It explains the thing in terms of two axes. It decouples the right/left aspect from the liberal/authoritarian aspect. Your political position is represented as a pair of coordinates in a quadrant. I got X;Y = -9.12;-7.13.
This means I'm a very liberal, very leftist guy. But the free-market rock-star economist Milton Friedman is also liberal, only on the opposite side. And it's his recipes that are being applied throughout the world since the 80s.
I can't speak for the federal/state government issues because I'm ignorant about that. But is it left-wing to like the federal government? Here in Europe the commies hate the European Union's guts.
Redistributing the wealth of people with less than you is typical behaviour of the rich, right or left. They all want to escape taxes but they loooove juicy government contracts to make their companies richer. That's why the less government unregulated free-market bullshit will never succeed. Everybody wants to suck mama-State's big tits. The rich advocate less social spending because they want more for their own pockets. Of course this is not sustainable.
About healthcare, it is a right in all developed countries (and many 3rd world) except the USA, it works better than the system you have and it costs a lot less. So I don't see your point, here.
About the nutjob thing, I agree that many American right-wing politicians and pundits sound like dangerous psychopaths to me. When I was working in the USA I used to watch Fox News to have a few laughs in the end of the day. We have a few really bad newspapers and TVs here, but I could never imagine that something like that was actually possible.
Anyway, are the Hollywood millionaires and the Silicon Valley executives so keen on all these things? Are you sure? They live in hundred-million-dollar mansions. Why would they give a fuck?
Hey, I got modded offtopic. Guess I hit a nerve, somewhere. Listen mod: HOW ON EARTH IS THIS OFFTOPIC? Don't you have better places to spend your mod points? Asshole.
I never said it's a bad thing. But while Anglo-Saxons use "liberal" to mean personal choice of lifestyle, non-Anglo-Saxons use liberal in the free-market sense, like no regulations for businesses and corporations.
So, while the word is connoted with the left in Anglo-Saxon sense, it means right-wing outside of it.
I agree with you that the political ideas are hard to divide in left-right, the dimensions are so many.
The Conservatives basically want to lower public spending, lower taxes and re-jig the taxes so that the rich stay rich (it's not what they say, but it's obviously their goal), while Labour promotes higher taxes for higher public spending, and a somewhat opposite tax policy. Both would be considered liberal (or social liberal to be more precise) but thier views on economics are very different, and that is what defines them. Both would best be described as centre or centre-left, with Labour being more left. The Conservatives are essentially conservative+social liberal, while Labour are basically socialist+social liberal.
I disagree with you. Labours and most European parties which call themselves "Socialist" have jumped the fence to the right side. Basically they all surrendered to the free-market dogmas (called neoliberal around here). The social concerns are merely cosmetic, they're all in bed with corporations and high-finance. They distinguish themselves from the conservative only on the private moral issues, since all of them want the same: Privatisation of public services, no regulations for corporations, no social protection, etc.
If some rule or law is deemed unconstitutional in court, then it's not applicable. If a country signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it supersedes the countries law. Cases like those have happened a few times in my country.
I wouldn't go so far as to declare this a human rights issue but the Rosa Parks is definitely one.
The case of Rosa Parks was one of human rights and those have prevalence over city ordinance. In this case the environment protection should prevail over this stupid ordinance, but IANAL.
Yeah, I'm sure all those millionaires are members of the Communist party and want to lead the people's revolution to distribute wealth and put down the... millionaires? Wait, there's something wrong here.
Outside the Anglo-Saxon world, liberal actually means right-wing. The economic and political doctrines are the same but the liberals don't care so much about religion and family values and advocate personal liberty on those matters.
And then there are the Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats that we consider left-wing, but those don't exist in the USA.
Since the Conservative Revolution in the 80s we've had most major political parties converting to liberalism in Europe. This means less regulations (for corporations), less taxation (for corporations), less government (translation: less social spending), privatisation of public services, etc.
In short, the common people pay more taxes and receive less from the State, the corporations and the ultra-rich are free to fuck everybody in the ass and make all the money they want.
Funny thing, everybody talks about the government expense these days. It's like the Devil itself. But the current free-market doctrine does nothing then making it worse and worse. As an example, the government builds a new public hospital, then gives it to a private corporation for management because "private is more efficient". The service is worse, the costs (supported by the State) are huge, but they move on as if this was a good idea. The same for everything you can imagine, from schools to public transportation, to roads. All the right wing pundits on TV and papers (they're all right wing, anyway) bitch and bitch and bitch about taxation and government spending, but they all defend this absurd model of the government handing millions to privates for (mis) managing public services and facilities. It's pretty clear to somebody owning a brain that this is a doomed model, but it's the standard in the Western world, nowadays.
