Political Leaning and Free Software

It's the exact reverse in France... by Noryungi · 2007-03-10 12:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

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...

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The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)

Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by mi · 2007-03-10 12:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Then again, this is a country where most governement departments are switching to Linux, so...

No, I think, it is more likely, that your sample (just the circle of people you know personally, right?) is just too limited to be statistically meaningful.
Would be interesting to get similar stats from a French site, that's visited by different sides, rather then just a club of people in agreement with each other.

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Seumas · 2007-03-10 13:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Frankly, I think they're all fucking crazy. I would say that free software, if anything, is the realm of the more libertarian among us. Arguing left versus right is like a normal person listening to an anal retentive obsessive compulsive and a total slob arguing over housecleaning. I'm for free software, because I like not having to pay money for things if I can get them for free. I also like being able to modify them without restriction and I like the community. Frankly, the idea that we have to be subjected by the philosophy of one side or another (who both want to control our lives and restrict our behaviors, but regarding different aspects) is fucking horrifying.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by svunt · 2007-03-10 13:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

Nihilism is a political leaning? I find the whole left/right distinction to be fairly empty. Does is mean authoritarian/libertarian, or socialist/capitalist? If I was pro-choice, pro-decriminalisation of heroin, anti-war, economically liberal but anti-welfare, an anarchist and a Randian Objectivist (I *think* I could be all of those at once) would that make me left- or right-wing?

Oh, yeah...and I'd totally be using an Amiga

Disclaimer - I am NOT a Randian anything.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by jellomizer · 2007-03-10 13:19 · Score: 4, Interesting

Left wing or Liberals, are by definition a group of people who push change.
Right wings or Conservative, are by definition a group of people who want to keep the current method.

Someone who is more left is more willing to use Linux, just because it is an attempt to push change.
Someone who is more right is more willing to use Windows, just because it is what they used before.

Before some crazy debate on which side is better. I like to break it down to the following.
Liberals want to make the world better, Conservative want to prevent the world from getting worse.
Liberals in the attempt to make the world better could end up making it worse because they push change to fast and make mistakes.
Conservatives in the attempt to prevent things from getting worse will prevent a new and better idea from continuing.

Now that is fair and balanced without spin... I hope.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Znork · 2007-03-10 13:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Does is mean authoritarian/libertarian, or socialist/capitalist?"

These days it means pretty much fascist/socio-fascist.

Both generalized political leanings have become corrupted with authoritarianism to the extent that neither can be associated with either civil liberties or free market capitalism.

"If I was pro-... make me left- or right-wing?"

It'd make you a dangerous terrorist suspect.

Do not question Authority.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Harmonious+Botch · 2007-03-10 13:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

Liberals want to make the world better, Conservatives want to prevent the world from getting worse. And libertarians realize that nobody is wise enough to do either using the powers of government.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by WhiplashII · 2007-03-10 13:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

How I see it is a little different:

Conservatives want to make the pie bigger, without regard to how the pie is divided.

Liberals want to divide the pie equally, without regard to how big the pie is.

The reason I can not vote for a liberal is that they are saying that they will act against their own best interest - they say that they will act to move money from themselves to the poor. I doubt them when they say that...

On the other hand, a conservative says they will act to make the total available bigger. I believe them when they say that because it is in their best interests - they take a percentage off the top. Eventually everyone else is made better off through trickle-down effects, but at least we are not relying on a politician being honest about harming his own self-interest...

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while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Zugok · 2007-03-10 14:50 · Score: 2, Interesting

"Does is mean authoritarian/libertarian, or socialist/capitalist?"

exactly, try http://politicalcompass.org

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"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by maxume · 2007-03-10 15:27 · Score: 2, Insightful

No meaningful argument can be made about the typical quality of life of today being worse than any time more than 200 years in the past(based, essentially, on the incidence of slavery). 100 and 50 years are a little arguable, but my position is that today is better. The population in 1800 was less than a billion. In 1900, it was less than 2 billion. So the increase is not exclusively a result of the pie growing, but it is a darn fine thing that it is growing.

To the extent that most Americans enjoy a quality of life 98% as good as that of Bill Gates, 'inequality' is not a convincing basis for measurement(at least to me). As long as my slice keeps getting bigger, I'm just not going to look at the size of my neighbors(sort of, mostly in a fiscal policy sense; circumstance of birth based health care is ridiculous in a society as wealthy as the US).

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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by sumdumass · 2007-03-10 16:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

You know, that political compass site is somewhat wrong. I'm not disagreeing with the ranking it gave me but i found the questions to be loaded and misleading sometimes. Also the questions didn't pose answers for me. I found myself marking on way or the other simply because i don't care wasn;'t an option. I also found myself disagreeing with questions not because what they asked but the way they were asked. Take gay adoption, I have no problem with Gays. But I checked disagree because i think that the people should be married before adopting or it leads to problems. The question asked about couples not married people.

I imagine it would be next to impossible to get something to cover everything. But i think this is somewhat loaded on purpose from some of the questions.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by b17bmbr · 2007-03-10 16:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.

you obviously know nothing about libertarianism. it is entirely distinct from libertine, which would be people behaving as poorly as they want. libertarians know very much that freedom requires responsibility. and that's the problem today. people want to be able to do whatever they want, yet want none of the responsibility and desire to blame others. and, libertarians know that freedom can only exist when others act with Aristotelian moderation. Libertarianism is based on the belief that people left to their own will be the most prosperous and will be the most successful.

libertarians also want as little government as possible, but nothing close to anarchy. for example, consider the idea of same-sex marriage. it isn't that libertarians naturally support, but rather, oppose state sanctioned marriage. marriage is a private matter and needs no state imprimatur. issues like joint filing of taxes and property ownership are again, big government issues. there shouldn't be joint filing of taxes, and hell, it's your property, do with it as you please. If given the option in a ballot box, I would oppose same sex marriage, but I don't believe it is a public poliscy issue. and that's a huge difference.

libertarians also oppose government welfare because it is unconstitutional for the government to confiscate the property of one and give it to another. it is also crippling to those who recieve as well as it destroys their initiative.

as for the war, libertarians are split. I tend towards an internationalist though many libertarians tend towards isolationism. but internationals not in consistent with libertariansism as being strong and forceful abroad is fully within the consitutional authority of the government and certainly necessary to deal with enemies abroad to preserve freedom at home.

the attitude that libertarians are a "fuck you I've got mine" lot is one of ignorance and stupidity. they are nothing of the sort. socialism tends far more towards this as socialism is basically "this is all you're going to get, fuck you" system.

