Left, right or center; do you hew to the straight and narrow for your bias, or entertain some ideas the opposing side would love?

Psst “bias”

In most things I’m left, in a handful I’m definitely more right though even then it goes both ways within the issue. Ex. crime – I’m generally for pretty harsh punishment, pro-death penalty and three-strikes (or less depending on what you did); however I support rehabilitation, legalization of pot, and non-prison deterrence for non-violent offenders.

In the end I don’t really care what the party line is, only in supporting the ideas I believe will best solve the problems and provide us (humanity) with greater opportunity and freedom.

I consider myself liberal on social issues and moderate to conservative on fiscal. Although, self idenitified conservatives of today might not see me as conservative fiscally.

My parents growing up rarely mentioned Republican or Democrat when I was growing up. In my teens I found up my dad was a Republican and my mom a Democrat, but they talk about candidates like party did not exist. They just visited me for Thanksgiving and they are split on an issue that will come before them in the voting booth about education for immigrants, they are split on the topic right now, my mom believes my dad is going to change his mind. On the local level my parents crossed party lines all the time when voting. I guess this had a big influence on me.

I have never thought I was supposed to listen to my party, I have always thought I listen to all the ideas and rationale, decide where I stand, and then figure out which party I identify with most.

On some things I am very “left wing”, on some things I am very “right wing” and on a lot of things I couldn’t care less if it doesn’t actually effect me personally (you know like your religion, sexual preferences and what have you).

I could never pass an ideological purity test, LMFAO. I consider myself a liberal because the term liberal really means freedom. To me there are only 2 basic political ideologies and they are liberalism and authoritarianism. To me there is no left/right progressive/conservatism nonsense.

I generally classify myself as a libertarian because it is what most people would understand but realistically I’d much rather classify myself as a liberal. Even when I was in positions of authority I was probally more of a laissez-faire type of leader.

I would suggest reading the 3rd link down on my profile page, it is a very quality political history/ideology website and it is one of the reasons why I have a difficult time classifying myself politically since there is nothing black & white about political terms.

I’m fairly close to the point at the top, but a little down the left slope.

The closest political label I identify with is “classical liberal” because a lot of people who identify with the modern usage of the word “liberal” have an authoritarian streak. (Which is true of many people who identify with the word conservative as well). Overall, I think the whole use of “left” or “right” to define certain political stances is really convoluted at times, because these words mean different things to different people or in different contexts. For example, I usually score very right of center on online political tests (in terms of economics, at least), which would make me a “rightist” or a “right winger” by some people’s definitions. However, someone like Ann Coulter would fall into the same category, and I couldn’t be more different from her in most of my views. That’s why, like @Paradox25 mentioned, I believe the left-right paradigm is really arbitrary, because both sides have their authoritarians and their little-l libertarians.

That said, and for the sake of argument, I have beliefs that are typically associated with both “left wingers” and “right wingers,” though I hesitate to fully associate myself with either label. For example, I am a fan of mostly laissez-faire capitalism (which I differentiate from corporatism), and I am decidedly anti-communist (yes, I know what communism means, and I have read Marx). I am also in favor of tighter border controls, shutting down certain government institutions (ATF and DHS, for starters), relaxing gun laws (I still don’t understand why the “left” and the “right’s” position on this isn’t reversed), allowing for school vouchers, and I am extremely pro-military. These positions are typically associated with the “Right wing” in an American context. HOWEVER (and that’s a big however), I am in favor of gay marriage, ending the drug war (and legalizing/taxing weed), keeping abortion legal, and ending our various nation-building endeavors, and I am against the death penalty. I am also extremely opposed to religious influences in government and public education. (I am as vehemently anti-theocratic as I am anti-communist). These positions are typically adhered to by those on the American “Left wing.”

And that’s why I have trouble with choosing a political label for myself. I have adapted a syncretic set of political values that aren’t entirely represented by the American left or right, because I borrow elements from both to represent my personal views. The problem is that neither the mainstream left nor the right would accept me, because despite the commonalities I have with one or the other, I also hold views that would make me a pariah in either group.

@janbb Not to worry. The moderators were biased against spelling it “bais” too. :-)

@wonderingwhy Very reasonable positins, all. I’d be high on the support rehabilitation scale if it proved to work. It seems only effective at turning around lives that are gone astray due to lack of skills to feed oneself legally. The “Teach a man to fish.” idea can work on the right population. But rehabilitation of violent criminals has a very poor success to recidivism rate.

