Are you Left, Center, Or Right Wing?

Are you Left, Center, or Right Wing?

  • Left

    Votes: 24 7.8%

  • Center

    Votes: 46 14.9%

  • Right Wing

    Votes: 152 49.4%

  • Other

    Votes: 86 27.9%
  • Total voters
    308
Status
Not open for further replies.
Libertarian Here!

Most say being a Libertarian is "right". I often disagree. I have no problem with social 'safety nets' that are designed to catch folks that fall off the ladder. I'm opposed to social programs that SHAKE folks off the ladder...which is what we have today. Most importantly, I'm a Libertarian when it comes to issues outside the US. For instance, I believe our brave troops stationed all over this planet should be brought home TO PROTECT OUR BORDERS, just like the constitution demands. We should not be using troops to protect oil company profits or the ideological ravings of a few lunatics in power.
 
Pure constitutionalist here.

Don't interfere with my rights and I won't interfere with yours.
Don't want to impose my religious beliefs on any one else, let them make their own decisions.
Federal governement should provide for defense, negotiate international treaties, govern insterstate commerce (but only in a narrowly defined way), ensure others are not allowed to interfere with my constitutional rights.
 
Durruti said:
I really like the idea of creating another poll with more nuanced choices. Maybe ten or twelve options.
Click to expand...
Durruti, I'd add "nonpolitical" and "all-over-the-mapist" to your list.
 
In the words of my liberal friends I'm an Ultra Neocon right winger...

But I like to think of myself as an American...


C
 
I think that governemt should restrict itself to the dutied listed in the Constution, and in gemeral, leave us the He** alone. Every problem they try to fix either gets worse, becomes two new problems, ends up costing mega-bucks, or all of the above. The feds do not have a good track record.

Two programs I strongly support are defense and education. Education provides good citizens for our future, and defense insures there will be a future!
 
Seriously, though, why don't you agree?
Click to expand...
Because it's nothing more than a statement of bias. You assign characteristics you find positive to one side and negative to the other, then present it as The Only Way Things Can Be.

Kinda like redefining 'fascist' so you can stick it at the opposite end from yourself.
 
i claim to be center, and would be in line with what g5 said,

Right wing when it comes to the economy and my personal rights I've very conservatave financially, don't spend my money on programs that are hand-outs, don't take away my rights, don't tell me what I can do on my property. Take away my guns, my right to privacy, my right to speech, my right to express myself and I draw the line. I believe in the death penalty.

Left Wing when it comes to personal choice, anyone should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else, Want to do drugs fine get high, like to have sex with the same fine, gay marriage, I don't care doesn't effect me. Woman doesn't want to have the child she got knocked up with, it's her body to do with what she wants, just like mine is to do with what I want. Personal choice. Right To life and death.

Therfore I feel like I'm in the middle. Some cal me right some Left
Click to expand...

ok, so what does this make me? confused? libertarian? candidate for freud's next appointment?
 
sorry....I don't enjoy being labelled.

these terms are just tools in the hands of the media to marginalize and discredit anything you say, regardless of how sound your thinking is.
 
SSN Vet, I think you are probably right. The better poll would be to take things issue by issue. Labels don't accomplish much.
 
I don't identify any of those choices with being particularly concerned about honoring the Constitution. I also associate them more with social issue polarity than with the real business of government.
 
In my youth, I was more of a centerist, but as I get older, I find myself leaning more & more to the right :scrutiny:
 
Wooderson says:

Because it's nothing more than a statement of bias. You assign characteristics you find positive to one side and negative to the other, then present it as The Only Way Things Can Be.
Click to expand...

You are missing the whole point. My observation is not based on anything socio-political. Therefore, it can't be biased. My observation is based entirely on a logical construct.

If we are going to use a simple, linear line with merely two poles to describe a political model, then the only way the model could fit would be to over-simplify it.

Assigning conservatives to one pole and liberals to another pole is meaningless and obtuse. Conservativism comprises a hodepodge of different issues; issues that are inconsistent in their relationship to the force of government behind them. For example, many conservatives favor controls on gay rights and drug use, while not favoring gun control laws.

Liberalism also comprises a mix of different issues with different relationships to the force of government.

