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You might be served by checking out the political compass of the U.S. election. The dimension that you are missing is authoritarian vs. libertarian. There are plenty of right and left wing people with a libertarian bent that would agree with your position. In fact, classic Liberalism places liberty as the primary political value. The people you are talking about are the Stalins and the the Thatchers of the world - which has very little to do with where they happen to fall on the left and right portion of the political spectrum.

Common sense is lost when your major parties and governments around the world all field candidates that sit in the same quadrant - right, authoritarian.

Really, do politics boil down to left and right? A single axis of political belief? Don't you think that's a little bit simplistic?

Your implication that Marxism is Communism, or something otherwise bad or evil, is quite false. Marx said a lot of things. Further most people, myself included, don't hardly have the slightest clue what Marx really proposed or believed in. Certainly the Communist Manifesto was *not* Marx. It was the Communist Party's charter for which they paid Marx to draw up according to their own ideals, not Marx's.

Talking to people (in the ivory towers no less) I have learned that Marx wrote many many things that touched on the great and important issues of the day. Many do not realize that Marx predicted what would happen in America. He predicted that cold hard capitalist worker abuses would lead to unions and a reformation of American labor, even within the context of our somewhat free market system. He was exactly accurate in these areas and many others. And it's a good thing we "listened" to Marx or else we'd have never made it through the industrial age intact. Although I would strongly disagree with Marx over globalisation, it seem that the US has listened to him very well when it comes to protectionism of domestic markets. The US is all about free trade and free markets when it is our trade and your markets, not when it's your trade and our markets. Marx does have some flaws.

Now from what I know, the Free Software movement is definitely *not* communism, but rather humanist capitalism at its finest. And yes, it does represent, in my opinion, the true ideals of Marxism too. This is a good thing, in my opinion. It does not take away anything from those who espouse themselves to be libertarian, free-market thinkers ( http://www.politicalcompass.org/ really opened my eyes to where I stand in relationship to our government leaders)

Funny you should talk about character flaws and spiritual emptiness. For Max himself did believe that religion was a bandaid to the this problem, and not a solution. Rather he said we should find and solve the underlying causes of this emptiness, such as the dull, monotonous, slavery of factory worker life, common in his time. I happen to agree with the latter statement, but not with his opiate comment. Programming in a cubicle, notwithstanding a great salary, leads to emptiness and a lack of fulfillment in many circumstances. The Free Software ecosystem, on the other hand helps to offset this monotony and tediousness but encouraging us to exercise tremendous creativity. I believe this can really benefit and complement companies who develop software.

So why is Marxism such a bad thing? It has already brought the US stability and amazing economic development. And honestly if you really listen to what Moglen and the FSF say, they want to bring the same leaps and strides to computers and people, as in the computer industry specifically, we face many of the same issues Marx wrote about. If anyone is truly interested in what Marx had to say, throw away the "Communist Manifesto" and read his real books.

Your "leftist party first, right wing party second" result could be indicitive of the difficulties of compressing the variety of political standpoints into a single "left right" spectrum.

Have you seen the political compass? It uses two dimensions instead of one to represent political positions. See here for an example of what it looks like.

I'm obviously speculating wildly here, because I don't know anything about either your politics or Dutch politics in general, but could it be that the two parties were, say, on different sides of the vertical axis, but at a similar height?

Your "leftist party first, right wing party second" result could be indicitive of the difficulties of compressing the variety of political standpoints into a single "left right" spectrum.

Have you seen the political compass? It uses two dimensions instead of one to represent political positions. See here for an example of what it looks like.

I'm obviously speculating wildly here, because I don't know anything about either your politics or Dutch politics in general, but could it be that the two parties were, say, on different sides of the vertical axis, but at a similar height?

I would love to have this in US.

Not the web based voting guide . . . parties to choose from. Where governments are actually representative of the people rather than the lesser of two evils. Sure the president would be one of the two major parties . . . however, the deadlock in congress would be great. None with a majority . . . that would be awesome. No, new laws. Most of the dumb laws all have sunset provisions on them such as NCLB, patriot act, and whole bunch more would just go bye-bye.

Someone mentioned the http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection I like this one thing it acuratly shows is the two dominat parties are both right (which I am) and authtorian. Of course they are. How would they not be.