@JLeslie Fascinating background. Would that more of politics today could remain like your parents approach it, by thinking issues through rather than voting a party line. I’m a registered Democrat here in Massachusetts because that’s the only viable party here, and I want to influence their primaries. But I could care less about party. I care only about policy.

@Lightlyseared That would pretty well describe me as well. Thanks.

@Paradox25 Thanks for the eloquent self definition. I feel like I really know your political position from that.

@HungryGuy Thanks. Somewhere in the 1st Std. Deviation to the left of center.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Left or Right is beyond contrived. It refers to the seating arrangement in the French Parliament in the years leading up to the French Revolution. The revolutionaries sat on the left, and the royalists on the right. How that seating arrangement has ANYTHING to do with the political divide in today’s America escapes me altogether. But such are the terms with labor with.

Very interesting observation on gun laws and who should be concerned about creeping governmental powers. It is puzzling. I will have to delay thinking it through till I go getn smome much needed sleep. :-)

I have no side, left or right.
I am much like @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, I do not fit into any party mold.

@ETpro I left something out though. Not on purpose, but my answer was how I formed my political views, but at this time my mom still functions as she always did, ignoring party for the most part, but leaning Democrat on most issues. My dad 4 years ago defected the Republican party, because he couldn’t stand that the religious right had basically taken over the party, and he feels they don’t think or analyze anything, just vote for politicians like they listen to clergy; follow the leader, mindless, and obedient, and full of fear, fire, and brimstone. He couldn’t take it anymore, and now he votes party line, well, anything but Republican. I think he is too extreme, but he says he does not want to give the Republicans any more power at all. He is registered as a Democrat to vote in Primaries, but he said if he lived in a state that he could vote in primaries outside of his party, he would have registered independent. Which is interesting, so he still self identifies independent, which is basically what he always was internally I think, but he now behaves like a staunch Democrat basically at the polls.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard – That’s exactly why the political spectrum is not a line, but a grid with 2 axis. The X axis is the liberal scale, and the Y axis is the conservative scale.

Those who score high on both scales are classical liberals, a.k.a. libertarians.

Those who score high on the liberal scale but low on the conservative scale are modern (authoritarian) liberals.

Those who score low on the liberal scale but high on the conservative scale are modern (authoritarian) conservatives.

Those who score low on both scales are uber authoritarians and other megalomaniacs.

@HungryGuy yeah, I’m familiar with the x,y spectrum. I agree that it is a much more effective descriptor of political labels.

@ETpro I’ve always considered the term ‘conservatism’ to be a relative term since conservative means tradition (in general) and many different countries have their own traditions. Many have vividly disagreed with me on this. I don’t know, what do you think, am I right or wrong on this?

@JLeslie I’d probably have a lot in common with your dad. I used to be a Republican. I own a small business. Sympathy for business and for getting things done was important to me. But the Republican party has been hijacked by a bunch of would-be oligarchs who want to rule by authoritarian decree and extract all the money from the nation to enrich themselves. They use religion, social issues, war, fear, sexual orientation, race—any divisive, emotional tools their teams of psychologists and PhDs can devise to achieve this control. I will do all I can to keep power out of their hands. I only hope that some alternative emerges, because I don’t much like Democrats either, and I definitely don’t like one-party perpetual rule no mater what party it be.

@HungryGuy Then color me libertarian with a small L. I am off-the-scale anti-authoritarian. But I want no part of a Ron Paul rule. He must be a Libertarian with a big L.

@Paradox25 I have no problem with 2b in this dictionary definition of conservatism. It’s my understanding of the true philosophical position. Of course, it is useless if not mixed with liberalism, because times change, and what worked just great in the 1800s may be rather absurd in a day when we have jet travel, nuclear war, the Internet and globalization.

It’s hard to get anywhere useful if you don’t know where you have been. But it’s truly moronic to think you can move into the future while only looking behind you. You will always run into a cliff, or over one.

