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Political Leaning and Free Software
00_NOP writes "HateMyTory is the world's first political rating site and occasionally gets blasted or promoted by British bloggers on either side of the political spectrum. But here's something even more intriguing: when the right come visiting they hate the site but they are disproportionately likely to be users of free software, whether that is just Firefox on top of their Windows box, or all the way with some Linux distro. But when the left rally to the cause they are more likely than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple. If Microsoft's defenders think free software is the road to socialism, why don't the left seem to agree? As a leftie, and a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling."
Most leftie blog (and just plain lefties) are Linux/Free Software users. Most right-wing people I know are Windows users.
Then again, this is a country where most governement departments are switching to Linux, so...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Some items a Democrat will mod up are generally the things a Republican will mod down. If you wanted to run a Slashdot style mod system and invite both Reps and Dems to your site, you should have moderation based on their political styles instead of an additive approach. For example: Dems mod an article up 77 points, while Reps mod it down 20. For Democrats, it will be a prime article to read. For Republicans it won't even show up. I think this may be the future of moderation on websites. It doesn't have to stop with just Democrats and Republicans, there are tons of groups that are at odds, or simply different than mainstream.
God spoke to me.
*Theoretical* education correlates leftward with politics. *Practical* education correlates rightward in politics.
Try telling a Class A nuclear welder that he's uneducated. You won't get very far. It's also very likely that he and all his buddies vote to the right. They're also very likely to vote the same way as the engineering, business and finance faculties of any university, that is, those university people who have to produce ideas of practical value.
Higher education does indeed correlate to the left, but that's only because trades programs aren't counted and there are far more theoretical subjects in universities than practical ones.
I find that here in the USA, many leftwing groups use FOSS, but are strangely silent about advocating its use or understanding how FOSS has evolved as a social movement. As a longtime socialist and FOSS user/advocate I find this strange and disconcerting.
We do a fair amount of work for the labor movement: graphic design, satirical cartoons, illustration,and websites. FOSS is barely on its radar. I explained FOSS to a District Council President and her take was that it sounded like socialism and solidarity, two ideas she was strongly in favor of. Local union websites tend to be static sites built in MS Frontpage with very little in the way of interactivity.
That is starting to change. The Service Employees International Union has done some interesting work with Drupal. We're slowly introducing Joomla to the unions we work with.
We are also working with a feminist-oriented women in technology group and have introduced them to Joomla with positive results. They had heard of Drupal, but knew very little about it.
When we try to explain FOSS to Left groups and social advocacy organizations we use the example of how the Howard Dean campaign was able to use Drupal to quickly build websites around the country. That gets their attention.
I'd like to see some real reporting and analysis of the FOSS movement from a leftwing perspective. It's weird to see the "progressive" movement so behind the technological times.
"What would men be without women? Scarce, sir. Mighty scarce."- Mark Twain
Left vs Right is orthogonal from Libertarianism. Some of the most libertarian organisations are the most right wing. eg. the survivalists in USA.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I was going to write a post about the political leanings of operating systems, but stopped myself just in time. Because it's stupid.
Stop obsessing with what other people are doing. Stop obsessing with who they vote for, what football team they rally behind, and what desktop they use. It's no one's business but their own what brand of automobile they drive.
So what if I don't use the same software license as you? What business could it possibly be of yours?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The problem with the Libertarian Party (big L) is that they're run by ideological purists. They've got about much chance of winning as the Green Party does with a purist progressive environmentalist candidate. Bother parties will get just enough votes to keep themselves on the radar, but neither will be able to win until the field pragmatic realist candidates.
The average voter could support a tax cut, but the Liberatarian Party wants to abolish the IRS. Too extreme. The average voter could support marijuana decriminalization, but the LP wants to legalize all drugs. Too extreme. The average voter could support school vouchers, bu the LP wants to eliminate all public education. Too extreme. There is a strong individualist streak in the American psyche, but there is not an anarchist streak. The LP needs to stop appealing to anarcho-capitalists and start appealing to individualists.
Either the Libertarian Party reforms, or libertarians will gravitate to other parties.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!