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Post your political leanings and your party affiliations, if you have them. Please note that this isn't a "why my political opinion is better than yours" thread, so the instant this devolves into a political flame war, I'm getting it locked.

I'm an unaffiliated moderate communitarian, which basically means I'm the exact opposite of the tea party.

I'm a National Socialist.

Like that Adolf guy, but without hatred for minorities. And without need for living space.

A discussion thread about politics?

inb4 it turns into this:

I've mellowed out a lot over the years; I used to despise Republicans with every fiber of my being, but nowadays I lean conservative on a lot of issues, mostly economic ones. I'm still staunchly liberal on most social issues, like gay marriage and marijuana legalization, and since I believe the US president should be more of a champion of justice and more liberal with their foreign affairs, I'd be more likely to support a Democrat for president than a Republican, but at the very least I like to think I've overcome most of my bias.

I'm a liberal communist, which means I support healthcare and education for all, strong public services, and nationalisation of anything big and important, and a 100% tax behind a certain point of income. I'm not for having all jobs paid the same, but I believe that if people are given complete access to education and guaranteed employment there will be a classless society. (And it is possible to get guaranteed employment, it's been done before)

But, I'm also pro free speech, freedom of travel, religion, expression, etc, though I do believe in banning hate speech and discrimination of all kinds. So no, I'm not like Stalin or anything like that.

I lean left.

Liberal communist.

I get your username now.

Hardcore Liberal reporting in. I've gotten kind of bored of politics in general though, so I usually keep it to myself except for right now in this thread.

Meh, I don't even consider Mao to be communist, Mao's ideologies were just…daffy, almost as daffy as the North Koreans, which are no longer officially communist.

Posting for the "don't give a f**k about politics" crowd.

I'm an independent voter, but I think I lean more towards the Republican/conservative crowd. When it comes to social issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) I lean on the liberal side (or at least what is considered the modern liberal) but when it comes to economic policies and health care I almost always agree with conservatives. I suppose I identify myself the most with Republicans (especially because my father and quite a few of my friends are in that party) but I still hesitate to say I am strictly part of that party.

Leftist libertarian.

Economically communist, politically I support a direct democracy with elected organizational officials.

The elected officials would be nothing more than secretaries,

I'm a liberal democrat and proud of it.

I wasn't going to go raging at anyone, but I'm going to hold off on that just this once, maybe because it's obnoxious to post about how much you don't care about a thread in the thread, or because of how fucking stupid, cowardly, lazy, dickish, and shallow it is to not care about how the world is run, or because it's TARDISES being annoying again, but rather than saying angry stuff, I'll just say this, as overused as it is: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"

I dislike labelling political beliefs in either one direction or the other. All I know is this:
*There's a type of government for every type of society. The Nordic countries can get away with socialism because they work there. But implementing something like that in a place that espouses the individual, like the US, wouldn't work at all.
*Capitalism has some massive flaws, but it's the one that's most compatible with human nature.
*Communism fails utterly in practice.
*Government should ideally be limited, but since we can't have that, might as well make it work for the good of society. So welfare and healthcare and stuff. Which of course calls for more taxes.
*It is not the government's role to regulate the affairs of its people more than it has to (sorry for the deliberate vagueness). So abortion, gay marriage.
*Humans are not innately evil or good. Our environment is what shapes us morally.
*Radical change destroys the society (see French Revolution and USSR and China). Change must come prudently, regarding past, present, and future.
*Keynes is probably wrong. Adam Smith for that matter. And Marx, yeah.

I'm a pragmatist, and I look to make things not how they should be, but how they will work. And the way it all adds up, looks like I'm leaning left on many issues. Considered myself a centrist for a while, but evidence/confirmation bias dragged me over ever so slightly.

The man is completely entitled to not care about politics; don't try to force him to have an opinion. I agree that it's silly that he bothered posting, but it doesn't invalidate his opinion.

I'm a rightist libertarian (though apparently more right-standing than I was just 2 years ago, surprisingly).

I recommend using the political compass test to accurately give others a picture of where you stand.

We've covered this before with the political compass. Although everyones compass from 10 months ago is broken, you can still see that this forum is mostly liberal

Even my results gave me a liberal leftist result but it was close enough to the center that I would still consider myself centrist.

