Right/left in European sense means supporting nation-state vs liberalizing. Right/left in America means supporting classical liberal ideals of the founding (or traditionalist social values, which are sometimes opposed) vs "progressive" statism. |
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So, libertarians in the middle or what? I don't think libertarians are 'left leaning' Only Bill Maher. You mistake libertarian for libertine. He only favors his own vices. He is very far from libertarian. He can say he's a libertarian, but he's not. He favors no liberty except his own. Libertarians do not spout opinions like this: “You know, they’re talking about 60 votes they need,” Maher said. “Forget this stuff. You can’t get Americans to agree on anything. Sixty-percent? Sixty-percent of people don’t believe in evolution in this country. He just needs to drag them to it. Like I just said, they’re stupid. Just drag them to this.
“Make the gang of six an offer they can’t refuse. This Max Baucus guy – he needs to wake up tomorrow with an intern’s head in his bed.” The HBO host also suggested Obama use some of the tactic Bush – or what he perceived as President George W. Bush’s administration’s disregard for what the public thought. “I’m serious – you know, I said this months ago when people criticized me – this is where the president needs to be a little more like Bush,” Maher said. “Bush had horrible ideas – torture, deregulation, massive tax cuts for the rich, preemptive war – horrible ideas. But you know what – he had that swagger that said I’m just going to get it through. Suck on it America if you don’t like it.” And he's caught at a loss for words when he's confronted spouting his socialist ideals. Poll is flawed. Right/left in European sense means supporting nation-state vs liberalizing. Right/left in America means supporting classical liberal ideals of the founding (or traditionalist social values, which are sometimes opposed) vs "progressive" statism. Right-Left means the same thing on both sides of the pond. |
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Quoted: Quoted: A more accurate poll would have been: Libertarian Conservative Moderate Conservative Moderate NeoConservative Moderate Liberal Liberal Communist/Socialist Same difference. The poll is more generic while your chart is very specific to the American use of terminology (for example, liberal as applied here would not be considered a liberal anywhere else except maybe to a limited degree within the rest of the Anglosphere). Essentially liberal and libertarian would be reversed in terms of the side of the chart they are on. Some conservatives would be liberals and some would not. Neoconservative is a very uniquely American term that connotes false conservatism just as much as the American use of liberalism connotes false liberalism. I'm aware of this... are we not talking about American politics? |
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A more accurate poll would have been: Libertarian Conservative Moderate Conservative Moderate NeoConservative Moderate Liberal Liberal Communist/Socialist Same difference. The poll is more generic while your chart is very specific to the American use of terminology (for example, liberal as applied here would not be considered a liberal anywhere else except maybe to a limited degree within the rest of the Anglosphere). Essentially liberal and libertarian would be reversed in terms of the side of the chart they are on. Some conservatives would be liberals and some would not. Neoconservative is a very uniquely American term that connotes false conservatism just as much as the American use of liberalism connotes false liberalism. I'm aware of this... are we not talking about American politics? I thought we were speaking generally. There are certainly quite a few non-Americans on this forum that I'm sure have political opinions and are somewhere on the political spectrum. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: A more accurate poll would have been: Libertarian Conservative Moderate Conservative Moderate NeoConservative Moderate Liberal Liberal Communist/Socialist Same difference. The poll is more generic while your chart is very specific to the American use of terminology (for example, liberal as applied here would not be considered a liberal anywhere else except maybe to a limited degree within the rest of the Anglosphere). Essentially liberal and libertarian would be reversed in terms of the side of the chart they are on. Some conservatives would be liberals and some would not. Neoconservative is a very uniquely American term that connotes false conservatism just as much as the American use of liberalism connotes false liberalism. I'm aware of this... are we not talking about American politics? I thought we were speaking generally. There are certainly quite a few non-Americans on this forum that I'm sure have political opinions and are somewhere on the political spectrum. I'm also aware of that, however, by and large most everyone here is American.... |
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Right-Left means the same thing on both sides of the pond. How so? The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. (The seating may have been influenced by the tradition of the United Kingdom Parliament, where the monarch's ministers sit to the speaker's right, while the opposition sit to his or her left.)
