Your Political ideology?

Cronus333

I just want to see what everyone here would classify themselves as. Personally I would classify myself, depending on my mood, as one of the following: Liberal, Classical Liberal or Libertarian.
Since I'm reading Rand at the minute Libertarian it is! (I know she hated them but it really is quite similar theory).
So.... what would ye be?

Húrin

Cronus333 wrote:

I just want to see what everyone here would classify themselves as. Personally I would classify myself, depending on my mood, as one of the following: Liberal, Classical Liberal or Libertarian.
Since I'm reading Rand at the minute Libertarian it is! (I know she hated them but it really is quite similar theory).
So.... what would ye be?

Democratic socialist/environmentalist and member of Comhaontas Glas (Green Party).

Akrasia

Cronus333 wrote:

I just want to see what everyone here would classify themselves as. Personally I would classify myself, depending on my mood, as one of the following: Liberal, Classical Liberal or Libertarian.
Since I'm reading Rand at the minute Libertarian it is! (I know she hated them but it really is quite similar theory).
So.... what would ye be?

before you decide to become a lbertarian you should do a bit of extra research.
There is a good website here http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

and for a more satirical expose of the flaws in standard Libertarian arguments, there is this website here http://world.std.com/~mhuben/onelesson.html

#

* Libertarians invented outrage over government waste, bureaucracy, injustice, etc. Nobody else thinks they are bad, knows they exist, or works to stop them.
* Enlightenment comes only through repetition of the sacred mantra "Government does not work" according to Guru Browne.
* Only government is force, no matter how many Indians were killed by settlers to acquire their property, no matter how many blacks were enslaved and sold by private companies, no matter how many heads of union members are broken by private police.
* Money that government touches spontaneously combusts, destroying the economy. Money retained by individuals grows the economy, even if literally burnt.
* Private education works, public education doesn't. The publicly educated masses that have grown the modern economies of the past 150 years are an illusion.
* Market failures, trusts, and oligopolies are lies spread by the evil economists serving the government as described in the "Protocols of the Elders of Statism".
* Central planning cannot work. Which is why all businesses internally are run like little markets, with no centralized leadership.
* Paternalism is the worst thing that can be inflicted upon people, as everyone knows that fathers are the most hated and reviled figures in the world.
* Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearsome master. Therefore, we should avoid it entirely, as we do all forms of combustion.

# Regulation

* The FDA is solely responsible for any death or sickness where it might have prevented treatment by the latest unproven fad.
* Children, criminals, death cultists, and you all have the same inalienable right to own any weaponry: conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear.
* All food, drugs, and medical treatments should be entirely unregulated: every industry should be able to kill 300,000 per year in the US like the tobacco industry.
* If you don't have a gun, you are not a libertarian. If you do have a gun, why don't you have even more powerful armament?
* Better to abolish all regulations, consider everything as property, and solve all controversy by civil lawsuit over damages. The US doesn't have enough lawyers, and people who can't afford to invest many thousands of dollars in lawsuits should shut up.

Cronus333

I have read that before just so you know. And keep in mind that I did say depending on my mood at the time, which puts me in actuality somewhere between the three. Just out of curiosity, could you name your exact ideology? I already have a feeling, I just want confirmation.....

Akrasia

Cronus333 wrote:

I have read that before just so you know. And keep in mind that I did say depending on my mood at the time, which puts me in actuality somewhere between the three. Just out of curiosity, could you name your exact ideology? I already have a feeling, I just want confirmation.....

I don't have an exact ideology, 'Libertarian socialist' or Anarchist would describe me best. I am opposed to the state, but i am more opposed to capitalism. As long as we have capitalism we need a strong state to regulate it, but only if that state is democratic in nature.

I believe very strongly in democracy from the bottom up, and not the top down.

What did you think i believed in before I replied?

Cronus333

Actually something along those lines, with an outside chance of revolutionary socialism.

mike65

Facist libertarian ecologist with socialist leanings on "society" issues.

Okay I lied. Its not that interesting.

Mike.

lostexpectation

democratic capitalist

Akrasia

I think marxism is destined to result in state communism because the 'Vanguard party' will never give up control of the revolution and you'll end up with a one party state like in Communist Russia, China or Cuba. Marx believed that the Vanguard was necessary to achieve the revolution, and that it would melt away once capitalism was crushed, but that's unlikely to happen due to the nature of power and it's effect on individuals. Also, 'Democratic Centralism', which is also a part of Marxist philosophy leads to a centrally planned economy and we end up with disasters like Mao's cultural revolution or Stalin's 5 Year Plans.

Kojak

lostexpectation wrote:

democratic capitalist

I'd probably be much like that myself. Although I would also class myself as a conservative.

InFront

I suppose a few democratic prinicples, with reservations on neoliberalism yet communitarianist/ with religious conservatism. I dont know if theres one term for that. Confused man, maybe:)

I mean, its all rubbish really. There are no two people with the same political opinions. These academic-sounding names are simply boring, general labels... they dont mean much in real life.

democrates

I've read Ayn Rand too "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", and studied Cato Institute papers among others, and I'm no Libertarian.

I understand where she's coming from in response to the communist regime she experienced, you get a similar flavour from Igor Schwezoff in his book Borzoi (a great read). What they suffered was terrible, but I think her analysis was defective.