Personally I utterly loathe the "left/right" labels. I hate the Us-vs-Them mentality it encourages. I hate how the meanings of "Liberal" and "Conservative" have been warped and twisted to mean "Side A" and "Side B" and not the philosophy they actually represent. I hate how politics revolves around slinging mud at the competition instead of agreeing on the right solutions. Republicans and Democrats are both guilty of this. They all the same to me and I refuse to take a side with one

If I have to call myself something, then I align myself with the Commonsensative philosophy (I made that up) where the correct political leaning is only the one with the most sensible, practical and efficient solutions for the given situation and not the label your parents handed down to you.

It is possible for any party or philosophy to propose something practical for any given scenario but not a single one can maintain that standing for all scenario's. And so I remain flexible to any leaning provided they have a solution that I believe will work for the problems our society faces but I am loyal to none.

You assume too much.

1: Government is part of a society, government is molded by society, not independent of it. The Nordic countries have socialism because it is part of their tenets, "we believe this, therefore we will set up a government that matches it" If the US were to become more socialist, then it would work if implemented properly because the US government would be shaped on US society. However, if a minority of society changes the way things work the society as a whole may be shifted with it. This is often the case of how things move forward. One thing that accelerated the acceptance for interracial marriage was the Supreme Court legalizing it in the 60s with almost everyone opposed. After people got used to it, then things changed. It is very possible that if socialist reform was pushed in the US that the country will adjust to it because this is how things often work.

2: This is the best case of the establishment fallacy, in which people are willing to excuse many issues, if not all problems with an established tenet or system because it has been established, people will say "well it works, doesn't it?" and then it gets coupled with the Nirvana fallacy, in which reform or action gets shot down at the sight of the first flaw "well, in Communism, some people might be lazy, and that will fuck everything up!"

2b: Actually, there are genes in our DNA that naturally make us more generous and make us happier when we share. We carry these genes from mice, which are known for having anti-individualistic, communal societies. Although ambition does exist, we are programmed to look after each other, so in reality capitalism is horribly incompatible with human nature. Even when we are being selfish we still have a tendency to rely on others for certain things.

3: Perhaps another example of Nirvana fallacy, but also with connecting things. Here's a good question: If it's called Communism, is it automatically communist?

Let's compare the 10 main tenets in the Communist Manifesto to Stalin, Mao, and Tito

1: Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

Stalin: Land concentrated in the hands of the state, all control dictated from the central government, people could not necessarily get what they needed because it was almost entirely Stalin controlled, because the regional and municipal authorities couldn't do a damn thing without hearing from Moscow. Stalin kept a lot of hand for himself. De facto feudalism.

Mao: Like Stalin, but worse, with even fewer power delegated to regions. Everyone takes every order straight from Mao. De facto archaism (I'm defining archaism as being in the tradition of the ancient kings, where the King has everything and you have squat)

Tito: Property in state hands, regional and municipal governments have authority to use and dole out land as necessary without getting all authority straight from Belgrade. People were able to get land resources as needed, despite some land being reserved for higher ups. De facto communism.

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

I'm not going individual on this one, all 3 did this right out of the book.

Abolition of all right of inheritance.

All 3 abolished most forms of inheritance, bar personal inheritance. However, while Yugoslav families were often allowed to continue to occupy ancestral homes, Soviet and Chinese ones were not, and were often shuffled around.

Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Soviet Union and China did this, Yugoslavia only sort of did. Yugoslavs had freedom of travel and could leave the country, work, and send money home.

Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Done in all 3. De facto communism.

Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

Stalin: Done, with no room for private media. Transport was handled from Moscow only, mostly. De facto fascism.

Mao: See Stalin

Tito: Done, with some room for private media. Media was strictly regulated, punishment against opposition strict at first but then laxed. Transportation handled by Belgrade and regional and municipal governments. De facto communism.

Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

Stalin: Done with mediocre agricultural science. Science constricted by Moscow. De facto fascist.

Mao: Done with abysmal agricultural science. Scientific authority done by Mao, Mao had sparrows killed and expected people to mill steel in the soil, somehow. De facto fascism/WTF

Tito: Done with agricultural scientific authority from institutions of learning and scientists. De facto communism.

Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Stalin: Higher ups had no liability, except to Stalin. Unions had no power. De facto fascism.

Mao: Mao had no liability. Unions had no power. De facto fascism.

Tito: Most everyone had liability. Unions had necessary powers, could negotiate. De facto communism.

Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

None of them seemed to care about this one.

Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form and combination of education with industrial production.

Stalin: Done, with little personal choice in one's education. De facto semi-fascist.