I think the main cause of the problem is American press influenced by GM trying create mass hysteria to make the auto market leaders look like shit. Good luck.
Because he lived in Finland for two years. The taxation there doesn't kill people but they still get as good healthcare as in the US because they can save a lot of costs through less administrative overhead since there is no middle man deciding what is and what isn't covered. The doctors make the decisions with the patients. Medical bankruptcies are unthinkable. A visit to a doctor or a hospital stay costs 20 euros no matter what treatment you need. Any prescription drug costs 3 euros. And all annual medical expenses exceeding 600 euros are covered.
When a UK actress went to get a PAP smear at age 20 (as a preventive measure and because both her mother and grandmother had cancer), she was denied by the UK Government's NICE (aka nasty) (aka rationing) organization. She was denied again at ages 21, 22, 23, 24. By the time she was 25 it was too late. She had cervical cancer.
My grandmother flew to the Moon riding a pink unicorn. What, you don't believe it?
However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming.
No, not the Bush bullshit all over again. I understand you Americans don't give a fuck about droughts in Africa and floods in Bangladesh but haven't you have enough of hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, desertification, droughts, etc. etc. etc.? Global warming affects you too, and BIG TIME!
I see American soldiers in Iraq carrying a machine connected to a loudspeaker. They speak American into the machine and it says loud, in Arab: "Don't be afraid. We are your friends!".
Slashdot Mirror
Is that true? Because I haven't noticed the same mass hysteria that's been going on about Toyota. It's the "free" media we have.
The right/left division is somewhat flawed. I came across with this some years ago:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
It explains the thing in terms of two axes. It decouples the right/left aspect from the liberal/authoritarian aspect. Your political position is represented as a pair of coordinates in a quadrant. I got X;Y = -9.12;-7.13.
This means I'm a very liberal, very leftist guy. But the free-market rock-star economist Milton Friedman is also liberal, only on the opposite side. And it's his recipes that are being applied throughout the world since the 80s.
Communists are right wing? That's a new one. You're right, I need to be around more.
I can't speak for the federal/state government issues because I'm ignorant about that. But is it left-wing to like the federal government? Here in Europe the commies hate the European Union's guts.
Redistributing the wealth of people with less than you is typical behaviour of the rich, right or left. They all want to escape taxes but they loooove juicy government contracts to make their companies richer. That's why the less government unregulated free-market bullshit will never succeed. Everybody wants to suck mama-State's big tits. The rich advocate less social spending because they want more for their own pockets. Of course this is not sustainable.
About healthcare, it is a right in all developed countries (and many 3rd world) except the USA, it works better than the system you have and it costs a lot less. So I don't see your point, here.
About the nutjob thing, I agree that many American right-wing politicians and pundits sound like dangerous psychopaths to me. When I was working in the USA I used to watch Fox News to have a few laughs in the end of the day. We have a few really bad newspapers and TVs here, but I could never imagine that something like that was actually possible.
Anyway, are the Hollywood millionaires and the Silicon Valley executives so keen on all these things? Are you sure? They live in hundred-million-dollar mansions. Why would they give a fuck?
What charge?
Hey, I got modded offtopic. Guess I hit a nerve, somewhere. Listen mod: HOW ON EARTH IS THIS OFFTOPIC? Don't you have better places to spend your mod points? Asshole.
How is personal liberty for religion and "family values" a bad thing? More specifically, how is it in any way right-wing? The right are basically out to "preserve social order or traditional values" while the left "support for social change with a view towards creating a more egalitarian society". I really don't see how personal liberty towards ANY subject is counter to that.
I never said it's a bad thing. But while Anglo-Saxons use "liberal" to mean personal choice of lifestyle, non-Anglo-Saxons use liberal in the free-market sense, like no regulations for businesses and corporations.
So, while the word is connoted with the left in Anglo-Saxon sense, it means right-wing outside of it.
I agree with you that the political ideas are hard to divide in left-right, the dimensions are so many.
The Conservatives basically want to lower public spending, lower taxes and re-jig the taxes so that the rich stay rich (it's not what they say, but it's obviously their goal), while Labour promotes higher taxes for higher public spending, and a somewhat opposite tax policy. Both would be considered liberal (or social liberal to be more precise) but thier views on economics are very different, and that is what defines them. Both would best be described as centre or centre-left, with Labour being more left. The Conservatives are essentially conservative+social liberal, while Labour are basically socialist+social liberal.