To start, right wing nationalist groups in Europe are (often) connected with ethnicities. BNP, etc. Were there to be a nationalist group in the US, it would of necessity have to align itself with the nation's founding document, which exists sans ethnic group, and is written upon a foundation of classical liberalism and liberty. Right left in a monarchy results in right supporting status quo and monarchy and left opposing. The US by definition is founded on revolutionary principles that reject a monarchy or authoritarian structure. As such, a true "right winger" in the US must, of necessity, support small govt, limited govt, and maximum citizen freedoms. The left in the US is the "reform" that believes in modifying the US system and turning it into a "progressive" European style system. The two are vastly different. Right in Europe means nationalist statist control collectivism (for the King/Queen!), left in Europe means socialist reform (For the Party!). Right in US means citizen control of government, left means... well, socialist statist control by central planners for the good of the collective. They mean very different things. Try this: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz |
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Quoted: Quoted: Right-Left means the same thing on both sides of the pond. How so? The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. (The seating may have been influenced by the tradition of the United Kingdom Parliament, where the monarch's ministers sit to the speaker's right, while the opposition sit to his or her left.) To start, right wing nationalist groups in Europe are (often) connected with ethnicities. BNP, etc. Were there to be a nationalist group in the US, it would of necessity have to align itself with the nation's founding document, which exists sans ethnic group, and is written upon a foundation of classical liberalism and liberty. Right left in a monarchy results in right supporting status quo and monarchy and left opposing. The US by definition is founded on revolutionary principles that reject a monarchy or authoritarian structure. As such, a true "right winger" in the US must, of necessity, support small govt, limited govt, and maximum citizen freedoms. The left in the US is the "reform" that believes in modifying the US system and turning it into a "progressive" European style system. The two are vastly different. Right in Europe means nationalist statist control collectivism (for the King/Queen!), left in Europe means socialist reform (For the Party!). Right in US means citizen control of government, left means... well, socialist statist control by central planners for the good of the collective. They mean very different things. Try this: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz Bunch of libertarian revisionist bullshit. |
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Quoted: Bunch of libertarian revisionist bullshit. How so/what part is incorrect? The notion that the Founders created a libertarian state, and every other conclusion you draw from it. The US, circia 1789, was not some hedonistic 'freedom-ville' of live-and-let-live - and the Founders were for the most part NOT libertarians. They created a nation based on rule of law, individual achievement, and a government powerful enough to maintain order. Legislation of morality was common. The vote was restricted to the upper (property-owning) class. Taxes were imposed based on revenue generation and social engineering (at the time, that meant taxing booze and imports), and were not voluntary or easily avoided. We had a central bank. And we almost had a King/President-for-Life, if not for Washington's decision to step down after 2 terms. Pretty much everything the libertarians and their populist hangers-on wanted, we said 'Uh, NO' to. |
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The notion that the Founders created a libertarian state, and every other conclusion you draw from it. Libertarian by definition: 1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state. Wherein did the Founders not agree with that? We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Inalienable rights, check. Governments are instituted among men that derive their powers from the consent of the governed, check. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Where in this do they conflict with an ideal of supporting liberty? Especially when they outright say "secure the Blessings of Liberty"? They fought a rebellion against a power they rejected for the sole purpose of instituting a government that expressly recognized the rights of the individual. If they didn't create a libertarian state, what did they create? They can't create a conservative state because they have nothing to conserve at that point. They could create a liberal state (in the classic sense) that favors liberty vs. authoritarian states. But that would put them right back at being libertarian. Heck, they then wrote the BoR for the express purpose of outlining a big list of individual rights of the invidual. They expressly limited goverment - minimizing the role of the state. 1A starts "congress shall make no law", 2A is "shall not be infringed", 3A is "no soldier (instrument of the state) shall", 4A is "the right of the people... shall not be violated (by the state)", 5A is "no person shall be held to answer (by the state)... nor be deprived of life, liberty, property without due process", etc. They made a republic, which, by rule of law, protects individual rights to the utmost, and restricts the authority the state wields against the citizen. What do you believe they did create? And could you show where any of those conclusions is incorrect? |
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The US, circia 1789, was not some hedonistic 'freedom-ville' of live-and-let-live - and the Founders were for the most part NOT libertarians. They created a nation based on rule of law, individual achievement, and a government powerful enough to maintain order. Which is a republic. A federal republic that puts individual liberty as one of it's highest priorities, if not the highest. Legislation of morality was common.