Mao: No education for you, go join Red Guard. De facto fascism

Tito: People had access to all the education they wanted or needed. De facto communism.

So, let's see how they ended up: Stalin's USSR suffered famine and a squeeze of personal rights, mainly because the unions had no power.

Mao's China suffered extreme famine because they went after sparrows and expected people to farm things that are impossible to farm, didn't give them their resources, mainly because the unions had power.

Tito's Yugoslavia had an economic growth rate of about 7% a year, guaranteed employment, basically no poverty, freedom of travel, the most educated people in the world, and they didn't do anything nuts. Oh, but when they moved away from that that's when things went down the shitter.

Huh… seems like the one that was closest to actual communism did really well. Maybe it's because public services+union power is communism in a nutshell, and without union power, you fuck up hard, and you also fail communism?

4: If that's the situation, doesn't limited government seem like a really bad idea?

5: True

6: Not quite. We do have genes which gives humans certain tendencies from birth, so…

7: It's not the speed that's the problem, it's the tenets and leaders. There are a lot of times when rapid revolution has worked. It's just that if rapid revolution fails it sticks in our heads a lot more than if slow.

8: How so?

Unfortunately, this labels me as a "Godless Communist Homosexual" according to American politics:

Anyway, if we're going to bring back Political Compass, here's mine

I think that everyone in power is pretty bad at running the country very well, but I like Barack Obama, he's the only politician I could really like about what he thinks and says he wants to change and he doesn't even run my country.

I feel you're a bit too south for a Communist.

Son of a bitch, political compass is broken.

Well, if you want to know my social position, it was way down near the bottom, not quite there, but almost there.

I tend to have a habit of putting myself in the other party's shoes.

I cannot tell you if that's bad or good. However, most of the time, I am pretty liberal.

Actually, Communists are west-southwest, with Socialists being on the northwest, and anarcho-Communists on the very bottom of the southwest quadrant.

I am staunchly conservative in pretty much all matters. I'm pretty much the kind of guy I see most people on here profess to hate.

Leftist Liberitarian.

lo I knew that many here have used the political compass in this post.

Meh

Tell us why you don't care.

I am The Other Side. I have lurked and studied enough to decide that all of the -isms are wrong. Nobody has ever had all of the answers. I certainly don't. Perhaps nobody ever will; societies and circumstances change, and what works at one point in time may not work at another time. What is more important than beliefs and labels is evidence and argument. Proposals for state policy ought to come from pragmatic grounds with a reasonable assessment of the side effects and knowledge of what is being surrendered. Emotion, panic, and partisanship are the enemies of good governance, and I will sometimes take a contrary stand against whatever is the moral panic of the day when I find it to be baseless.

The political blogs really do not like me.

Political Compass -5.88/-3.69, consider myself a Socialist, officially a Democrat, most Democrats think I'm a Republican

Registered independent, consider myself a liberal Republican.

I'm also an independent voter in the US, but I tend to be more liberal on economic issues. I am all for giving public programs proper funding if they can work. Being a public health student, it's a bit self-serving, but I think it's what's best for the American people. Proper programs with sufficient evidence and sufficient funding in a suitable context…they are all needed in order to work. I don't believe communism can practically work in the US or in many Westernized countries, but I'm not the biggest fan of the effects of capitalism in those same countries.

In terms of many social issues, I tend to be liberal, but I'm mostly opposed to abortion.

Here's my philosophy: the whole concept of being Left/Right, Authoratarian/Libertarian, a Democrat/Republican etc. should be abandoned. The way I see it, these broad philosophies are made up of countless simple yes/no questions held together with "strings" in such a way that it appears you only have two choices, and whichever you choose will automatically answer those questions in the right way for you. However, in reality, most (not all) of these connecting "strings" have no real basis in logic or fact-you can answer pretty much all of the questins in any way without regard to the others. At this point, you're left with an extremely complex series of viewpoints that are better able to fit the complex world we live in than simply "side A" or "side B".
tl;dr: I'm right in the middle of the spectrum, basically.

@0.9999…=1

Hear, hear. Someone who thinks like I do.

"Left wing" and "Right wing" are not real political philosophies. They are hostile factions designed to simply oppose the other side and they don't work in the context of fairly governing laws and utilizing resources for a whole nation.

Republicans and Democrats are both in the northeast of the compass, and are almost in the same position. If you're in the southwest, you're neither.

Personally, I identify myself as a minarchist.

I consider myself a moderate liberal unlike the rest of my family who are extremely liberal.