After reading this I am going to have to check out http://www.badnarik.org/

For the non Dutch speakers among us (and mine is somewhat rusty, I always found http://www.politicalcompass.org/ to come up with interesting results. Although it doesn't tell you who you could vote for, it's fun for kicking off political debates!

Yup.

"You're free to associate with whoever you want. You just have to associate with other people too, or get a new line of work."

Yes, exactly. We may have to accept their hatred but not when it damages society.

"The problem with allowing bigotry to stand is that it fails the ultimate test of ethics: "What if everyone did it?" "

Exactly right, and it is within the scope of government to engage in this kind of social engineering.

"When has liberal meant anything but "everyone will be better off if the government makes them do it my way". The fact that the Republicans suddenly went off the loopy end of the scale and started dictating how people should live doesn't change what liberal and conservative meant, only who people are voting for."

Here I totally disagree. Liberal and authoritarian are unrelated and one can be either socially liberal or conservative while being libertarian or authoritarian. Republicans and Democrats are nearly equally authoritarian, and IMO way too much.

Look here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I wouldn't agree. That would put libertarians and the conservatives in the same category. The political compass is a much better way. As it places social and economic authoritarianism on different axis.

Political Compass is similar, but more detailed.

And may I remind people that this is a Labour Party government, which is much, much farther to the left than anything in the United States.

"Left" and "right" are insufficient designations to indicate likelihood of totalitarianism. The two-dimensional political compass (with separate social and economic axes) is a bit better, though still a gross oversimplification. Their examples are Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union -- both were totalitarian, but economically Germany leaned to the right and the USSR to the left.

It's entirely possible to have a leftist totalitarian state or a rightist totalitarian state. I think the only political leanings that can't be twisted to totalitarianism would be anarchism and some of the more minarchist libertarian philosophies.

Where would this moderate party be on the political compass map?

I really like this quote from the site:

Within the United States, of course, real (and imagined) differences between the mainstream candidates are more greatly magnified. However, compared to other western democracies, especially those with a finely-tuned system of proportional representation, most mainstream political activity in the US is concentrated over a more narrow ideological range. We note too that conservative Democrats tend to have more in common with Republicans than with the liberals within their own ranks.

Given this, perhaps more conservative Democrats like Lieberman should join the party that more accurately reflects their views - i.e., the Repubican party - and dispense with creating a new party.

George Bush(es), Thatcher, Reagan all espouse(d) a classicly liberal economics - belief in unfettered the free market economy. Socially they may be highly conservative...

Sometimes I think we should give a test before people vote. But one like this:

      http://politicalcompass.org/questionnaire.php

Where the result is a 2D plot of their political point of view with the x-axis being left/right and the y-axis being libertarian/authoritarian. Of course the candidates would need to take it too. Then their vote would be cast for the candidate whose coordinates were closest to their result.

Your terms and axes are a bit off, at least relative to normal usuage.

Right generally *is* equated to Conservative (with Left equated to Liberal). The second axis... the one you call "Libertarian-Conservative"... is usually called Libertarian-Statist or Libertarian-Authoritarian. Someone can be a Conservative Libertarian, just as one can be a Liberal Libertarian.

Take a look at this Animated GIF 2 axis diamond and/or this 2 axis square.

Anyone curious about where they are on the 2 axis map can try this quicky 10 question quiz or this more detailed 40-odd question quiz.

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Your terms and axes are a bit off, at least relative to normal usuage.

Right generally *is* equated to Conservative (with Left equated to Liberal). The second axis... the one you call "Libertarian-Conservative"... is usually called Libertarian-Statist or Libertarian-Authoritarian. Someone can be a Conservative Libertarian, just as one can be a Liberal Libertarian.

Take a look at this Animated GIF 2 axis diamond and/or this 2 axis square.

Anyone curious about where they are on the 2 axis map can try this quicky 10 question quiz or this more detailed 40-odd question quiz.

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I think you misread the parent. I think they were talking about a progressive tax rate that reached 90% for people at the highest income levels. The reason people think this is a bad idea because they think that it undermines successful people and promotes mediocrity.

However, this is a simplistic argument that has at least one false premise: people are paid according to their contribution to society. You only have to compare the salaries of c-level executives to the average salary of people that work in their companies, teachers and social workers to professional athletes and/or people that were born into money versus those that were born into a family making below the poverty line. People are frequently not making an income based on their competence, success, hard work or any other factor attributable to themselves.

