Which commonly made sage talking point is more annoying?

[IceSpear]

You guys do bring up some good points against the Political Compass, along with the fact that the quiz does have some questions that don't really correlate well with policy views (along with being impossible to know Obama's and others' opinion on some of them). I would like to see how he answers those questions for different people, especially for political parties in general, to see how he arrives at his results.

As for Cameron v. Obama, you can argue that the GOP House has stymied Obama's economically liberal agenda, but that doesn't square well with the fact that Obama's stimulus was mostly tax cuts and widely seen as too small by economists even when Congress had huge Democratic majorities. And yes, when you consider the context of the Overton Window within their respective countries, there is more space between Cameron and Obama, but I never argued against this. I simply said that at face value their ideology is not too far apart, and it really isn't in the grand scheme of things. I'm not looking at "what's truly in their heart", which is ambiguous, but tangible aspects of how they have governed.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For all this talk of "America is more right wing than the rest of the world, so of course everything is skewed to the right here", what country would you all consider as the ideal center?


That argument is only true when discussing Europe and other developed nations. If you factor in these certain places like Africa and Russia and, oh say, the Middle East, etc. I'd say the United States is a pretty centrist country: not as liberal as certain European nations, but not as conservative as Eastern Europe, Africa, and the ME. 

Every country's politics is different, and while you can make general comparisons, it's a pointless waste of time to try and apply one's political spectrum/system and impose it on another to make detailed, specific comparisons.

[Gustaf]

For all this talk of "America is more right wing than the rest of the world, so of course everything is skewed to the right here", what country would you all consider as the ideal center?


That argument is only true when discussing Europe and other developed nations. If you factor in these certain places like Africa and Russia and, oh say, the Middle East, etc. I'd say the United States is a pretty centrist country: not as liberal as certain European nations, but not as conservative as Eastern Europe, Africa, and the ME. 

Every country's politics is different, and while you can make general comparisons, it's a pointless waste of time to try and apply one's political spectrum/system and impose it on another to make detailed, specific comparisons.

If one is to apply the stupid standard some people here want, of course the result will be stupid. Every Western country, including the US, has higher levels of taxation and spending than most poor nations. Of course, most of those poor nations have much more regulated economies than basically all Western countries. If one insists on trying to aggregate that stuff into a one-dimensional or two-dimensional scale you'll get some result, but I'm not sure how informative it'd be.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You could actually make a case for just about every western government being economically right wing as the PC basically does, but it uses some very clumsy logic. If one has an economic spectrum consisting of North Korea/Khmer Rouge style collectivism and total government control on end and Rothbardian anarchocapitalists and the Galt's Gulch type society on the right, the Scandinavian style social democracy does kind of seem to sit in the middle. But this is a really stupid spectrum to use as a measurement. To simplify it even further, if one argue that 100% of the economy be government controlled is the leftmost position and 0% is the rightmost, and thus 50% of the economy being government controlled is the center, then even Nordic social democracy would be right of center and someone like Hugo Chavez as an actual centrist. So using that standard then yes the Democrats and European conservatives have little distance, but there's also little distance between the Republicans and European left wing parties as well relatively, and they all sit on the right. But it's quite obvious why that's such a ridiculous model to use.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You could actually make a case for just about every western government being economically right wing as the PC basically does, but it uses some very clumsy logic. If one has an economic spectrum consisting of North Korea/Khmer Rouge style collectivism and total government control on end and Rothbardian anarchocapitalists and the Galt's Gulch type society on the right, the Scandinavian style social democracy does kind of seem to sit in the middle. But this is a really stupid spectrum to use as a measurement. To simplify it even further, if one argue that 100% of the economy be government controlled is the leftmost position and 0% is the rightmost, and thus 50% of the economy being government controlled is the center, then even Nordic social democracy would be right of center and someone like Hugo Chavez as an actual centrist. So using that standard then yes the Democrats and European conservatives have little distance, but there's also little distance between the Republicans and European left wing parties as well relatively, and they all sit on the right. But it's quite obvious why that's such a ridiculous model to use.

First and foremost, because the idea of government control of the economy being the fundamental criterion for being left-wing is nonsense.

[All Along The Watchtower]

You could actually make a case for just about every western government being economically right wing as the PC basically does, but it uses some very clumsy logic. If one has an economic spectrum consisting of North Korea/Khmer Rouge style collectivism and total government control on end and Rothbardian anarchocapitalists and the Galt's Gulch type society on the right, the Scandinavian style social democracy does kind of seem to sit in the middle. But this is a really stupid spectrum to use as a measurement. To simplify it even further, if one argue that 100% of the economy be government controlled is the leftmost position and 0% is the rightmost, and thus 50% of the economy being government controlled is the center, then even Nordic social democracy would be right of center and someone like Hugo Chavez as an actual centrist. So using that standard then yes the Democrats and European conservatives have little distance, but there's also little distance between the Republicans and European left wing parties as well relatively, and they all sit on the right. But it's quite obvious why that's such a ridiculous model to use.