So? That was left to the states. The federal government was created so that individual states could develop laws as they saw fit. The vote was restricted to the upper (property-owning) class.
True. But so what? They didn't outline the Constitution with "only the white male landed classes shall vote every 4 years." Much like the 3/5 compromise's ability to slow the expansion of slavery, it was still a nod towards allowing greater expansion of liberty. Taxes were imposed based on revenue generation and social engineering (at the time, that meant taxing booze and imports), and were not voluntary or easily avoided.
State or federal? There's a difference. We had a central bank.
That's more or less a system of govt., but I see what you're getting at there. And we almost had a King/President-for-Life, if not for Washington's decision to step down after 2 terms. Pretty much everything the libertarians and their populist hangers-on wanted, we said 'Uh, NO' to. Except for the whole "conceived in liberty" thing. And the fact that it's written so as to ultimately be expansive. Edit for clarity/correct a point. |
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Not enough dimension. Right and left are generally characterized as
Left is described as lots of social freedom but less economic freedom (lots of personal freedoms, but lots of taxation and government regulation in the economy) Right is described as less social freedom (morality based laws, banning behaviors based on religious beliefs) but more economic freedom. But what side am I on if I believe in great personal freedom AND great economic freedom? |
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Right-Left means the same thing on both sides of the pond. How so? Because political ideas and concepts have fixed meanings. The principles that categorize one as belonging to the Left or the Right are the same wherever you go. Quoted:
The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. (The seating may have been influenced by the tradition of the United Kingdom Parliament, where the monarch's ministers sit to the speaker's right, while the opposition sit to his or her left.)
To start, right wing nationalist groups in Europe are (often) connected with ethnicities. BNP, etc. Nationalism is a Leftist trait and I am well aware that in Europe it has primarily an ethnic connotation. It has its origins in the French Revolution. Also, I already described the origins of the left-right terminology in an earlier post. It is an ancient semantical concept that was applied in more modern times to the French Parliament and expanding in Western political terminology from there. Quoted:Were there to be a nationalist group in the US, it would of necessity have to align itself with the nation's founding document, which exists sans ethnic group, and is written upon a foundation of classical liberalism and liberty.
Actually it would be primarily statist (a la Fascism) since in the United States nationalism does not have an ethnic connotation for the most part (although sometimes it can to a broad degree, such as encompassing the English-speaking European population, ethnically speaking; sometimes it pops up as nativism). Furthermore the United States was not based upon classical liberalism. Classical liberalism postdates the founding of this country by several decades and is contrary in many ways to the ideas and principles of those who founded this country. The Founders were mostly early liberals or pre-liberals, many of them also being conservatives, with a few early leftists thrown into the mix (like Thomas Paine). Also, the founding political ideas were largely non-nationalist. It should be noted that patriotism and nationalism are two different concepts on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. The reason nationalism is leftist is that it is identitarian in nature, identitarianism being one of the core components of virtually all leftist ideologies. Quoted:Right left in a monarchy results in right supporting status quo and monarchy and left opposing.
Not necessarily. Even in monarchies there are a number of rightists that are not monarchists. The classical liberals in the latter half of the 19th and in the early 20th centuries, for example; many of the republicans in Spain were rightists although the left soon took the reigns in that movement. Jose Ortega y Gasset is but one example of a republican rightist in a monarchy. Yes, in a monarchy or a country that has a history of being a monarchy but no longer is, many rightists will be monarchists, especially the more conservative ones. But this is by no means universal. Quoted:The US by definition is founded on revolutionary principles that reject a monarchy or authoritarian structure. As such, a true "right winger" in the US must, of necessity, support small govt, limited govt, and maximum citizen freedoms.
Again, not true. There was nothing truly revolutionary about the American War of Independence. It wasn't even unprecedented. The principles of the War of Independence were very traditional in nature, and despite some Enlightenment influence were in amny ways medieval in character. The first real and successful revolution was the French Revolution. Furthermore, the Independence movement did not reject monarchy. Many of the Founders were monarchists and it was seriously considered as an option for this country. There was no guarantee that we would be a republic. Likewise, authoritarianism (when understood correctly and not wrongly associated with autocracy) was not rejected. Quoted:The left in the US is the "reform" that believes in modifying the US system and turning it into a "progressive" European style system. The two are vastly different. Right in Europe means nationalist statist control collectivism (for the King/Queen!), left in Europe means socialist reform (For the Party!). Right in US means citizen control of government, left means... well, socialist statist control by central planners for the good of the collective.
