Where are you on the political spectrum?

monument

GospelGroupie wrote:

Schroder, Martin, John Paul II & Tony Blair would be the most tolerant, while Mandela is no more extreme than Bush, in oposite directions obviously.

Nonsense, you’re confusing ‘tolerant’ with been central on a political scale. Social authoritarians like John Paul II, and Tony Blair aren’t normally used in the same lines as 'tolerant'.

Anyway on the charts on the site, Tony Blair is next to New Labour (right next to the Conservatives) he's pretty much flip of where Mandela is, so I cant see how he is more "tolerant" (- unless you were looking at the wrong dot for Blair?).

redspider wrote:

Proposal: a new party that reflects the thoughts of its voters in parliament exactly - EXACTLY. This will be done by using modern communcations with the voters on every issue, on every vote in the Dail, on every policy matter, etc.

Is it possible? opinions welcome ....

Something like the Swiss democratic system - far more practical then the above.

gandalf

Hmm did this at last for the laugh.

Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72

Looks like I am a pinko liberal then

Moriarty

I'd have never guessed gandalf.

Heh.

gandalf

Moriarty wrote:

I'd have never guessed gandalf.

Heh.

Bah I'm too liberal to ban you

redspider

Sand wrote:

Is it even desirable? Political parties in the west have been employing pollsters, running surveys, trying to plot voting trends since WW2 and peoples respect for the political process has been plummeting alongside that.

Its only desirable if you want to change the current system and options. I think they should be changed.

Is it also not the case that people’s respect of politics has plummeted because its not relevant to them, and wouldn’t a better system deliver that? For example, a case in point was the majority protests against the American military landings at Shannon yet our Government failed to react. Its no wonder potential voters feel apathetic to politics. Isn’t one of the common complaints that Politicians don’t listen? Why then shouldn’t we attempt to change that?

Sand wrote:

Bluntly put, people want leaders - thats why they elect them. They dont want bureacrats grovelling before the altar of *extremely fickle* public opinion. If the best form of government was mob rule then we wouldnt need a representitive government at all. Sometimes the best course of action is not the populist course of action.

These are interesting dichotomy’s. You are saying that people want Governments to rule rather than allow people to decide and that any form of people rule would be fickle and would be mob-rule!?! Take this attitude a bit further and sure lets just have one election every century, lets pick a party and be done with it and sure pity the people that have an opinion about something in the meantime, sure they wouldn’t know really how to decide things properly, now would they?

We should all remember that the current voting systems are based on century old systems and are not as relevant as they were before mass communication, media, etc came into being.

I realise that a separate thread is needed to discuss this topic, but can people tell me if:

a) the discussion about a new party, new process, etc has been hammered out to death and there is no interest
b) if there is interest among the “political compass” respondees


I’m not saying I have a perfect model, far from it. But I would be interested in joining in a discussion to find a better model than what we have currently and to discuss the pro's and con's of various options.

Seaneh

Economic Left/Right: 1.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 2.21

pork99

Centre-right but sometimes centre-left - I suppose I swing both ways. Politicaly bisexual I suppose, not literally bisexual that would be revolting

aodh_rua

Pretty much dead centre -
Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.21

I have noticed a gradual drift to the right over the last few years - I used to be around -1.5 to -2.5 on both axes. Maybe I'm becoming middle-aged!

da_deadman

Libertarian Left

Economic Left/Right: -4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.49

Which was pretty much what I thought beforehand inanyway, although my inconsistency will see me become very authoritarian at times.

Belfast

Right Libertarian

Economic Left/Right: 8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.59

billy the squid

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.95

Trojan

Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.82

steviec

Economic Left/Right: 4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.72

Something near what I expected really.

TomF

I finally decided to take the test and, as I expected, my test result shows why my thinking is an excellent guide for others. I was careful to answer honestly, too.

Economic Left/Right: -1.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.38

Sparks

TomF wrote:

I finally decided to take the test and, as I expected, my test result shows why my thinking is an excellent guide for others.

Well, if nothing else Tom, noone can say you have a frail ego.

Justin Barrett

I am centre left but a teeny smidgeon to the right of Bertie Ahern .

Stabshauptmann

Justin Barrett wrote:

I am centre left but a teeny smidgeon to the right of Bertie Ahern .

You didnt post your score, just your opinion of your score. And those arent the terms of the test

cdebru

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.49

Zombrex

redspider wrote:

Now, it is clear mathematically that say in a country like ours with 6 main parties (FF, FG, Lab, PD, SF, GP) that there is no way that most voters will match a party exactly (its the same in NL), and this leads into my hypothesis:

the current political system does not represent the views of the voters for 99% of the time .... in other words, the so-called democratic systems of the west are NOT really democratic at all!

How do you figure that?? Are you saying that 99 percent of the time none of the political parties have a view that matches the average person on the street over a particular issue? Are you serious.

redspider wrote:

Proposal: a new party that reflects the thoughts of its voters in parliament exactly - EXACTLY. This will be done by using modern communcations with the voters on every issue, on every vote in the Dail, on every policy matter, etc.

The Blair labour party tried that with opion polls. The result? Chaos. The general public kept changing their minds and making no sense. We want better health care but we want very low taxes. Of course Labour should have studied more history ...

3000 years ago they had a system in Athens where every individual male in the city could express an opion and vote on every single issue. The result? Chaos again.

The very reason we have systems of elected officals and governments is because a system such as you propose where every individual has voting input into every decision leads to chaos and an unmanageable state. The irony is they learnt this thousands of years ago and now some "modern" parties are trying to bring it back.

FTA69

Economic Left/Right: -9.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.13

Seems I'm a bit of a Communist!

is_that_so

Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36

Guess I'm a "pinko liberal"

Oggy Doggy

Economic Left/Right -4.38

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -.77

Big Ears

Sorry for brining up an old thread , but this topic came up with a friend today so I re-took the test .(I hadn't posted it up last time)
Economic Left/Right: -3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.18

I'm sure some poeple will be interested to do it and others might be interested to see how their result differs from last time .

ChityWest

*cough*

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 3.90

CathyMoran

CathyMoran wrote:

Economic Left/Right: -5.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.10

Me this time -
Economic Left/Right: -6.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72

Was very interesting to do it again.

SeanW

Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.54

Pretty dead on, I believe in left wing principles, but also very much in personal freedom, to speak ones mind and take control of ones own lifesytle and destiny.

That said some of the questions were somewhat leading.

Dirk Gently

Economic Left/Right: -8.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.00

closest to Ghandi / Mandela / Dalai Lama
Furthest from Blair / Bush / Thatcher

It seems I'm more Social Libertarian than I was when I done a similar test a few years ago. Still as looney lefty as ever though

अधिनायक

extreme libertarian/Anarchist
Left/Right: 0 !

which sounds about right to me. I think everything should be allowed bar hurting people without their consent.

oscarBravo

The question then becomes: how do you define "hurt"?

"An ye harm none, do as thou wilt."

Economic Left/Right: 0.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.91

About the same as usual