Not necessarily which party you belong to, since party membership is on the decline. But if you wanted to describe your political philosophy, where would you put it? Warning: Public poll. Hey mods--can you make this public?
I said other and my party affiliation would have to be independent. I lean more to the left than the right but my political philsophy changes time to time so I can't really give a definitive answer. The only definitive I do have for sure is separation of church and state. The rest I guess you can say is a combination of some philosophy and some science. EDIT*:And take note I will keep editing/updating this post because I'm thinking on the fly right now lol. I'm liberal when it comes to social matters. I am also liberal in that I think the state has the responsibility to look out for its own, in the form of services like the NHS. I want to live in a fair society, so I think businesses should be held accountable when they behave unethically, irresponsibly, or they get so big that they effect more than just the company/business itself. I'm also pro-EU, in that it is a good diplomatic and trading block. I'm an internationalist and nationalist at heart and want my country to forge strong alliances with others, and I think the EU is good for that. Of course i put US as a priority as well. It is where i live after all. But I try to not let pride blind me, at least not to the point which it harms or degrades others. The same applies to internationalism. However, I am what you might call 'conservative' when it comes to defence. Unlike some 'liberals', I think this country must maintain strong armed forces and be prepared to intervene when it can in other countries that pose a threat to the world at large. With that said, wars should be fought for necessity(which is always debateble) and/or defense. To add, at times I believe we sometime spend too much on military, and I desire the spending to be cut to a degree, at least in times of relative peace. I just try to look at the evidence and come to a conclusion on individual issues. Anarchy is practically impossible because something will always fill up the vacuum of power in a society. There isn't one saving grace answer. I used to be a Libertarian until I realized that it was really more like a political fantasy, sort of like Trickle-Down economics, or Communism. I try my best not to fall into idealism, because humans by default are anything but ideal. Moreover politics in the media realm seems more like personal comments instead of just focusing on the arguments. Anywho....that's little ole me at the moment.
I picked "Democrat - Liberal," probably to the surprise of no one. I like the principles of the market setting the price and competition in general, but I believe in government intervention for the sake of the less fortunate (social welfare/safety nets). I'm also pretty far up the individual freedom axis, as I think various drugs should be legalized, any consenting adults should be able to marry, people should be able to decide for themselves if they want to gamble or if they want to commit suicide, assisted or otherwise, etc.
I share similar views, so would I be labeled as a democrat liberal? I always get confused with the labels because of all the mud-slinging and I've recently been learning about parties in other nations like France and the UK.
My political philosophy is context-dependant. I have overarching ideals, but would be fully willing to abandon them if they were inappropriate/impractical for a given situation. Generally, I think I'm a sort of social democrat. I wouldn't advocate that philosophy if I lived in the US, though. I think a government should be completely neutral in matters of individual morality/lifestyle choices, abiding by a harm principle. I think it should invest in social/welfare programs in direct correlation to the strength of its economy.
The labels are pretty vague. More and more, people are working with political scales that have two axis (statist/anarchist and liberal/conservative) to account for schools of thought like libertarians, nationalists and others who don't comfortably fit into "right" and "left." It's also complicated by the fact that the US is quite different from other regions of the world. What a "liberal/progressive" is is quite different in the US, in Europe and in Islamic nations. I'd say that what I mentioned as my position is pretty liberal by the US definitions. It would probably be moderate in most of Western Europe.
Yeah what you said here emcompasses perfectly to me-i always get the parties and philosophies confused between countries. And the fact of the matter is that the two major political parties in the US seem to encompass conflicting ideas within their own parties because they cover too much. This leaves room for an insane amount of wrong stereotypes for both parties, and even changes in ideals.
"Other" as I'm 100% independent and rather than lock-stepping in line against my better judgment to a political party philosophy, I vote my conscious on all matters. Sometimes left, sometimes right and somtimes in the middle. There's nothing like true freedom of thought & expression.
Interesting how diverse this poll is coming out. Oregon is more dominated by liberal politics, but you wouldn't guess it from the poll. Man, I wish we had a third party. "The Moderate Party." Not terribly ideological. Just looking for sensible, middle-of-the-road solutions to problems. Something to really counterbalance the fringes.
The only purpose of the so called "fringes" is to distract from the monetary powers. If you look actually the primary domestic policy has been pretty consistent for about 30 years. An increasing merger between too big to fail banks and corporations with governments socializing losses and privatizing gains. Also a massive increase in police state mentality has been ushered in by both parties under such policies as anti-communism (reagan/ HW Bush), The War on Drugs (Nixon, Regan, HW Bush) Political Correctness (Clinton), Gun control (Clinton), Anti-Militia's (Clinton), And of course the war on terror which is the awesome catch all boogey man that has us running into police state status as fast as we can run (W. Bush although it was Regan cabinet members who attempted to get this going in the early 1980's). Yeah, so really the fringes are just used to scare people while the central banks and their buddies in corporate and government offices continue to seize real property in exchange for worthless paper and institute an apparatus to protect themselves. If you learn about fractional reserve lending and fiat money it will all become quite clear. From the 1907 banking panic that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve - followed quickly by the 1920's and the Great Depression - to the panic of 2008 which is leading to a global central bank, all things have moved in the direction of the financialization of the globe which ultimately means control of all resources by the private owners of the worlds Central Banks. I will gladly provide links galore for people who wonder about this. It's much clearer that this is happening in the European press. Don't want to get the Nationalists in the US too up in arms as the Global Central bank and SDR's get rolling.
Im a moderate libertarian. That means I believe Government should be limited as much as possible, and have little control over our personal lives. I believe that legislating morality encourages bad behavior and marginalizes rational decision making. That being said, I call myself moderate because extremist libertarians give the rest of us a bad name.
Well, internet sports fans are not a highly representative sample. I'd wager that we have about 2000% more libertarians here than the population at large. barfo
True. And men tend to lean much more Republican than women. So any sports board is probably going to be more Republican than the overall geographic population it encompasses. Except of course the WNBA bulletin boards. If they exist, they are probably pretty left leaning among sports forums.