More often than not, it's dumb luck. If you accept that as true, then you can give a little more credibility to arguments that there should be a more equitable distribution of income to counter the effects of luck while at the same time supporting those things that are valuable to society - such as hard work, competence and so forth.

As far as politics go, you should also take a look at the political compass diagram, and take the test. As a benchmark, try taking a look at the 2004 Presidential Election and then the other countries. Notice how most fall in the upper right quadrant? If you think in terms of Clinton or Kerry being "left", then yes, Slashdot might be left in that sense - but still firmly in the same authoritarian right quadrant.

If you think "left" in terms of Gandhi and Stalin, then Slashdot isn't left at all - either with an authoritarian or libertarian aspect. But, it is like you said: what's left is relative to where you stand. The thrust of Slashdot follows the larger pattern that you can see in most governments - which is a right, authoritarian bias. It can be hard to see - especially in cultures like the U.S. that have such a narrow range of political expression, but tools like the political compass can be useful to get your bearings.

Indeed. This site is very good at explaining all of this (and seeing where you are compared to famous political figures): http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Rather than a four point diamond, I find a simple 2D Cartesian grid with axes representing economic policy (socialist vs. free market) and views on personal liberties (authoritarian vs. libertarian) more intuitive.

Of course, it's not my idea. I was introduced to it years ago from the (very similar) quiz at The Political Compass.

Assuming a [-10,10] range for each of the axes (in the order stated above), I would think of the US Libertarian ideal as falling in the lower right (free market libertarian). The nice thing is that you can get convenient scores on the two axes independently, and compare with other people, without necessarily using the potentially loaded nomenclature from the quiz on theadvocates.org. (Also standard orthogonal axes make more sense to me than a diamond. I don't get why they thought a 45 degree rotation would be a good idea.)

www.politicalcompass.org is definitely worth a read if you're interested in this whole Right vs. Left thing.

Libertarianism falls into the left wing of the traditional classification of politial thought in some ways and right wing in others.

That is an incredibly ignorant comment. Blair's government is by no means socialist! It is now significantly more right wing economically than the Conservative government that it deposed (if not yet as corrupt). In terms of authoritarianism it is probably about equal: though it has eroded many civil liberties, it has brought in new ones (such as gay rights).

In any case, the government's social policies can be independent of its economic policies. See The Political Compass for an alternative (compared to left/right) measurement of political stances.

Based on your post, I thought you might find this commentary interesting. Oh, and Murtha and Kennedy and not the left. You might try the Political Compass for some perspective.

I have had some professors whose political views were way far to the left of mine. But guess what? All of them, to a one, were more than happy to give me decent grades if I was able to back up my disagreements with their political views. I even had one prof who was quite literally a Communist and was pleased to let you know it and 100% open about it. I was a little frightened in the beginning that she would flunk me for my political views, which sit on the Political Compass at Economics: -4.63 Social Issues: -6.92.

Well, I got an A in her class, and I didn't even do the oral presentation of my paper because I got all crossed up about when the final was to be held. I've kept in touch with her, in fact. We disagree a lot, even now, but we respect each other. And on issues that really, really matter, we find more to agree upon than disagree.

I've yet to meet someone on the Right, however. Very odd. Closest thing was another prof who was staunchly pro-Israeli to the point of fanaticism. I suspect that folks that are on the Right tend to get jobs at political think tanks, in campaigns, and in business instead of going for a career as lacking in financial reward and respect as being a Community College or University Professor. You have to have motivations other than the Almighty Buck to put up with all the crap you get teaching for the money you make.

Then again, Kenneth Starr's the Dean of Pepperdine's College of Law, as I pointed out in an earlier post.

Where is the list of defenders of American liberties? All you listed was groups trying to take away different liberties. How's this for non-partisan? They are all out to screw you in one way or another get used to it. The best you can do is find politicians that vote closest to your main views. Of course, none of them qualify for me so I just vote against the most heinous.

Just so you know my bias, I am a slightly conservative anarchist (1.5,-5). You can find out your bias at politicalcompass.org. I think it should be a requirement when posting on politics.

Before you mod this down as "flamebait" or something, consider that disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they're posting flamebait, or off topic, or whatever.