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My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by DavidTC · 2007-03-10 16:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

You can be baffled all you want, but that's just because that analogy is very stupid.
The government has always favored those with money. They always end up getting more out of it than poor people. Crimes, for example, are not only classified as worse the more is stolen, but often not even investigated below certain values.
Look at the entire concept of 'limited liability companies'. If you have enough money, you can suddenly not be liable for debts you incurred! (Without having to declare bankruptcy.)
Look at the air traffic control system, run for free by the government, and used only by people and companies that can afford their own planes. Meanwhile, the government bails out those same companies.
Look at copyright law. Extended retroactively after death. Yes, in theory this could benefit random individuals, but in practice almost all 'after-death' copyrights are held by rich individuals or organizations. Meanwhile, they don't make the dozens of changes that could actually result in much more fairness in the music industry, resulting in more works being created. (Which is the point of copyright law.)
And thats just the subtle stuff. For more blatant, go look at police operating as private security for companies. Look at police union-busting activities in the first half of the 20th century, where the police would sometimes literally commit assault on individuals at company direction, and other times just look the other way while the company hired people to do it.
Oh, and for the absolute most subtle thing: Without a government, the rich are, by a very very very high margin, one of the first people to be kidnapped and ransomed, and/or murdered and robbed. The odds of someone kidnapping me are much much lower. Likewise, my contracts are tiny. And barring some sort of physical injury, I would have a hard time suffering more than a few thousand dollars worth of damages if anyone did anything to me. They benefit much more from a society of laws and courts, simply by having more things of value and more people who would want to take those from them.
Liberals just want to alter who some of the benefits are aimed at, aiming more of them at poor people and less at rich. Or, more often, just leaving the ones aimed at the rich alone, and adding new ones aimed at the poor.
Like Anatole France said: The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. He neglected to add that the law, in its majestic equality, allow the poor, as well as the rich, to donate thousands of dollars to politicians, to hire people to protect them from ruffians, and to deduct golfing trips to Europe as business expenses.
And your 'pie' analogy is nonsensical. Money is non-linear. If you're living on 500 a month, and that's raised to 600, you're now a lot better off than if you were living on 50,000 a month and now you're at 60,000.
If 100 people go from 500 to 600, that is a lot better for society than for one person to go from 50,000 to 60,000.
That is so amazingly obviously I have no idea how you're going to redefine 'pie' to attempt to get around it.

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If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Brickwall · 2007-03-10 16:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account.
Then you clearly don't understand Libertarianism at all. I'm tired of a bunch of overpaid buttinskis telling me what I can and cannot do - if I'm not hurting you directly, leave me alone. Banning smoking indoors at bars; OK, even if the science is dubious at best (it actually shows that the only people with significantly heightened risk from secondhand smoke are people who are married to smokers). But to ban it on outdoor patios? The Germans seem to be able to drive at 100 mph without killing themselves more frequently than US or Canadian drivers. Mandatory bicycle helmets? It's my head, thank you; if I want to expose it to injury, that should be my choice, not yours. I prefer the freedom to make the choices in my life, and not have you extort money from me through taxation to support a giant bureaucracy that then imposes its will on me.
In fact, in Canada, we had a recent issue in just this area. The left wing parties wanted to set up a national day care network, which of course would have hundreds of bureaucrats, and provide parents with only one choice. The Conservative party decided to offer a system where parents receive a set amount of money per child, and then can make their own choices about where to spend it: at a traditional daycare, or perhaps a neighbour, or to support stay-at-home moms. Each family makes the choice that makes the most sense for them, and the money-grubbing 'crats are left in the cold. Libertarianism provides many interesting solutions for today's problems.

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What was once true, is no longer so
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by NoMaster · 2007-03-10 17:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

... libertarians know that freedom can only exist when others act with Aristotelian moderation. Libertarianism is based on the belief that people left to their own will be the most prosperous and will be the most successful.
Ah, so real Libertarianism, the one you've elucidated so clearly and are defending so eloquently, is just as pie-in-the-sky and bereft of basic understanding of human nature as the previous and current incarnations of Communism?

Wake me up when Libertarians solve the basic problem of people acting like self-centred greedy fucks (or manufacturing constructs that allow them to avoid the problem of personally acting like self-centred greedy fucks) without regard for others. It seems like this is a necessity for the Libertarian philosopy to work, just as it's a necessity for Communism - real Communism, that is, not the forced "Communist" implementations that have happened so far, and definitely not the 50's-style bogeyman burnt in to the American psyche - to work.
the attitude that libertarians are a "fuck you I've got mine" lot is one of ignorance and stupidity. they are nothing of the sort. socialism tends far more towards this as socialism is basically "this is all you're going to get, fuck you" system.
See, that's what I mean. Try picking up a book by Marx or Engels sometime; you might learn something your schools didn't teach you.

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What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by drgonzo59 · 2007-03-10 17:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have no problem paying more in taxes - though it means less money in my pocket - if we get better schools, healthcare, roads, etc. for everyone.
I lived under a complete communism. And yes, as far as it worked, we all got a small but mostly even part.
HEALTHCARE:
As far as health care was concerned, the Soviets did alright. You would just show up to any hospital / clinic with your book of medical history and you would get medical treatment, no need for insurance cards or anything like that, if you had to stay in the hospital for a month, so be it, you wouldn't have to sell your house, car and blood to be able to do it. Youd didn't get super friendly service with a smile and tons of pain pills but they cured you. I still go back to Russia for medical treatment. I pay less there [they are not communist anymore ;) and I trust those doctors just as much as I trust American doctors.
SCHOOLS:
Primary schools definetly better. I came to US when I was in the 10th grade and I ended up taking Calculus with the seniors and even tutoring them. I was a good student in Russia but not a genius, just average. Secondary education was not as good, a lot of the stuff was not up to date. I never went to a University there but from what I understood that was the case.
ROADS:
Public transportation did work in the cities. But only in the cities in rural areas it wasn't as easy.
Of course...this is assuming that our tax money is actually well-spent, which isn't always the case.
Bingo! That is why it went down to hell. We paid loads of taxes, 30% and up if I am not mistaken. What happens eventually is that 1) some people find a way to not work and still get the common share of the pie 2) the government apparatus starts growing to un-imaginable proportions because those in the government got more than average worker/citizen. All this and constant spending on militarization eventually led to a crash. So total communism/socialism doesn't work. I don't know if total laisser-fair would work either. The giant corporations would suck all the money from everyone. Imagine that all the schools and roads are owned by Enrons or Microsoft..! The answer is probably somewhere in between...who knows...
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by bnenning · 2007-03-10 19:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wake me up when Libertarians solve the basic problem of people acting like self-centred greedy fucks

That's an unavoidable issue with every political system. Greedy fucks with government guns can do quite a bit of damage, and libertarianism tries to minimize that threat.

