Since joining the Atlas Forum, have you moved more leftward or rightward?

[afleitch]

Moving 'right' on social issues sort of suggests you've decided it's 'your way or the high way' with respect to whole groups of people. That's really disturbing.

But of course, the left vilifying those who don't agree with them is totally okay.

Actually, if the right are vilifying a gay person, or someone because they are an immigrant, or because they are of a different culture then yes I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a go at them

[Antonio the Sixth]

Moving 'right' on social issues sort of suggests you've decided it's 'your way or the high way' with respect to whole groups of people. That's really disturbing.

In my case, only with respect to groups of people that are privileged and powerful - to prevent them from screwing over the downtrodden.

[Figueira]

Stayed about the same socially and economically. I haven't really changed much recently.

[Derpist]

Moving 'right' on social issues sort of suggests you've decided it's 'your way or the high way' with respect to whole groups of people. That's really disturbing.

In my case, only with respect to groups of people that are privileged and powerful - to prevent them from screwing over the downtrodden.

No, rich white gentrifying gays in San Francisco are the TRUE victims!!!111

[This account no longer in use.]

Closer to the centre economically and to the left socially.

[NeverAgain]

When I came here I was a libertarian closeted 13 year old. Now I am a socialistic openly gay Bernie fan. I'd say leftward.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Right on both

[Cassius]

I wouldn't say I've shifted much on the left-right spectrum per se. However, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that that quarrelsome 15-20% of the Western populace who seem hell-bent on destroying Western society as we know it (ie, the nation state, the power of Christianity and a relatively free market) and replacing it with something... more to their taste, need to be put back in their box somehow. Hopefully it's just a passing fad like Communism, but on the other hand if it isn't...

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wouldn't say I've shifted much on the left-right spectrum per se. However, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that that quarrelsome 15-20% of the Western populace who seem hell-bent on destroying Western society as we know it (ie, the nation state, the power of Christianity and a relatively free market) and replacing it with something... more to their taste, need to be put back in their box somehow. Hopefully it's just a passing fad like Communism, but on the other hand if it isn't...

The first has been steadily declining for the past 50 years, the second for the past 250 years, and the third has always been a myth (the "market" is not in any sense "free" under capitalism). I really don't see what "fad" you're referring to.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Socially, I'm much more "liberal" (though I hold that my live and let live approach is traditionally very right wing in and of itself), and I've moved in a more populist (though again, still very right wing) approach to economic issues besides healthcare since I've joined. On other issues, especially foreign policy and immigration related issues, I've moved much more to the right.

[Leinad]

More libertarian on social policy, more liberal on cultural viewpoints, slightly more rightward economically. The biggest change is my vastly leftward shift on religion, although I think that's less of a shift and more of a self-realization.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't think I've moved much personally.  My shift from Independent to Democrat is purely because of how far removed from reality the Republican Party has gone, and I don't expect it will return to sanity any sooner than a decade from now. This past year has eliminated my hopes of a Republican return to sanity.  Even if one thinks of Trump as a modern-day Goldwater, the GOP has no Nixon waiting on the horizon.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I haven't changed much politically at all since 2006. The biggest shift after that was that I went from being a protectionist to a moderate free trader in 2007. I joined the Atlas forum in 2008, by which time most of my views were pretty much set. Though they have been minor reconsiderations and changes of approach and strategy, the views have largely stayed the same.

[bore]

The first thing to say is that the premise of this thread, which runs through a lot of atlas analysis, is rather mad. So called social issues are not discrete from economic ones and even the ones that are more or less accepted as part of the canon have little in common logically. There's no contradiction between being against abortion and being for increased immigration or against gay marriage but in favour of the death penalty. The same goes for economic issues. I sometimes think that the reason is it taken so seriously is due to atlas's (very largely a humanities site, putting political 'science' in it's appropriate sphere) bizzare science envy, whereby anything with a number attached (even better, a number with decimals!) is unimpeachably correct.

And this, I think, is a problem, because it leads to even very intelligent posters coming out with silly comments and thus ruins serious debate:

Moving 'right' on social issues sort of suggests you've decided it's 'your way or the high way' with respect to whole groups of people. That's really disturbing.

Does it? Does it really?

What about wanting to keep sunday trading hours? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (shopworkers who want extra shifts, shoppers who want more shopping) but it's the exact opposite of it for another (shopworkers who want to have a rest day, their families, those who would be pressured to work if it were a normal day).

What about being against assisted suicide? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (those suffering dreadful illnesses) but it's the exact opposite, or so the argument goes, for another (those who would feel pressured into killing themselves because they think they're a burden)

What about wanting to build more prisons? Sure that's my way or the high way for one group of people (prisoners, their families), but it's the exact opposite for another (the victims, their families).

And so on, and so on.