Well, there is no -1 wrong moderation so I'd say troll is probably the closest to the truth. Your conception of the political spectrum is laughably ill-informed. The left/right single-axis dichotomy is a false one, to begin with. At the very least you need to split it into economically left/right and socially left/right.

Generally speaking the GOP is economically libertarian and socially authoritarian while the Dems are more towards economic collectivism and socially libertarian (anti-authoritarian).

In this case, Hillary is moving along the social axis to a more authoritarian position, which is towards the Republicans' stated views.

I suggest you consult http://politicalcompass.org/ for more information and take their test to see where you lie in relation to various political parties and politicians. I think it'd be a real eye-opener.

Before I'm hastily categorized as just another "liberal", let me say that I'm against abortion, welfare, and affirmative action. However, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican and am no fan of Bush or Blair. Your repeated references to "liberals" reveals that you have succumbed to at least some degree of groupthink. I'm willing to bet you consider yourself a "conservative" and therefore you have to stand up against anything remotely categorizable as "liberal" in the defense of your particular group's percieved dominant opinion. I don't really believe in conservatism or liberalism. I think they are largely false idealogies used by the powerful to herd the masses into convenient groups meant to fight amongst each other, thus keeping them distracted from issues of real import. I'd recommend checking out the political compass website. It's not perfect, but it's better than most political scales.

Well, using the political compass' notation, I'd put /. on the mid-left on the economic axis (midly regulative, but still promotes the free market), and waaay out to the libertarian side on the other axis. Don't know where that guy is getting his ideas from...

Isn't "libertarian" a right-wing thing? I'm sure the "left-wing" "equivalent" would be "anarchist".

Don't take this the wrong way, but it's really funny to watch someone's brain asplode as they try to artificially twist real-world politics down to a mere two pidgeonholes.

The reason you can't do it is because politics is not one-dimensional. The childishly crude left vs right garbage is something you only get in obsolete or broken political systems incapable of supporting anything other than two main parties. Having only a lousy two reference points, a line is the result - and from that is drawn left and right, a retarded one dimensional political concept.

You wouldn't happen to be American by any chance?
(Fisher's deduction states: "The more issues a person crudely shoehorns down into a liberal/conservative dichotomy, the more certain you can be that the person is an American" :-)

Anyway, if you haven't already seen it, check out Political Compass, which at least expands things to two dimensions, and will make your brain stop hurting :-)

(No offense intended in all this, I'm not exactly being entirely serious here. Hence the liberal sprinkling of smileys :-)

If you're trying to compair the UK system with the US check out http://www.politicalcompass.org/. At the bottom (left) they have a link to the 2005 UK election.

A while back, someone posted a link to this site on slashdot, http://www.politicalcompass.org/. It's theory includes a left and right, authoritarian (fascism) and libertarian (anarchism) axes.

Here's a link to one of the pages including where major political figures fit on the compass. http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/a nalysis2.php

Cheers.

http://politicalcompass.org/\

they have a nice 2d political compass for you (autheritarian > libertarian and left > right iirc

If you separate politics to fiscal and social realms, there's reason to see the BNP as left-wing fiscally, but highly and offensively authoritarian-right socially. See http://www.politicalcompass.org/ UK Election 2005 link on the left. Though it sounds to me that it's not the fiscal policies that appeal to you.

What happens when the socialist philosophy itself becomes orthodox or dogmatic?

Simple, dogmatic socialism is not liberal.

A lot of the categorical labels are pretty misleading. They conflate too many things.

In many ways, "liberalism" and "conservatism" represent personality dispositions, rather than political philosopies or values. The liberal personality believes that things can be improved upon, the conservative thinks that the proven ways are best. That's how political ideas that were liberal in the eighteenth century are now conservative.

It's also while the necons are so widely reviled. They are essentially right wing liberals. Left wing liberals hate their right wing politics; right wing conservatives hate their liberalism.

The old Soviet aparachniks were, at least superfially, left wing conservatives. They were in the exact opposite quedrant if you will from the necons.

Of course the left/right dichotomy is oversimplified too. It should at least be exploded into two dimensions, like the people over at the politicla compass have.

The political compass actually does a much better job of categorising politicians than than left/right can possibly manage.

What does Democrat and Republican stand for? Both seem rather rightwing...