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How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by grahammm · 2007-03-10 20:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is interesting how many of the world leaders, even those from nominally left wing parties, that they show are in the authoritarian/right wing quadrant. I suppose it is natural for a political leader to be authoritarian as politics attracts those who want to have authority over others.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by shutdown+-p+now · 2007-03-10 21:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

No, libertarians (capitalist and socialist flavours alike) believe that the world has this tendency of magically getting better all by itself.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Haeleth · 2007-03-11 00:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

libertarians also oppose government welfare because it is unconstitutional for the government to confiscate the property of one and give it to another. it is also crippling to those who recieve as well as it destroys their initiative.
I'll ignore the "unconstitutional" bit, because I live outside the USA and regard your country's worship of its constitution with bemusement. Discussions of what's right and wrong should be based on logical arguments, not on what some bit of paper says.

I will, however, contest the second part of your argument. I took welfare payments for about 9 months at one point. Far from "destroying my initiative", it gave me time to consolidate my skills and set myself up in business. Without welfare, I'd have had no option but to take a minimum-wage, maximum-hours job, which would have destroyed my initiative, robbed me of the free time I was able to capitalize on to put my business together, and basically condemned me to a life of poverty.

So, socialist welfare liberated me, while "libertarianism" would have enslaved me? I think I'll stick with socialism, thanks.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by Hognoxious · 2007-03-11 01:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

15 years ago, no music players on the NYc subway.
As a 12 year old, you probably think that cassettes are a myth.. I certainly didn't believe in 8-tracks.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by hey! · 2007-03-11 03:20 · Score: 2, Funny

Nihilism? I've lost my faith in it.

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Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:It's the exact reverse in France... by slysithesuperspy · 2007-03-11 07:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Me, me, me. What about the people who were enslaved to pay for your 9 months welfare?

Easy... by solafide · 2007-03-10 12:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

Left people _tend_ to be richer, so they go for Macs. The far Right (the kind that read the American Conservative) tend to be practically libertarian anyway, so they go for privacy and freedom, which happens to come best with Linux.

Re:Easy... by ereshiere · 2007-03-10 13:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

Where did you get the idea that readers of the American Conservative are "libertarian"? The magazine was founded by Pat Buchanan, a nativist culture warrior who has expressed admiration for pre-WWII America Firsters. Privacy and freedom are not in his vocabulary; far right yes, libertarian no.

Moding up political items by CrazyJim1 · 2007-03-10 12:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

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God spoke to me.

Re:Moding up political items by stevedcc · 2007-03-10 12:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

I think you're forgetting something.

This article is about UK politics. Remember that by British standards, American politics is right wing, or far-right. You need to be very careful when just talking "right" and "left" or "Republican" and "Democrat" if you're comparing UK and US politics.

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todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Re:Moding up political items by Kandenshi · 2007-03-10 12:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

Sounds rather disheartening to me. The internet already makes it really easy to see only the arguements that you want to read, and ignore the points of views that Other People have. It makes for much easier reading/viewing(no need to strain myself to understand another's POV since what I'm reading supports my thoughts). But it seems like a recipe for laz(y/ier) people, who don't have the ability or interest to critically examine a line of thinking.

If I'm reading only the leftist/communist/*nixist side of things then I'll stagnate right? And be less likely to understand how anyone could have any alternate point of view? ewww =(
Re:Moding up political items by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2007-03-10 13:14 · Score: 2, Funny

"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."

Star Trek vs. Star Wars, for example. Hmm... I dig that idea.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Moding up political items by Anonymous Coward · 2007-03-10 14:08 · Score: 3, Informative

By most of the worlds standards of political 'left' and 'right', the US is Far far right wing (embracing much of fascism), when fascism is defined as not just a dictatorship, but 'politics by corporation'. When lobbyists hold much sway over elected public officials (read MPAA, RIAA over senators), patent laws that allow and encourage submarine patents, lawyers that create nothing being able to sue those that do create things (hampering development of new products for 50 or 100 years), corporations dictating whether the environment is undergoing destruction or not (reguardless of how hot it gets or how many hurricanes Florida gets in a season), where 500,000 poor people can get flooded because of the desire to save a few million dollars, but watch a few thousand corporate executive types get killed and billions can be wasted on a war, arbitrarily made up, just to exact revenge on someone --anyone--, then you have fascism (in this case, defined as rule-by-corporation). Perhaps it had its beginnings when Andrew Carnagie was allowed to have more money than the US treasury.
Re:Moding up political items by meringuoid · 2007-03-10 14:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Remember that by British standards, American politics is right wing, or far-right.
Peter Cook put it best:
"American politics is very simple. They have the Republican Party, which is basically like our Conservative Party, and the Democratic Party, which is basically like our Conservative Party."
What you call a far-left bleeding-heart liberal we call a filthy Tory.

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Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Re:Moding up political items by vrai · 2007-03-11 00:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Funny, because I see it as a rush to centre. Both the major parties are in favour of maintaining the current high tax, higher spend policy of Brown (left wing); while simultaneously selling anything that isn't nailed down (right wing). Both parties have policies (if not members) that are broadly pro-American (right wing) and pro-EU centralisation (left wing). Neither party wants to spend much money on the military (left wing) or be overly welcoming to immigrants (right wing). Both parties believe that problems with crime, the NHS, infrastructure and education can be solved with media friendly sound-bites and nothing as scary as major shifts in policy. The only difference is that Labour hates liberty in general while the Tories restrict their hate for people who are poor, black, gay or a drug user.

Which in a two party system, leaves voters with a choice between reactionary puritanical racists and authoritarian power-obsessed fascists.

Another victory for first past the post voting!

It's ... by Freshkid · 2007-03-10 12:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

...a symptom of the subtle switching of poles that has taken place in politics over the past few decades.

