Talk Elections

For conservatives and leftwingers- if you had a choice between a libertarian and a communitarian(communitarians are socially conservative but economically leftwing) which would you choose.

For libertarians and communitarians- if you had a choice between a conservative and a leftwinger, which would you choose?

The question how work is organized and how wealth is distributed determines how society works.
So, the economics are of course the base of (almost) everything and I care a lot more about them than about most "social issues".

How "left wing" are these communitarians, and ho "right wing" are they? To the same extremes of libertarians? I'll assume they are equally extreme. I would say a Commitarian then. Our social traditions have been built up from years of aggregated wisdom, that can't be thrown away. And to the all important free market, I am quite confident the unavoidable failures of central planning due to the socialist calculation problem, will have a return to the virtuous cycle which is the free market, but of course a fettered one.

Plus I do not see how you can have a free market, that expects the civil society to pick up the slack, by disregarding all the cohesion of that society.

Social policy. I'm a liberal and would vote for the libertarian over the communitarian.

Am I a conservative?  A left-winger?  A libertarian?  A communitarian?  I really have no idea.

Social Policy does not mean what you seem to think it does.

You know that Americans use their own political terms.

It's just like their "liberalism" and their "middle class".

Probably conservative or communitarian.

That depends. Are they for more war, bailing out the "too big to fails," the federal reserve, or legislation like the Patriot Act/NDAA/etc.? Because those are really my only absolute deal breaker issues.

I'm a conservative but I can't vote; it depends on the libertarian and communitarian.

The communitarian would be for bailing out too big to fails and would support the federal reserve.

On social issues they favour total ban of abortion, stem cell research, prostitution and pornography. They advocate heavy curbing of immigration, state endorsement of Christianity(or Islam/Buddhism etc. for those in non-Western countries) and they oppose gay rights.

I deliberately left out foreign policy.

Rockingham, you can't make a total blanket statement about communitarians like that. There isn't nearly a cohesive enough movement to assign predilections like that. That's a rather extreme example you used.

As a communitarian myself, I would generally support the left-winger as I find economic policy as a whole to be more important to me than most social positions, though being forced to pick is never enjoyable.

Communitarian. This choice is pretty obvious.

It would depend a lot on how much integrity each candidate had.  Is the leftwinger an anti-gun, anti-business, a racist pushing AA or wanting to completely disarm the military?  Is the rightwinger anti-gay, anti-science, a racist pushing Mexicans or wanting to invade everywhere?  I'd vote for Obama over McCain and probably Romney, but I don't think there are too many other Dems I could vote for.  On the other hand, there isn't very many Pubies I could vote for either.

I guess social issues are more important to me, but economic issues are just more important.

That's the point. Their are moderate Libertarians,  but they're typically extreme. So to prevent the communitarian from dominating solely due to being more moderate, I made him extreme as well.

I'm surprised, I expected the conservatives to be more economy focused(ie voting for the libertarian) and liberals to be more socially focused(ie. voting for libertarian)... given the stereotypes about young intellectual Republicans being socially liberal and young intellectual Democrats being latte liberals.

But the poll shows the exact opposite.

I can't see any economic policy being make-or-break for me, but social policy, certainly.

Difficult question. I view myself as a proud fiscal and social conservative. I abhor both the words "fiscal liberalism" and "social liberalism" as they mean things that, to me, are undesired. However, which is less worse? I am proudly pro-life but on other issues I'd be willing to moderate in order to get a strong fiscal conservative in office. At the same time, I'd be willing to vote for an economic moderate in order to get a more populist and common person type guy in office. If you asked me a year ago, I definitely would have said communitarian. Today? Dunno, though a good case could be made for both.

Economic issues, by far -which is why I have no problems supporting pro-gun, pro-life, and hawkish Democrats, just so long as we see eye to eye on the economy and infrastructure. 

A lot of lefties have, for whatever reason, come to hate libertarians.

Only three conservatives have voted so far (me being one of them and it ought to surprise no one how I voted), so you might very well end up with the result that conservatives prefer libertarians. It might just be the case that economic policy matters more to most people.

Just to make sure, you're asking as a left-winger whether I'd prefer the "libertarian" (laissez faire economic & social) or the "communitarian" (socially-conservative leftist), it's the latter any day. However if I were given the offer choosing between socially-conservative leftist or social-libertarian leftist, then that'd be the latter, too.

But the thread creator is an Aussie and so has no such excuse.

No excuse for what?

Not knowing what Social Policy is.

Social policy is more important to me as social policy affects my ability to be in charge of my financial situation. I'm gay and desire the environment in which I can get married to my partner for economic security for ourselves, each of us should the other pass away and for any children we may have. There has to be a liberal social policy to allow that.

Economic policy, clearly. Mainly because social issues aren't so important in Australia.

Economic policy matters more to me.

I'm a Libertarian and I'd vote for a Conservative over a Left-winger or a Communitarian.

Used to be social issues, but I can't pick between the two now.