You don't have to agree with the right on this issues (I don't on most of them) to think that saying it's just motivated by cheap authoritarianism and hatred of out groups is a slur. Sometimes, maybe, but not always. Perhaps on certain issues, like the ones you mentioned, gay marriage and immigration, it's even a majority. But even there it's never always. In fact, as I've suggested you could use the same slur against the left and it would be just as much of a half-truth. Questions of liberty are invariably questions of balancing one groups freedoms against anothers, for both left and right, and I don't think it serves any purpose to pretend that there is, or at least is most of the time, a gaping chasm between the two camps in terms of motivations.

[afleitch]

You don't have to agree with the right on this issues (I don't on most of them) to think that saying it's just motivated by cheap authoritarianism and hatred of out groups is a slur. Sometimes, maybe, but not always. Perhaps on certain issues, like the ones you mentioned, gay marriage and immigration, it's even a majority. But even there it's never always. In fact, as I've suggested you could use the same slur against the left and it would be just as much of a half-truth. Questions of liberty are invariably questions of balancing one groups freedoms against anothers, for both left and right, and I don't think it serves any purpose to pretend that there is, or at least is most of the time, a gaping chasm between the two camps in terms of motivations.

So you rightly disagree with the broad brush premise of this poll, then you pick out my broad brush response written to reflect other broad brush responses as an example of ruining serious debate? The poll is in response to the political matrix poll, which was itself measuring people on a political gradient in response to the big issues of US politics some ten years ago, of which on most social issues even the most stubborn Americans have shifted at least marginally 'leftwards' on those issues. Sunday trading (of which as a union rep I believe should be curtailed) doesn't get much of a look in.  I'll rememeber to give long winded answers to pointless poll questions in future

[HagridOfTheDeep]

My time here correlates with the time I've spent in the world learning things and getting an actual education, so naturally I've drifted more to the left. Moderate heroism is fun and makes the most sense to me.

[Asian Nazi]

I guess I've moved to the left since I first joined (from vague democratic socialist to Marxist-Leninist), but since I started actively posting I moved to the right (from anarcho-communist to Third World Maoism).  But I refuse to arbitrarily divide my views into "economic" and "social" ones.

[Bigby]

Left economically, right socially. I've become less globalist and less pro-free trade, hence my shifts. I still believe strongly in a free market eternally, but I'm all for tariffs and anti-outsourcing laws now.

[afleitch]

Also dramatically moved to the right on LGBT issues, but that's largely because I used to be fairly far-left for personal reasons.

Why were you far left for personal reasons?

[Oakvale]

I don't believe in this dichotomy but as I realised with horror that each generation has been worse than the last I suppose I've become more conservative in general.

e: In particular watching deranged college students attempting to ban free speech has been a revelatory experience and convinced me of the very real danger of ideological indoctrination in education.

e2: Probably the most important factor in any political shift in my own life has been a growing sense of very real disgust with the professional left. Whether it's the extreme of equivocating on the Soviet Union or the no less disgraceful cult around the criminal PSUV ransacking of Venezuela you don't have to look far to find people hemming and hawing, outright lying and deflecting while they sing the praises of Socialism. Sad!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sad!

Is that the new shtick on AAD? You guys never cease to impress.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't believe in this dichotomy but as I realised with horror that each generation has been worse than the last I suppose I've become more conservative in general.

e: In particular watching deranged college students attempting to ban free speech has been a revelatory experience and convinced me of the very real danger of ideological indoctrination in education.

e2: Probably the most important factor in any political shift in my own life has been a growing sense of very real disgust with the professional left. Whether it's the extreme of equivocating on the Soviet Union or the no less disgraceful cult around the criminal PSUV ransacking of Venezuela you don't have to look far to find people hemming and hawing, outright lying and deflecting while they sing the praises of Socialism. Sad!

I'm tempted to do a long effort post here and maybe I will later but I just want to say that e2 here is pretty important to me, as is the general superficiality of the Irish 'left' in general. For all the problems of our political class, it is a good thing the Irish left have no real power or responsibility. Yet I can't really identify with the 'right' - the parties of property and finance - and even less with 'professional centrists' a la the Blairites and the Clintonistas. Oh well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've either moved rightwards because I've moved leftwards or vice versa or perhaps both. Its complicated: philosophically I now have some fairly extreme positions, but the political implications of these are anything but extreme.

[Oakvale]

Sad!

Is that the new shtick on AAD? You guys never cease to impress.

Ironically my second edit is the only part of that post which isn't even slightly tongue in cheek!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sad!

Is that the new shtick on AAD? You guys never cease to impress.

Ironically my second edit is the only part of that post which isn't even slightly tongue in cheek!

I don't even disagree with that part of your post. I just wish it could make the same point without the dumb meme.