My guess, by isotope23 · 2007-03-10 12:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Your "right" leaning folks are probably more independent/market minded. I.E. if free software does the job then why would I pay for something that may not be as good?

Your "left" leaning folks will probably (IMO) be more willing to follow the "alternative crowd" I.E. Apple. To my line of thought, many on the "left" are just as intolerable of individuality as those on the "right". The difference being one
side wants power in the hands of corporations and the government while the other just wants government to have the power.

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Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!

Re:My guess, by LGagnon · 2007-03-10 13:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

while the other just wants government to have the power.
Apperantly you've forgotten about anarchists, who are on the far end of the left. Trust me, not everyone on the left trusts the government.
Re:My guess, by The_Quinn · 2007-03-10 16:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

Anyone who cites Ayn Rand or Michael Crichton as a valid source of knowledge has proven they lack a decent education.
Actually, I have a decent education and I have quoted one or the other of these figures as sources of knowledge from time to time. In anticipation of your weak response, I will remind you:
(From http://www.logicalfallacies.info/notruescotsman.ht ml):
The No True Scotsman fallacy is a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the refutation of one's position. Proposed counter-examples to a theory are dismissed as irrelevant solely because they are counter-examples, but purportedly because they are not what the theory is about.
Example
If Angus, a Glaswegian, who puts sugar on his porridge, is proposed as a counter-example to the claim No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge, the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy would run as follows:
(1) Angus puts sugar on his porridge.
(2) No (true) Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Therefore:
(3) Angus is not a (true) Scotsman. Therefore:
(4) Angus is not a counter-example to the claim that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
This fallacy is a form of circular argument, with an existing belief being assumed to be true in order to dismiss any apparent counter-examples to it. The existing belief thus becomes unfalsifiable.

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Mine is Good
Re:My guess, by misanthrope101 · 2007-03-10 17:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, when Democrats are in office, plenty of Republicans distrust government too. When Clinton was in office I saw that stupid Jefferson "tree of liberty" quote on blogs all the time. It was only after Bush's election (so to speak) that they decided that it was treason to question the executive branch. Strangely, their understanding of the role of Congress in deciding on whether or not the nation wages war also changed with the recent election. When Clinton was in office, Republicans were quite adamant that Congress had the authority to prevent the President from going to war, and even to use the power of the purse to force him to withdraw troops. Of course after the Democrats took a majority in the houses of Congress, Article I Section 8 of the Constitution suddenly changed and none of that is true anymore. If Clinton or Obama is elected in 2008, the Republicans will once again become government-distrusting quasi-anarchists, and every act of the executive and legislative branches will be a horrible rape of lady liberty. It'll be pretty nauseating to watch.

Left / Right not relevant to FOSS. by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · 2007-03-10 12:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

Left / Right leanings are utterly irrelevant to Free software - reasons for choosing free software vary enormously from person to person & are frequently based on traits shared by individuals with widely varying political leanings.

As a leftie, and a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling.

As a person, and a free software advocate, I'd be wary of anyone labelling something as left or right. Debate issues for what they are, instead of trying to categorise them as left or right.

than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple.

Interesting. I wrote recently in my journal about Apple's support for the democrats. The funny thing is, from where I'm sitting, the Dems look right (it's just that the repubs look righter).

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There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.

Why indeed. by truckaxle · 2007-03-10 12:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why do conservatives disregard conservation?

Why do right-to-lifer's support the death penalty?

Why do liberals promote loss of liberty?

Why do those who dodge military service advocate preemptive war?

A few more conundrums to ponder....

Re:Why indeed. by 0123456789 · 2007-03-10 13:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think most liberals (and most non-liberals) want the liberty of not being shot? Personally, I value that liberty more highly than the liberty to carry a gun.
Re:Why indeed. by LGagnon · 2007-03-10 13:37 · Score: 2

Actually, I don't like the Democrats any more than I like the Republicans. But that's because they are both conservative parties. I asked about real liberals, not the Democrats.
Re:Why indeed. by fotbr · 2007-03-10 14:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm a conservative (NOT a Republican -- I can't stand our current batch of crooks, or the party that has produced crook after crook after crook).

There's a difference between conservation and what the environmentalists stand for. I support conservation. I do NOT support the extremist policies the green party wants to enforce. Protecting wildlife, good. Transplanting endangered plants to stop something you don't like, bad. Drilling in Alaska, bad with current tech -- I'm open to the idea of drilling in the future with better technology.

Then again, I'm not like most conservatives. I'm not christian. I'm pagan, and as a result I view nature as something other than being put here entirely for the human race to pillage and plunder.
Re:Why indeed. by chudnall · 2007-03-10 14:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

You have some very good questions mixed with some that have trivial answers. You can look at a specific person and make arguments that some of the trivial answers don't apply, but in a broad sense the questions with trivial answers don't present much of a conundrum:
Why do conservatives disregard conservation?

Good Question.
Why do right-to-lifer's support the death penalty?

Trivial answer: Because they support saving the innocent and punishing the guilty. A better conundrum is, why do some (I said *some*) pro-choicers insist that an innocent unborn human has no rights whatsoever, but that even the most vile drug-dealing, rapist, murderer should never be executed?
Why do liberals promote loss of liberty?

Good Question.
Why do those who dodge military service advocate preemptive war?

Multiple trivial answers: Because that was a long time ago and their perspective has changed. Because every situation is different and they feel that preemptive action is called for now. Because sometimes even those who have a genuine set of altruistic principles that guide their decisions generally, will still act selfishly when things affect them personally. Because they were 18-22 years old at the time. Looking back, God I was a freaking imbecile when I was that age, and wish I could take back most of my major decisions of that time. How about you?

--
Disclaimer: Evolution comes with NO WARRANTY, except for the IMPLIED WARRANTY of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Re:Why indeed. by UserGoogol · 2007-03-10 14:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your liberty to not be shot does not trump THEIR liberty to not be shot. Liberty is pointless if some people have more liberty than others.

--
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Re:Why indeed. by SuperKendall · 2007-03-10 15:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

As a preface, I am mostly libertarian.

Why do conservatives disregard conservation?

Most conservatives I have met are just as fond of the envronment as you or I. They are avid hikers or fishmen or hunters (you want to see an environmentalist who means business? Just look for hunting organizations...). In fact most people that really don't seem to help the environment much live in big cities - which are predominantly liberal. I think that any one group is for or against the environment is a large myth propogated by those wishing to demonize others.