Furthermore, from a mainstream perspective, there are different groups of liberals and different groups of conservatives now then there has ever been before. The left-right spectrum now becomes even more useless when trying to label political ideologies as they apply to libs-cons. For example, paleo conservatives typically don't favor the pre-emptive war policies and the high-deficit behaviors of the Neo-cons.

Liberal Democrats don't typically approve of the war on drugs like their modern Progressive-Socialist cousins support.

The left wing and right wing labels are perhaps an over-simplified method to describe modern politics, with all its vagaries and ever-changing landscape, as American society becomes more congested and complex. However, what doesn't change is an over-simplified and existing linear reality-- more gov't vs small gov't-- that will fit into the existing linear model that we call left vs right.

Kinda like redefining 'fascist' so you can stick it at the opposite end from yourself.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't I do that? I'm as far from a fascist as anyone I know. You just proved my point.
 
You are missing the whole point. My observation is not based on anything socio-political.
Click to expand...
Of course it is.

Therefore, it can't be biased. My observation is based entirely on a logical construct.
Click to expand...
Because, God knows, "logical constructs" can't be worded in a biased manner?

If we are going to use a simple, linear line with merely two poles to describe a political model, then the only way the model could fit would be to over-simplify it.
Click to expand...
Untrue - but were it true, your "over-simplification" remains nothing but a statement of bias.

Assigning conservatives to one pole and liberals to another pole is meaningless and obtuse.
Click to expand...
Why? Do you not believe in a general gestalt to "liberalism" and "conservatism"? Obviously there's room in each for differing opinions, and nothing about using the single axis negates that.

"Left-right" is a generalization, as it should be.

Liberal Democrats don't typically approve of the war on drugs like their modern Progressive-Socialist cousins support.
Click to expand...
This is simply incoherent.

However, what doesn't change is an over-simplified and existing linear reality-- more gov't vs small gov't-- that will fit into the existing linear model that we call left vs right.
Click to expand...
Which is, again, nothing but a statement of bias. You assign negative characteristics to "more gov't" (which you then push to the 'left'), toss in the two most despised political ideologies of the 20th and 21st centuries - then assign positive characteristics on the right, and claim them for yourself.

Both 'left' and 'right' believe in "more government.' Both 'left' and 'right' believe in "less government." And in terms of mainstream opinion, both 'liberals' and 'conservatives' believe in roughly the same amount of government: only different kinds.

That's why you'll find Leninists and anarcho-syndicalists 'on the left' and fascists and anarcho-capitalists (I'll resist insulting the concept of 'anarchist' capitalism) 'on the right.' Same as it ever was.

That you don't consider yourself very similar to fascists doesn't mean they're not right: that's just your desire to distance your ideology from theirs.
 
I'm just enough Libertarian to think people have the right to make the own mistakes, Just enough Conservative to expect them to bear the consequences of those mistakes, and just enough liberal to help them get back on the right path.
 
Wooderson,

You seem bent on seeing something in my model that simply isn't there. You say I am biased. Why am I biased? Because I don't like fascism/Socialism? Who on this forum does?

Fascism doesn't belong on the right side of this simplistic linear spectrum because it favors something very important that Socialism also favors-- big government. Why would they be placed on opposite poles of the spectrum? What exactly is so different about the two ideologies that would warrant separating them to the extreme?

As soon as you begin to answer that question, you lose your argument. Because your answer will consist of a bunch of individual and separate issues that together will represent the exact same thing-- big government.

A simplified and linear two-pole extreme is NO PLACE to quantify a group of separate platforms that have no relationship to a single wing one way or the other.

You seem persistent in holding on to an old and meaningless European definition of left wing vs right wing that has no logical bearing to the model it has been tirelessly applied to.

Try thinking for yourself.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
Was Hitler a "right wing" socialist or is the left in denial of one of their own?
2 3
Replies
56
Views
2K
GinSlinger
G
M
  • Locked
More Right Wing Judicial Activism
2
Replies
44
Views
2K
Art Eatman
A
D
  • Locked
Hannity igniting revolt against left-wing profs
2 3 4
Replies
75
Views
2K
Tequila_Sauer
T
D
  • Locked
Liberals Urged to Take on 'Right-Wing Nuts' on Talk Radio
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
Don Gwinn
D
C
  • Locked
  • Poll
Party affiliation and guns
2
Replies
42
Views
1K
dfaugh
D
Back
Top