Raving looney party (that actually exists)

All joking aside out the three main parties here Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats i have to go with Lib Dems.

Socially liberal, and economically I must profess that I don't know enough about Economics to make any important economic decisions. I leave that up to the experts. I am idealistic enough to want more Socialism though.

Oh God how do I respond to this

1 Wait, I don't think legalizing something automatically make everything work out in the end. I see what you're saying though; however, I still don't believe socialism to be parallel the American spirit.

2 That's not what I'm saying. I believe that humanity as a whole is motivated by personal accomplishment (you probably differ here). Communism doesn't fit with that view. Nirvana fallacy? Hardly. I clearly said capitalism is very, very, very far from perfect.

3 You're claiming something to be fact again when it's all a matter of opinion. Yes, we do feel good when we give. Yes, we do want to help others. Yes, we have genes that do that. But it's a massive leap to conclude that those genes are definitive proof that humanity is inherently communistic. It's sort of like those people in the 20th century who tried to prove the superiority of white by skull shape and bone structure and stuff. There's something there, but you have to use a ton of confirmation bias to get to the conclusion you're aiming for.

3 7% growth a year is a given in any industrializing nation. And I never recall Yugoslavia being any bastion of economic prosperity (didn't they make those notoriously poor quality cars back in the 80s?). The point I was making here is that communism is too idealistic, and you can never meet any of its tenets adequately in the long run. Which I think you proved with the "somehow it all turned into fascism."

4 Not necessarily. I think we've just moved on from that at this point in humanity.

6 Morality itself is not coded into our genes is what I'm saying. And yes, they're tendencies. Not definitions.

7 Those cases are more exceptions than the general rule. And I guess rapid revolution would work if you spoke for the majority of people. Which they almost never do, since it's always the radical minority behind it.

8 Going off of a few examples, that are probably flawed, as in most real life implementation of economic ideas. Keynes professed spending your way out of a depression. Didn't work with the New Deal, did it? Adam Smith believe that there was some sort of invisible hand that regulated the economy for the good of consumers. Not the case with industrialization, and companies exploited the crap out of consumers and workers until the government stepped in. Marx, yeah.

You must really hate education.

Just joking, but I gotta ask, why?

Btw you forgot UKIP, which is polling around the same or above Lib Dems last time I checked.

I'm as far to the right as you can get on economic issues
I am also socially conservative on most issues, but I am not the slightest bit religious,and therefore disagree with a good portion of the modern Republican Party (Even though I'd probably never vote for any other)

May I mention something? Today, a poll revealed that Obama's approval rating reached a new high at 55% for the first time in three years while the GOP has reached a new low of 35%. How do you guys feel about that?

I feel that you're very blatantly insulting a group that you don't like and risking isolating anyone who affiliates with the Republican party.

In other words, stop.

The only thing that matters to me is my approval of Obama and/or the GOP. It's nice that Mr. Obama is gaining approval from the people, because that potentially makes leading a country easier on everyone. That would not sway my opinions on him either way, though.

3: Yugoslavia was a developed, industrialized nation. And no, 7% is not a given in an industrializing nation. Very few nations in the world have growth 7% or higher. Yugoslavia did meet its tenets adequately in the long run, what screwed it up was getting bullied by the IMF and CIA, then caving to their demands, turning into the Greece of their time by privatizing everything and taking bad loans. The crash wasn't from a failure at communism, it was because of foreign economic pressure followed with a full ideological shift.

7: Slow revolution can also screw up, it's just less apparent because it's not seen as revolution. Everyone remembers it if things go wrong fast, people remember if things go right fast, or if they go right slow, but people don't seem to be attentive of when it happens slowly.

8: For Keynes, see this. http://www.libertyjuice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/unemployment-new-deal.jpg

Here's a few notes: FDR managed to keep those parts of the New Deal constitutional by having it reinterpreted after having the amount of Supreme Court justices risen from 5 to 9.

Also, the Second New Deal started in '35, not '37 as the table claims.

Spending cuts occurred in '37, and an economic stimulus came in '38. Funny, the graph seems to drop as you spend money.

Now, for Smith, that's not what an Invisible Hand means, it's actually about morality in one book of his, and I'll get to the other later. "The proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest … [Yet] the capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires … the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice…The rich…are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society…" An Invisible Hand does appear in The Wealth of Nations, but it still has nothing to do with regulation. "By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it."

By the way, Adam Smith was actually pro regulation, especially when banks were involved.