Why do right-to-lifer's support the death penalty?

That's pretty easy to discern - some people have more than worn out thier welcome on earth. Infants being, well, infants all have an equal shot at being productive. I personally believe in abortions (up to a certain point, where the majorty of the populace thinks it's OK) but like Guliani think it's a sucky choice for a mother to make. It's better to give that mother real options instead of abortion or a baby they cannot support.

That questions cuts both ways you know. How could you be for abortion yet anything but the stanchest supporter of the death penalty? It's just an abortion that generally comes too late to help out someone else.

Why do liberals promote loss of liberty?

Now that is a mystery. Next to the things Bush has done we can contrast stuff like the Clipper Chip from the current liberal darling, Al Gore. Government monitoring of all encrypted communications? Al Gore really did invent that.

Why do those who dodge military service advocate preemptive war?

Pretty unfair dig I think at a lot of people that get smarter as they grow up. I think very few of us should be judged heavily by actions taken when young.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Re:Why indeed. by 0123456789 · 2007-03-10 16:25 · Score: 2, Informative

Last time I checked, shooting somebody with a gun was already illegal.
Not in all circumstances. Plenty of people are injured or killed by accidents (both through accidental discharge and through confusion) involving firearms. New York police seem to shoot someone by accident every couple of years, for example. In Britain, returning to the subject of the article, police officers do not routinely carry guns. And there are no political parties in the UK advocating arming the public (hence why the police are rarely armed).
The only people who get hurt while around guns are using them in an illegal and unsafe manner
Such as Amadou Diallo?
Re:Why indeed. by jmv · 2007-03-11 02:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

In fact most people that really don't seem to help the environment much live in big cities

If you look at it carefully, big cities are *good* for the environment. That is, it's much environment-friendly to put millions of people into a few square km than having each of them build a house in the country. Not only do cities require less land per inhabitant (cut less trees), but they tend to also require less energy per inhabitant (at least if public transportation is half-decent). Saying cities are bad for the environment because there's no trees, etc is like saying buses are bad because one bus causes more pollution than one car.

If you're still not convinced. Try imagine what kind of environmental disaster would happen if every Japanese had his own house in the country.

--
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Re:Why indeed. by BeBoxer · 2007-03-11 05:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

Next to the things Bush has done we can contrast stuff like the Clipper Chip from the current liberal darling, Al Gore. Government monitoring of all encrypted communications? Al Gore really did invent that.

I'm wondering, do you have a source for that? Because from what I can tell, the Clipper Chip was in full swing in 1992. Which was, ahem, before Gore was in the White House.

FOIA Document from the FBI dated December 1992. Curiously, this document suggests that the FBI did not seek explicit approval from the Bush administration at the time because that might encourage the incoming Clinton administration to dismiss the policy out of hand. Clearly the Clinton administration did eventually sign off on the program, but "Gore really did invent that" is clearly a false statement.

Bleeding heart pinko commies ... by Anonymous Coward · 2007-03-10 12:43 · Score: 3, Funny

are technically inept. They can only use the software that came on their computers; they stand no chance of getting even Ubuntu installed (even if they knew about it).

Darn, my tongue seems to be embedded in my cheek. My mother warned me that might happen.

The education connection by Mr2001 · 2007-03-10 12:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Education level correlates with leftward politics, and college students tend to be more liberal.

Guess who gets cheap Apple products, and who's exposed to the Apple brand every day through iPods, iTunes, and computers in educational settings? That's right, college students.

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.

Re:The education connection by Anonymous Coward · 2007-03-10 13:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Indoctrination leads more towards leftward politics than education.
Re:The education connection by ductonius · 2007-03-10 13:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

Education level correlates with leftward politics,

*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.
Re:The education connection by Anonymous Coward · 2007-03-10 13:33 · Score: 4, Funny

Or to put it a little more bluntly - many college students have not grown up and become conservatives yet. Some college kids never grow up. We call those professors...

I'm beginning to think that... by eddy · 2007-03-10 12:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Separation of Tech and Politics is as important as Separation of Politics and Religion.

--
Belief is the currency of delusion.

My experiences by ZakuSage · 2007-03-10 13:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

As a libertarian who is often confused as a right-winger, I've been a Mozilla/Firefox user for 5 years and a Linux user for 3 years now. Maybe it has something to do with "rightys" and libertarians prefering less restrictions in every day life and this carrying over into the software realm.

What thinking the groups represent by erroneus · 2007-03-10 13:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Linux/OSS users represent a sense personal and social accountability.

Apple users represent a desire for change and improvement but expect to get that by switching to a popular alternative.

Windows users represent people who just use their computers and don't think about anything else around them. These are the same people who get pissed off when news of a new terrorist threat or attack is on TV... not because they feel a connection with the rest of the world, but because it interrupted their favorite sitcom.

Windows does not represent a choice, but rather, the lack of one.

Not really surprising because... by J'raxis · 2007-03-10 13:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

When a political label like right groups together everything from libertarians to fascists, and left everything from anarchists to communists (and in the U.S., what with our power-mad government generally being identified as right-wing, a lot of libertarians too), this shouldn't surprise people.

And it shouldn't surprise people that someone can be on the "right" but at the same time oppose capitalist businesses in favor of collectively-written Free Software. "Capitalism" is an ideological abstract that virtually all people identifying as "right" or "libertarian" support: It's an economic system based on free markets, free trade, freedom of choice in whom you do business with, competition, and so on.

But a lot of purportedly capitalist businesses aren't very capitalist at all -- they use their power to dominate markets, limit choice, get laws passed favoring them, lock in consumers, destroy competition through anti-competitive practices, and so on. And things like Free Software may be collectively-written and therefore, to a lot of people, smack of socialism, but they offer a lot more choice to people, and there's little force that the author of any given OSS package could exert if everyone one day decided to up and go use something else.

So you end up with some people who can call themselves "capitalist" or "libertarian" (and hence they fall under the "right-wing" label) and yet not at all support corporations like Microsoft nor use their products -- people who see through the language and look at what the companies like this are actually doing.

--
Liberty in your lifetime

groupthink by BertieBaggio · 2007-03-10 13:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

While I think your idea would be interesting to try, and would probably even be helpful on a mainstream political news site, I think moderating that way is a Bad Thing in disguise. Such a system would very powerfully promote groupthink, which is a phenomenon that occurs quite easily even without "affiliation moderation" / "bias moderation" (for want of better terms).