@ETpro My father wasn’t a business owner, he worked for the government most of his career. He was a Democrat at first but then when he was very young, maybe 20 years old, something happened at his university, they let someone speak or something, I can’t remember the story, the university tolerated something, and listening to the staunch liberals being fine with it he changed to Republican. But, he actually was “Republican” on several issues. He also, in my opinion, became a little poisoned by the Republican mantras that went on 30 years ago, but I say that admitting on both sides, and all people, we are swayed by what we hear, we all are influenced somewhat by the messages put out there, and sometimes it is hard to know what is really best. What is the best decision for the country on the variety of topics before the government and the American people. Also, what I realize as an adult, is my had not really thought about the social isues much at all, meaning abortion, and now gay rights, etc. I think those issues still matter little to him in terms of the politician he would vote for, and that is so much of what sways a lot of people one way or the other.

@ETpro I’ve invented my own political spectrum and it’s very simple. What I’m referring to is that there are only 2 basic political ideologies, authoritarianism and liberalism. There are also only 2 types of voters, conformists and individual thinkers. Of course it is not as simple as I’ve mentioned above since one person’s version of freedom might lead to oppression for another and vice versa.

The term libertarianism is nothing more than a modern day invention that formulated out of modern day political think tanks over the years due to the demonization (and maybe hijacking) of the term liberalism. I guess if I classified myself as a libertarian it would be with a medium “L”. I am definitely not entirely an anti-rules or regulations type of person. I’m also not willing to go laissez-faire on everything, afterall to me placing a profit incentive on everything would lead to massive oppression for many. The big “L” can turn into the big “A” very quickly without rules/regulations to protect people from the wrath of those with bad intentions. There are many fine lines here unfortunately though.

@Paradox25 That division rings pretty true for me. You have authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers who will only follow a leader who is heavily authoritarian. But authoritarianism is a uniting thread of right-wing politics here and curiously of left-wing politics in communist countries.

I see liberalism and libertarianism as very different political ideologies @Paradox25 . Liberalism stems from a fundamental belief that it is government’s role to look after the welfare of its citizens while libertarianism is the belief that government should intervene as little as possible in the lives of individuals. Not analogous at all although there may be individual policies on which they agree such as a woman’s right to her own body.

@ETpro In a sense I’ve always viewed the hardline “communist” regimes as being right-wing, not left-wing. The origins of the terms left/right like you’ve described above agree with me too. Right means centralized power/monarchy, left means away from centralized power or more power to a larger group of people/commoners. Those ‘communist’ regimes/parties were really aristocracies that like the facists and conservative authoritarians emphasized extreme nationalism, patriotism, traditional values, loss of individual rights for the betterment of the community, extreme demonization of other nationalities as the enemy, etc.

Let us not forget about the Christian socialists of the 19th century whom opposed classic liberalism. Also don’t forget about the hardline communitarian Democrats that were “progressive” when it came to economics and authoritarian when it came to social issues. The radical communitarians (later to be called neoconservatives) were also strongly in favor of militarism and opposed the counterculture movement but yet the communitarians/neoconservatives were considered to be ‘liberals’. These are just a few reasons why I only see politics in terms of authoritarianism vs liberalism, but of course there are many different variations of each philosophy.

Perhaps the future of American politics will be divided into being the libertarians vs the communitarians rather than Republicans/Democrats or conservatives/liberals. I already see traces of this division occuring in the Republican Party, and to a smaller degree the Democrats as well.

@Paradox25 There is a great deal of truth to that. Right and left are anachronistic terms stemming from the seating arrangement in the French Parliament in the years leading up to the French Revolution. The Royalists sat on the right. They became identified with the forces that wished to preserve the old ways, and steadfastly refused to contemplate social change even in the face of new challenges the old order simply did not address. I seriously doubt many right wingers today want to return to monarchy and invite the descendants of Louis XVI of France to come and rule America.

Both the Russian and Chinese Communist movements started as populist uprisings to overthrow an oppressive regime that was out of touch with the suffering of its people and shot through with corruption. But in both cases authoritarian strong-men (Stalin and Mao) rose to the top through brutal suppression of dissent and mass murder of any opposition. Those methods of establishing political rule are right out of the far-right playbook.

@ETpro I can forgive stupidity (we all have our stupid moments) but I can’t forgive ignorance. I try to teach my 10 year old nephew these things since I’m not sure what kids are being taught in schools today. I think that it is vital we have a future generation of well informed voters using some type of critical thinking ability if we are to survive. Like I’ve always said, it is not one’s views in themselves that are necessarily good/bad but how one arrives at their viewpoints.

@Paradox25 Good for you. Democracy only works when you have a well0informed electorate.