They mean very different things. Progressivism is hardly unique to Europe. Leftism seeks goals that are not strictly European. Leftists in Europe and America pursue similar ends. It does seem that you have a misperception of leftism versus rightism. It is rather common and it is the same misconception that results in Fascism being placed on the Right of the political spectrum. Rightism in Europe opposes collectivism, often rejects nationalism (although there are exceptions but it tends to be the one leftist element in a broadly rightist movement), and certainly rejects statism (which is a variation upon nationalism; a group would not be both statist and ethno-centric nationalist as they focus on different entities as the basis of nationalism). Monarchism is neither statist, nationalist, or collectivist in character. In fact some of the freer countries historically in Europe were monarchies, mixed government being the form most conducive to liberty (in the U.S. an effort was made to replace a monarch with a President but the concept was similar). The decline of monarchies in Europe has often coincided with a decline in freedom which is unsurprising. Also, the majority of rightist movements, whether in the U.S. or in Europe, do not advocate controul of government by citizens in the democratic sense. Except for the classical liberals and certain others, rightists have viewed such a form of government as destructive to liberty and good governance and that lack of realization among classical liberals was part of what contributed to their downfall. Those quizzes are horrible and like I said earlier, fall flat on their faces. They try to simplify things too much. Political ideologies and philosophies require dozens of axes with varying values which makes trying to make a 2-axis compass seem rather foolish. The traditional Left-Right spectrum takes not of all of these factors but presents them in an easier to understand and more correct linear format. |
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I hope this clears things up regarding what is left and what is right. Compiled by Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.
What Is Left? 1. Materialism: economic, biological, sociological 2. Messianism assigned to one group: a nation, a race, a class 3. Centralization: elimination of local administrations, traditions, char- acteristics, etc. 4. Totalitarianism: pervasion of all spheres of life by one doctrine 5. Brute force and terror, not authority, an endogenous force 6. Ideological one-party state 7. Complete state control of education 8. Socialism: the opposite of personalism 9. Provider (Welfare) State: from the cradle to the grave 10. Militarism (not bellicosity): conscription, people's armies, levée en masse 11. Rigid ideology enforced by the state: complete anti-image of "The Enemy." 12. Antimonarchical leader system: the leader (Führer, Duce, Vozhd') 13. Antiliberalism: hatred of freedom 14. Antitraditionalism: against the historic past, against "reaction" 15. Territorial expansionist tendencies as form of self-realization 16. Exclusiveness: no other deities tolerated 17. Elimination of corps intermedairs (intermediary bodies) 18. Conformity of mass media: press, radio, television 19. Elimination or relativizing private property: where it survives in name, it is totally under state control; the entrepreneur is merely the steward of his "property" 20. Persecution, subjection, or control of all religious bodies 21. "Right is what benefits the People" (Hitler); "Right is what benefits the Party" (Partiynost', Lenin) 22. Hatred of minorities 23. Glorification of the majority and the "average man" 24. Glorification of revolution, revolt, upheaval 25. Plebeianism: fight against the former elites 26. Hunt for "traitors"; resentment against emigrants 27. Populism and "uniformism" (people's courts, people's cars, etc.) 28. Ideological roots in French Revolution 29. Constant reference to democratic principles 30. Dynamic monolithism: state, society, people become one 31. Coordination through slogans, poems, songs, symbols, and phrases 32. Secular rites replacing religious rites 33. Conformism as vital principle 34. Incitement of mass hysteria 35. Technology in the service of power 36. Freedom––below the belt 37. Everything for, everything through the state, nothing against the state (Mussolini) 38. Totally politicized life: tourism, sports, recreation 39. Nationalism or internationalism as against patriotism 40. Struggle against extraordinary people, against "privileges" 41. Total mobilization of envy in the interest of party and state What Is Right? 1. The opposite of all the above or its absence Leftism characterizes all three Great Revolutions: the French (1789), the Russian (1917), and the German (1933). But recall that political parties or systems are rarely 100 percent right or left, but an admixture of both. |