Consider Slashdot, for example. There are occasions when groupthink can be particularly bad - take any article critical of Linux. What generally happens is that the points of the article (or points that other people raise) are refuted (sometimes not systematically, but even one line rejoinders), then modded up. Then someone disputes the refutations, and will be either modded down troll/flamebait, left as they are, and occasionally modded up. Then you typically have another round of refutations that get auto-modded up and the cycle continues.

It's discussion, Jim, but not as we know it. Now, to be fair, this doesn't happen on every story here; and it has been getting better in recent years, though it can be variable. In fact, the discussion is primarily the reason I spend so much time on /. - despite the trolls, frist psots, and Soviet Russia posts, there will be a good deal of genuinely intelligent discourse.

To get back to the parent's moderation idea. I think it could be useful in a couple of cases:

Case 1: Generic Political News Site - delivers headlines and articles based on party affiliation. Mainly there as a story aggregator, with little / no discussion. Maybe spits out a custom RSS feed based on a combination of the moderation and your preferences.

Case 2: Political News Discussion Site - hybridise /.-style editorial selection with moderation. Most stories will be those that the group wants, but editors can most stories that are important despite making a group uncomfortable.

Admittedly those scenarios are fairly similar, but someone could take them and spin them into a service a good few folk would use. Of course it depends on your objective - do you want to provide a selection of interesting stories that folk can read over lunch (case 1), or do you want to provide stories while promoting discussion (case 2). I'm firmly in the discussion camp. In fact, here on /. I recently friended a former foe because a post of his made me realise that he was making posts that went against the groupthink, but had 'truthiness' and were valid counterpoints. Note that I don't agree with all of his opinions, but I do think his expressing them is important. I might even just try and find the post that made me foe him in the first place...

--
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar

Obligatory Walter Sobchak by ZaMoose · 2007-03-10 13:32 · Score: 3, Funny

Nihilists?

I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

--
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.

The US Left and FOSS by carolsim · 2007-03-10 13:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

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

Not political. by bm_luethke · 2007-03-10 13:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Because most "right side" people do not really consider software as a political tool but simply as a tool. As such, many of us (myself included) choose based on which allows me to do my work the best. My guess is that the lefties mostly do the same thing and Apple is the trendy thing in many of those circles right now. Over time I rather suspect it shifts around.

For home, that is currently a windows XP system because of gaming and "free" software for nearly everything else. At work, Linux for real work (being able to access source has *really* helped in many cases) and windows when I have to interface with something like the secretaries end of the world.

My guess is that is a fairly common attitude once people know the technical ends. I know quite a few people who use firefox/thunderbird, gimp, and other "free license" software that have absolutely no idea that it has a political side. They are just happy to get great software, even better for no cost.

Those that feel Linux is the path to socialism are, well, gonna be quite disappointed as few people even think of software as a political tool (and both Microsoft defenders and many Open Source advocates feel that way). People generally choose tools based on how well the solve their problems, not to make a political statement. Thus it is nearly as impossible for software to pave the way for socialism as it is for a screwdriver to sway minds - if licensing gets too restrictive it - and software that uses it - just will not be used and that is true for *both* sides (closed source and GPL type licenses)

--
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it

Labels by alexgieg · 2007-03-10 13:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

Simple: "Left" and "Right", even when coupled with adjectives such as "Extreme", "Far", "Moderate", "Center-" etc., offer a very limited set of labels to describe political positions. The political landscape isn't a line, it's more of a multidimensional entity. You have a line that goes from "Anarchism" to "Totalitarianism", another that goes from "Individualism" to "Collectivism", another that goes from "Progressism" to "Conservatism", another that goes from "Monarchism" to "Republicanism", another that goes from "Federalism" to "Centralism", another that goes from "Authoritarianism" to "Democratism", another that goes from "Theocracism" to "Secularism", another that goes from "Realism" to "Idealism" (this one is usually tied to International Relations), and so on and so forth. Any single individual can be at any point in each and every of these lines, and any attempt to group all these differing positionings into a mere two overly-broad categories is by definition bound to ultimately fail. Human beings, thus human politics, are and will always be a complex phenomenon.

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

"Tories want open source Whitehall" by AirLace · 2007-03-10 13:48 · Score: 5, Informative

BBC News: Tories want open source Whitehall

The government could save more than £600 million a year if it used more open source software, the shadow chancellor has estimated.

George Osborne said the savings would cut 5% off Whitehall's annual IT bill.

What I found inspiring about the talk by a leading Conservative MP was that it emphasised not so much the savings of going Open Source, but that it embraced the idealogogy as a philosophy to run an entire government. I am not a Conservative, but this talk inspired my faith in UK politics as a whole.

Left-wingers by Omnifarious · 2007-03-10 14:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. But neither am I a liberal. I actually find the fact that so many liberatarians seem to think the Republicans are the party to vote for to be quite puzzling and leads me to believe that the libertarian party members don't believe their own rhetoric.

But whenever I talk to a left-winger the attitude I get is that this software stuff just isn't very important compared to the hunger and suffering of everybody. I really wonder at this attitude as it seems that most of them don't seem very pragmatic or even interested in realistic attempts to end this situation. They all seem to think that the rich folks should naturally realize that their gains are ill-gotten and find it in their hearts to give up their money to feed the poor souls who don't have food, clothing, medical care or whatever other thing it is they feel people deserve as a matter of course.

So, truly, software doesn't matter to them. And they see no benefit to free software as they just see it as yet another way for rich people to get richer. The idea that people who don't have money could use the software and perhaps make some doesn't seem to occur to them. They are too wrapped up in their little world in which everybody is taken care of by somebody to think that way.

BTW, if you want to flame me... I think the income distribution in the United States is whacked. I also think we may be the first generation to be giving up the freedoms necessary for class mobility. I think intellectual property is one road by which this might happen. If we ever lose class mobility, we are royally screwed as a nation, especially with the income distribution being so totally whacked.

And I do not think being poor is necessarily the fault of the poor person. But the best way for them to become not poor is by finding something they can do or be that others find valuable. It will do them and everybody else a whole ton of good and is more effective than any handout program anybody ever thought of.

--
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop

Re:Left-wingers by Brandybuck · 2007-03-10 15:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm not a conservative by any stretch of the imagination. But neither am I a liberal. I actually find the fact that so many liberatarians seem to think the Republicans are the party to vote for to be quite puzzling and leads me to believe that the libertarian party members don't believe their own rhetoric.