First and foremost, because the idea of government control of the economy being the fundamental criterion for being left-wing is nonsense.

but muh libertarianism

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

I have to agree with Icespear: the Democrats are a very right wing party. Obamacame is to the right of Cameron's NHS. Obama fundamentally supports something more rightwing than Cameron there. Obama also supports less government spending than Cameron currently does. He supports porportionally a bigger military than Cameron does. Socially they aren't that different.

America's left wing is to the right of Europe's right wing. That is simply because American's naturally fear government more. There is nothing more to say on that.

[All Along The Watchtower]

IMHO, both the Democratic and Republican Parties are comparatively centrist (or center-right) , ideologically Liberal parties. They both come from the tradition of "classical" (ie before the 20th century) Liberalism, so they really don't have a whole lot of fundamental disagreement about the goals of politics and public policy.

As I've said before, the United States is pretty much a country of ideological consensus-with the differences between the parties being largely based on a list of practical, specific policy "issues" that fit the sensibilities of Mass Politics.

I mean-who would publicly argue with these statements, in America?

"We want freedom of speech."

"We want equality of opportunity."

"We want strong social mobility."

"We want a strong middle class."

"We want people to play by the rules, in both the public and private sectors."

"We want a well-educated citizenry."

"We want America to be a place where immigrants come to make a better life for themselves."

'We refer to the Constitution for guidance."

And so on and so forth. The vast majority of politicians from both parties in the United States would agree with most, if not all of these statements (and others).  That is how broadly speaking, the United States is a place of remarkable ideological and philosophical consensus.

Rhetoric aside, there really is not much out of the mainstream (far-left or far-right) that is viable or even imaginable in American politics. And while the Democrats are pretty clearly the "left-wing" party in America's two-party system while the Republicans are "right-wing", that doesn't mean that either party is defined by foundational ideological differences with the other.

 

[Mordecai]

Be that as it may, I've taken the "test" dozens of times.  While some questions may be vague life lessons ("When you're worried it's best not to worry about things," WTF?), most of them are pretty freaking obvious policy questions.  In order for somebody to get the scores that Obama supposedly has they have to answer the test like a fundamentalist wackjob.
And I'm not making that up.  TJinCleve took the test and ended up with a more left winged score than Obama supposedly has on their test.

I mean, I probably fall into the category of True Leftism, but these guys are obviously on something.

Ok, good point. I took the test as a cynical Obama and still ended up dead centre of all four quadrants. It seems to me they just randomly plotted the world leaders on areas of the graph they think they go and didn't bother trying to guess their answers for the test.

I also forgot how awful the test questions are and how an answer is usually biased in one direction. I do like the idea though of social and economic axes.

[IceSpear]

IMHO, both the Democratic and Republican Parties are comparatively centrist (or center-right) , ideologically Liberal parties. They both come from the tradition of "classical" (ie before the 20th century) Liberalism, so they really don't have a whole lot of fundamental disagreement about the goals of politics and public policy.

As I've said before, the United States is pretty much a country of ideological consensus-with the differences between the parties being largely based on a list of practical, specific policy "issues" that fit the sensibilities of Mass Politics.

I mean-who would publicly argue with these statements, in America?

"We want freedom of speech."

"We want equality of opportunity."

"We want strong social mobility."

"We want a strong middle class."

"We want people to play by the rules, in both the public and private sectors."

"We want a well-educated citizenry."

"We want America to be a place where immigrants come to make a better life for themselves."

'We refer to the Constitution for guidance."

And so on and so forth. The vast majority of politicians from both parties in the United States would agree with most, if not all of these statements (and others).  That is how broadly speaking, the United States is a place of remarkable ideological and philosophical consensus.

Rhetoric aside, there really is not much out of the mainstream (far-left or far-right) that is viable or even imaginable in American politics. And while the Democrats are pretty clearly the "left-wing" party in America's two-party system while the Republicans are "right-wing", that doesn't mean that either party is defined by foundational ideological differences with the other.

There's a big difference between saying you believe those things and actually believing them. Many Tea Partiers do NOT support the things I bolded.

[Lief 🗽]

Cameron's NHS.

LOL

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Cameron's NHS.

LOL

Why are all new posters terrible?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Cameron's NHS.

LOL

Why are all new posters terrible?

     It's weird. This current batch of newbies is one of the worst I've ever seen.

[Torie]

By the way, the US has the most progressive tax regime on the planet among developed nations. The US as a "right wingest" on the bell curve vis a vis tax policy can really only be made by noting that taxes on the middle class are unusually low.

[All Along The Watchtower]

By the way, the US has the most progressive tax regime on the planet among developed nations.

And one of the least generous social safety nets.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And now we have the ultimate proof that IceSpear in this thread was simply WRONG WRONG WRONG.

EnglishPete.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

This is an old thread, but in the wake of this election I'd like to write in the Median Voter Theorem as more annoying than either of the options.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is an old thread, but in the wake of this election I'd like to write in the Median Voter Theorem as more annoying than either of the options.

So true.

[dax00]

Option 1, because option 2 is kinda true

[Torie]

They both are annoying, I agree. But then I dislike these ideological matrix models in general. They generate more obfuscation than clarity.