And why are only these two standpoints ever mentioned? Are there only two parties?

What if I'm not satisfied with those two? Am I allowed to start my own party?

Try the political compass. I think it's been noted on Slashdot before. It gives you two dimensions, anyway, and is -- I think -- slightly more useful than the conventional L-R classification.

you're asking that on slashdot. why would I spend so much time on anything like this if I didn't have the time to waste?

my nick is somewhat of a joke on this

though it does have some seriousness to it as well, on the political compass I am positioned far bottom left, so maybe I really am a commie.

I completely agree. Trying to quantify a political leaning on a one dimensional scale is fundamentally flawed. There is far more to politics than simply left-right. I particularly like the system used at politicalcompass.org.

You may be right. Take this test for instance: http://www.politicalcompass.org/. (No I don't run that site, nor do I claim that it is necessarily accurate. I merely claim it is one way to represent political thinking and it may be useful). Now where would the current Chinese government fall in that graph? Probably in the low-positive-x, high-positive-y range?

Americans in general don't know a lot of things. Ask Americans who claim they are conservative what they are trying to conserve? Historically, conservatives have been about preserving the ruling class. Sounds pretty un-American. Here's an interesting site that expands the whole left vs.right argument

The issue lies in the definition of "general Welfare of the United States". You have to understand there are three groups talked about in the Constition as enumerated in Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.

If they had meant "general Welfare of the people" in Section 8 Clause 1, they would have said that. What that clause has to do with is the general welfare of the Federal government during the course of carrying out its enumerated powers. I.e., operational expenses.

If your neighbour is ill, but too poor to afford the hospital bill, would you let your taxes foot his bill or leave him to die?

What you have presented is a false dichotomy by pretending I only have two choices. I work in the field of medical software and, among other things, we process claims.

It is already the situation that a person can be too ill to pay their bill and tax money won't. Guess what? No one is being thrown out on the streets and it is actually illegal to throw someone out!

The provider (MD, hospital, and staff) takes a loss on that case and takes it out of the general profits. Ultimately, that means the rest of us pay a little more on our bill to make it up but market pressures keeps a lid on that (unlike taxes where there are no market pressures). There are also "angels" who donate large amounts of money to cover these patients.

This is an important point that many people don't know so I will repeat it here: no one in the United States is refused treatment because they cannnot pay. They may not get every ounce of treatment Bill Gates gets because he can afford to ask for extra treatment. However, it is unethical and a potential cause for loss of license if a physician violates his Hippocratic Oath by not providing good care for a patient, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.

The extreme right is as looney (and cruel) as the extreme left - repeating it's philosophy doesn't make it right .. or even true!

I agree and that's why I am a libertarian. I reject being confined to the Right and the Left. To quote The Political Compass:

There's abundant evidence for the need of it [a political compass]. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left' , established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

That quiz is quite heavily biased in questions. A much better quiz (IMO) is the Political Compass. I've yet to find anyone who disagrees with its verdict.

Have you seen the political compass? It's great - they plot ideologies on two dimensions rather than one. If you've ever been confused about what's a left vs. right point, it's probably because compressing everything into one dimension makes no sense. This site uses two dimensions, which is better. (Still imperfect, but a third dimension would probably be more confusing than beneficial.) The horizontal axis is economic; the vertical is social.

Going back to what you were saying, Democrats are left of Republicans, as always. But both Democrats and Republicans are in the upper right quadrant. Libertarians are in the lower right; the Green Party is in the lower left. They have Democrats and Republicans roughly equidistant from the Libertarians. But I think the social axis (libertarian vs. authoritarian) is more central to the Libertarian's beliefs (thus the name), so I'd consider Democrats closer than Republicans.

Whoa ... Stalin was an authoritarian communist. Probably the complete opposite of what is considered "conservative".

Take a look at http://www.politicalcompass.org

One of the big myths I hear all the time is about the so-called "liberal democrats" and even the "liberal media" for that matter. They all take sides within our curent political arena's bounds.

But, when you think about it... the dems aren't exactly liberal.. they're more slightly left of the extreme right.

Take this little test and you'll kinda get the picture: Political Compass

Actually the left-right spectrum is defunct. Take a look at Political Compass to get a good look at a better way of doing it.

(If you take the quiz, it seems to be biased toward the left economic perspective)