That one is easy to answer. Libertarians believe in small government. The Republican Party at least talks about small government. It may not actually believe it, and is certainly not doing a damned thing to rein in the growth of government, but at least they are talking about it.

And believe it or not, there are indeed genuine libertarians within the Republican party. Many libertarian positions were shocking in 1977, to both mainstream parties. Now many of them are standard conservative positions, just in a more moderate form. Lower taxes, reduced spending, etc. And not just economic positions. It was a Republican president to abolished the draft, and only Democrats have ever proposed returning to it.

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Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Re:Left-wingers by Alex+Belits · 2007-03-10 15:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

First.

Otherwise dollar is 500 times cheaper, because the volume of production is physically limited by two people hunting goats on Tobago, the only situation when this example can be possibly relevant.

--
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Re:Left-wingers by homer_s · 2007-03-11 04:22 · Score: 2, Informative

But the events in the world have not shown (2) to be true.

Everyone is better off (see this video for the stats-
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244 338529080&sourceid=searchf

Fifty years ago, not even the richest person in world had access to the kind of medical care, communications, etc the average person has access to today. The life expectancy is higher. The quality of housing, transportation, etc is also higher.

So, (2) in your example is simply not true (except for countries like Zimbabwe where people are not free to produce what they want).
Re:Left-wingers by Brandybuck · 2007-03-11 07:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

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!

Lefty != Libertarian by EmbeddedJanitor · 2007-03-10 14:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

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... by Brandybuck · 2007-03-10 14:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

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!

Conservative Party Advocating Open Source by TobascoKid · 2007-03-10 14:57 · Score: 3, Informative

There's an article at the BBC about how the Conservative party is advocating the use of FOSS in government.

--
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.

of course by bitspotter · 2007-03-10 16:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Makes sense to me.

Open Source advocates are people who understand that OSS is a functional adaptation of the software marketplace to concentrated market control. For those interested in advocating free markets (in which competition is better for everyone than monopolization), using OSS to break abusive monopolies is a good deal.

So, to clarify, OSS advocates are actually free-market libertarians; Microsoft and Apple apologists are actually the commie fascists. I realize that's the opposite of the convention, but think about it.

Re:Part of the problem by InsaneGeek · 2007-03-10 16:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm sorry but you are just plain wrong... it seems that you aren't thinking past 7 years ago and or political sound bites.

A classical democrat believes that the rights of the group is more important than the individual i.e.:
Gun control: believes that the individual right to bear arms is less important than protecting society from the dangerous gun owners
Affirmative action: believes that minorities as a group start so far behind that they need to be given benefits based solely on minority statis rather than by their individual achievements
political correctness/hate crimes: believe that certain speech and actions against an individual act at a nationwide group/race level
Taxation distribution: believe that the government can more efficiently dole out benefits at a national group level, being able to shift money from state to state and manage projects there
Wealth redistribution: believe that the government will effectively redistribute money from the wealthier group and give to the poorer group increasing the overall national economy
Business: believes that the government should be actively involved in regulating the business, to protect the group of consumers

A classical republican believes that the rights of the individual is more important than the group:
Gun control: believes that the individual's rights to bear arms is more important that penalizing all gun owners for the actions of a few individuals
Affirmative action: believes that people are all individuals and each person should be looked at individually
political correctness/hate crimes: believe that peoples actions against an individual are actions against an individual not a group and existing laws are sufficient
Taxation distribution: believe that taxation benefits should occur less at a national group level and more at a state/regional level where state/regional isuess can be more effectively identified and managed since they are closer to it
Wealth redistribution: believes that the
Business: believes that the government should have a hands-off approach in that individual consumers will be the determining factor in how a business is ran

You'll kind of see a trend as to where the two parties differences lies here and their actual historical laws back that up... group level vs individual level. This would be the reason why you are incorrect and the reason why I think you don't have a memory > 7 years ago, the current President isn't acting like a classical anything. He has a good mix of both going on.

Additionally, your statement "living your personal life" is a *moral* issue regarding abortion, gay rights, etc. and is not part of any classical political affiliation. Only very recently has these moral issues crept into party lines. Since it is a moral issue, it's very much an individual there are the gay republicans and there are the anti-abortion democrats and a bazillion shades in between as to the definition: i.e. abortion is legal until the 1st week, 1st month, 1st trimester, 2nd trimester, abort while baby is half out of the body, a week-month after it's actual birth (yes I've talked with people who actually believe that, in the case of birth defects).

Agreed by einhverfr · 2007-03-10 16:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Albeit I consider myself left-leaning, a free software user, and a conservative (yes, that is right. I just look back to a different time in history from the right-leaning conservatives).

Free software is almost the purest expression of "socializing the means of production" I know of. Not in the Soviet sense, but in a different sense. Essentially, those of us who put our effort into the softrware own it. THose who want to use the software get a more limited sense of ownership just by virtue of using the software. But this isn't like soviet communism (what I call Neofeudalism because everything is centrally run by the state) but a real grass-roots communal ownership of the production process (closer in my book to what Marx was talking about anyway).

At the same time, this form of socialism/communism is actually more right-ward leaning than left-ward leaning in that it supports a sense of independance and self-determinism rather than a sense of obedience to legal frameworks built by large collectives (corporations) that we do not own simply by using their products (purchasing power is not ownership if we are afraid to use it).

So there you have it. FOSS is a great right-wing communist conspiracy aimed at world domination!

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

The two party system by jesterzog · 2007-03-10 16:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

This is why I'm glad the country I live in has a democratic system that doesn't automatically dismiss anyone who doesn't fit into one of two main categories, but actually fosters a government that's formed by people with all kinds of different views, in a structure that actually encourages them to negotiate and work together.

I don't mean to criticise you personally, but I think the fact that you leapt straight to the democrat/republican divide, just as everyone else does when referring to the US federal political system, exemplifies one of the biggest problems with the US Federal democracy. Most people seem to be so accepting of the status quo that there's little or zero opportunity for anyone different to have a chance. This results in large amounts of inefficiency and corruption, and a system where it's not possible to get anywhere in politics without aligning oneself with one side or the other.