I disagree with you. Labours and most European parties which call themselves "Socialist" have jumped the fence to the right side. Basically they all surrendered to the free-market dogmas (called neoliberal around here). The social concerns are merely cosmetic, they're all in bed with corporations and high-finance. They distinguish themselves from the conservative only on the private moral issues, since all of them want the same: Privatisation of public services, no regulations for corporations, no social protection, etc.
No, it's not.
If some rule or law is deemed unconstitutional in court, then it's not applicable. If a country signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it supersedes the countries law. Cases like those have happened a few times in my country.
I wouldn't go so far as to declare this a human rights issue but the Rosa Parks is definitely one.
The case of Rosa Parks was one of human rights and those have prevalence over city ordinance. In this case the environment protection should prevail over this stupid ordinance, but IANAL.
Yeah, I'm sure all those millionaires are members of the Communist party and want to lead the people's revolution to distribute wealth and put down the... millionaires? Wait, there's something wrong here.
Outside the Anglo-Saxon world, liberal actually means right-wing. The economic and political doctrines are the same but the liberals don't care so much about religion and family values and advocate personal liberty on those matters.
And then there are the Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats that we consider left-wing, but those don't exist in the USA.
Since the Conservative Revolution in the 80s we've had most major political parties converting to liberalism in Europe. This means less regulations (for corporations), less taxation (for corporations), less government (translation: less social spending), privatisation of public services, etc.
In short, the common people pay more taxes and receive less from the State, the corporations and the ultra-rich are free to fuck everybody in the ass and make all the money they want.
Funny thing, everybody talks about the government expense these days. It's like the Devil itself. But the current free-market doctrine does nothing then making it worse and worse. As an example, the government builds a new public hospital, then gives it to a private corporation for management because "private is more efficient". The service is worse, the costs (supported by the State) are huge, but they move on as if this was a good idea. The same for everything you can imagine, from schools to public transportation, to roads. All the right wing pundits on TV and papers (they're all right wing, anyway) bitch and bitch and bitch about taxation and government spending, but they all defend this absurd model of the government handing millions to privates for (mis) managing public services and facilities. It's pretty clear to somebody owning a brain that this is a doomed model, but it's the standard in the Western world, nowadays.
Public service: Translation to standard units.
They went from spending roughly 1.1 million litres in 2007 of water to only 220 000 in 2009.
I think the main cause of the problem is American press influenced by GM trying create mass hysteria to make the auto market leaders look like shit. Good luck.
I'm glad this is happening in good ol'England, not some European nanny-state, oppressive, Socialist country. I feel a lot safer.
We all know how those nasty commies want to control everything. Can't be too careful.
until very recently, in Northern Europe, beer was drunk by just about everyone (drinking untreated water tended to be rather lethal).
There, fixed it for you. In the South, everybody drank wine.
Only some religionists. Others drink alcohol in their ceremonies (e.g. Anglican Christians, and plenty of pagans, druids etc)
Catholic priests drink red wine during mass to symbolise the Blood of Christ.
And for both, you have the public health care system.
Because he lived in Finland for two years. The taxation there doesn't kill people but they still get as good healthcare as in the US because they can save a lot of costs through less administrative overhead since there is no middle man deciding what is and what isn't covered. The doctors make the decisions with the patients. Medical bankruptcies are unthinkable. A visit to a doctor or a hospital stay costs 20 euros no matter what treatment you need. Any prescription drug costs 3 euros. And all annual medical expenses exceeding 600 euros are covered.
Yeah, that sounds like living in hell to me.
When a UK actress went to get a PAP smear at age 20 (as a preventive measure and because both her mother and grandmother had cancer), she was denied by the UK Government's NICE (aka nasty) (aka rationing) organization. She was denied again at ages 21, 22, 23, 24. By the time she was 25 it was too late. She had cervical cancer.
My grandmother flew to the Moon riding a pink unicorn. What, you don't believe it?
Insurance should be for unforeseen accidents. Things that cost over $5,000 lets say. Not for your viagra or birth control.
Oh, do I see a puritan prejudice in this statement?
Excuse me, I hold the rights to my own image. That has SHIT to do with freedom of speech.
Yes, originated in Italy and ended in New Jersey.
However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming.
No, not the Bush bullshit all over again. I understand you Americans don't give a fuck about droughts in Africa and floods in Bangladesh but haven't you have enough of hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, desertification, droughts, etc. etc. etc.? Global warming affects you too, and BIG TIME!
Take your head out of your ass, it's about time.
Yeah. He should, at least have said kittens...
...what could possibly go wrong?
I see American soldiers in Iraq carrying a machine connected to a loudspeaker. They speak American into the machine and it says loud, in Arab: "Don't be afraid. We are your friends!".