If that isn't enough, people's alignments are thrown around to score political points. For instance, it shouldn't be an issue that Bush's Science Advisor is a democrat, but it's been a fallacy used over and over again to justify that Bush's science policies must somehow be "scientifically neutral" and fair to all. Everyone who's analysed by the media is thrown into one of the two sides, and the have to be on one side or the other or they get dismissed and ignored as irrelevant.

Re:Part of the problem by misanthrope101 · 2007-03-10 17:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

I fear that some of your generalizations don't map that well to reality. Part of the problem is that Democrat isn't synonymous with liberal, and Republican doesn't necessarily mean conservative. The parties are political coalitions of sometimes antithetical elements, like the libertarian-leaning Republicans and the Christian Reconstructionist Republicans.

A classical republican believes that the rights of the individual is more important than the group:

Unless they're gay, or a drug user, or a non-Christian. Look at the Republican resistance to medical marijuana and other decriminilization efforts--these efforts have the voters behind them (as in democracy), but the Repubs still will not give an inch. They are also more than willing to subject everyone to their definition of a "Christian nation" even though we aren't all Christian. So those individual rights are not actually sacrosanct--it all depends on whether the rights you want to exercise are in alignment with the agenda of the social conservatives. Conservatives are no more respectful of individual liberty than liberals. When you get Limbaugh and Coulter to side with ending the drug war and legalizing prostitution, I'll be convinced. They're just as power-hungry and totalitarian as their own worst suspicions about Hillary Clinton.

Libertarian vs Authoritarian by Per+Abrahamsen · 2007-03-10 20:03 · Score: 3, Informative

The attitude to free software does not correlate well to the left-right axes of politics, but rather to the libertarian-authoritarian axes.

RMS and ESR are on opposite ends of the left-right axes, but they are both extreme libertarians on the libertarian-authoritarian axes.

Re:Part of the problem by hax0r_this · 2007-03-10 20:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Can you read? He fairly specifically said "classical republican". You would have to be drunk (or stoned?) to think that Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter are "classical republicans".

Gay couples by Per+Abrahamsen · 2007-03-11 02:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

I guess he just stumbled over the wrong word. He doesn't believe unmarried couples should be allowed to adopt. So rather than answering the intended question (adoption by gays) he answered an unrelated question (adoption by unmarried couples).

Free Markets vs Centralized Planning by Sloppy · 2007-03-11 04:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

The values of Free Software are such that it views a programmers' labor -- his act of creation -- is his economic contribution, rather than the software itself. The economic cost/value of software is measured in hours, not copies. (Which makes sense to me, because additional "units" of software can be copied for free; don't try to look at automobile manufacturing that way! ;-)

Another aspect of Free Software is that the software can be modified by the user or anyone he chooses to designation. Users can't ever get "locked in" to something they don't want.

The consequences of all this, is that use of Free Software results in a free market for software and the labor used to create it.

Proprietary software doesn't really work very well with a free market. As a user, if you want a feature or bugfix for MS Windows, for example, you'll find you have very few options available to you. Furthermore, to some extent, the prevention of the free market from coming about, isn't merely due to the user not having the source code (though that is, no doubt, the biggest reason); it's also due to copyright law. Even if a MS Windows user somehow obtains the source code to the software he runs, it's unlawful for him to take advantage of that and maintain it, sell his maintenance labor to others, etc. Government enforcement of the monopoly, done for the "common good" (encouraging copyright holders to create products), keeps market forces from deciding who gets the job of maintaining a piece of software.

Free Software is about a free market in programming labor; proprietary software is about centralized planning of software products and the use of force to keep it centralized. A Free-For-All versus Father-Knows-Best.

Why wouldn't these two different ways of looking at software and the free-vs-planned approach, correlate with a person's other political views?

I don't know much about British politics, but in the American system, I would expect Free Software advocates to be generally roughly conservative and proprietary advocates to be liberal. You probably wouldn't see that map onto the major parties though, since the two major parties have nearly identical stands on economic freedom, government management of the economy, etc. It's hard to look at the Republicans and Democrats and say one party is more liberal or conservative than the other, in that way.

There might be some correlation between advocates of each system, and representation of "fringe" parties such as Libertarian or Communist; those parties' platforms have something to say about government's role in the economy, central planning, etc.

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Fiscally conservative and free software by AntiMac · 2007-03-11 05:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

For some reason, when I read "Political Leaning and Free Software", I was presuming the exact opposite of what the article went on to say. My thoughts were: those pot-smoking-hippie-leftists would like free software, because it's "free" as in "Freebird", "free-spirited", etc.

However, speaking as someone that is often called an "ultra-conservative" (and I don't argue that), perhaps the appeal of free software is the "free" as in "free beer" aspect, because we are fiscally conservative. If we can save ourselves from spending a couple of hundred dollars on an operating system, a couple hundred more on an office suite... you're damn right we're going to find some way out of paying that. In my case, free software is keeping me from resorting to piracy :)

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Good capitalists, they are by DeDuvel · 2007-03-11 07:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Proof that free marketeers are smarter than left-liberals? ;-)

But seriously, most free (as in libre) software is also free (as in gratis). Any good capitalist would choose a product that (i) performs as desired, (ii) comes with the least restrictions and fine print, and (iii) is cheaper than alternatives. IMHO, the price/performance of a FLOSS platform such as Ubuntu with Firefox and OOo can't be beat. Windows loses on (i), (ii) and, of course, (iii). Office loses on (ii) and (iii), which on balance is probably enough to justify not using it. Don't know about IE. It just sucks too much to even rate it.

Disliking Microsoft's software doesn't require denying the company's right to act however it sees fit. By contrast, using FLOSS software doesn't require buying into a socialist mindset, which may seem common among its practitioners but isn't essential. I can imagine many FLOSS users who wouldn't dream of releasing their own work under the GPL if that meant starving, or who'd only release some after-hours hacking under the GPL.

Besides, the GPL establishes IP in the form of copyright, and explicitly limits the rights others have to it anyway. Just like one would do with copyright work released under a different (eg. commercial) licence. There's nothing inherently anti-market about FLOSS, so nothing that need inherently scare off right-leaning people. Oh, did I mention it's often free?

conservative = conservative by sbump · 2007-03-11 09:05 · Score: 2

Being a techie (and lefty) person with many techy and mostly lefty associates, I've seen the people around me move gradually from a prevalance to use various unixes to more macs as the mac under OSX became better. This isn't as insulting to conservative minded people as it sounds. It's conservative in the good sense to use something well-tested before jumping along to the next hot thing.

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