She witnessed the state oppress individual freedom, fine. But her answer was for everyone to engage in oppressing each other. That's the key error in Libertarianism, it ostensibly seeks to protect individual freedom, but that includes the freedom for predation on others. That predator-prey model, the capitalist model, is just a distributed version of communist oppression.

Their attacks on 'statism' are attacks on democracy itself. One vote per person is replaced by one vote per dollar.

Personally I'm in favour of direct democracy, sustainable living, democratic workers co-operatives without share capital, and democratic international co-operation on tackling population growth, ensuring fair trade, and reducing consumption, pollution, and war as part of a roadmap for global socio-economic cohesion. That's off the top of my head, it's hard to summarise views of what constitutes a just future.

bonkey

Cronus333 wrote:

I just want to see what everyone here would classify themselves as.
...
So.... what would ye be?

I'd be me. I classify myself similarly.

I don't believe in trying to find or construct a label that encompasses my political beliefs. In my experience, labels are more-often used to deride someone for implications the label has rather than implications of what that person has said.

In a huge number of threads here, you'll see someone deriding something for being lefty/righty/liberal/conservative/communist/fascist/whatever. That seems to be the major purpose of labelling. If my stance on one issue is liberal, then my stance on that issue is liberal. However, I'm then more likely to be attacked for being a liberal than for my idea to be challenged on its own merits. The worth of the idea is no longer whats in question, but rather what else we can infer about the people who support said idea. And how do we infer such things? By looking at what label we can slap on them and then attacking that far broader ideology.

Karl Hungus

National Socialist Worker's Party tbh.

Akrasia

Karl Hungus wrote:

National Socialist Worker's Party tbh.

you should be very careful putting the words national and socialist beside each other when talking about politics because it looks too much like 'Nationalist socialist' aka the Nazi Party and NeoNazism

lostexpectation

why isn't capitalist, on the politcal compass, you have socialist and libertarian, democrats etc, but not capitalist?? and then people talk about centrists, well centrist these days are capitalist democrats.

Karl Hungus

Akrasia wrote:

you should be very careful putting the words national and socialist beside each other when talking about politics because it looks too much like 'Nationalist socialist' aka the Nazi Party and NeoNazism

National Socialist Worker's Party is the Nazi Party. I'd be fairly certain the extra 'ist' doesn't make a difference.

bonkey

lostexpectation wrote:

why isn't capitalist, on the politcal compass.

At a guess because capitalism isn't overtly political.

spooiirt!!

Neo-Liberal all the way.

lostexpectation

bonkey wrote:

At a guess because capitalism isn't overtly political.

just because its the status quo?

then what is it, surely if fits in the social/economc axis of the political compass...

Jackie laughlin

Capitalism isn't a political theory; it is an outcome of liberalism.

I disagree strongly with those who dismiss classification by damning it as "labelling". If we don't classify, we will find political argument next to impossible. There is, moreover, a darker anti-politics side to this. There are those who think that there is virtue in claiming to be in some sense "above politics". At its best this is someone who hides their politics (perhaps in shame). It might be be boring cynicism but, remembering that "man is a political animal", it's probably just someone who doesn't want to participate on a fully human level. Their motto is "whatever!"


Me? Socialist.

Don't forget that Marx at the Socialist International became irritated at people turning his thoughts into dogma and insisted that at least HE wasn't a Marxist!

Any party can have environmental policies but how a socialist could join the Green Party is beyond me. Greens are fundamentally about small state, small business and self sufficiency. Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds like a Progressive Democrat in sandals!

spooiirt!!

Akrasia wrote:

Central planning cannot work.

Thats true though. A centrally planned Economy doesnt work.

Jackie laughlin

Are you talking about the economy in general or certain parts of the economy or are you seriously suggesting the abandonment of ALL planning?

spooiirt!!

"Are you talking about the economy in general "


I mean a control economy ala Soviet Union, a central planning commitee trying to regulate things such as supply and demand, the state having control of ALL factories, farms, supermarkets etc.

BlitzKrieg

socialist classical conservative.

Húrin

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Any party can have environmental policies but how a socialist could join the Green Party is beyond me. Greens are fundamentally about small state, small business and self sufficiency. Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds like a Progressive Democrat in sandals!

We favour increased spending on public transport, and free health for children and ultimately adults.

We're capitalists really, but we support many programmes and regulations that centrist-socialist parties like Labour support.

Kaiser_Sma

Liberal Imperialist (much like Niall Ferguson), although my views often verge on centrist and sometimes even right wing. But whos doesn't. I'm outside of real politics professionally so i can afford to be flexible.

Jackie laughlin

Hurin,
There's nothing remotely Green there.

Spooiirt,
Short of control over ALL production, do you favour state intervention? If so, to what extent?

arbeitsscheuer

Armchair Socialist, Idler, Lib-Dem and Anti-Capitalist.

Passionate believer in my own political outlook, but relatively poor in articulating, explaining and justifying them to other as-yet-unconvinced people on the fence. Thus, I remain inactive, almost never demonstrating or labouring to win over people to the Socialist cause, on the basis that my attempts would, in all likelihood, do more harm than good to that cause.:D

Note that this is not because Socialism or Communism is inherently inexplicable or unjustifiable - it is, in fact, the only system which can redeem the human race - but because I am fúcking useless at arguing and defining things.

*shrugs*

This was actually why I resigned from the SWP. That and the fact that they're bonkers...

Sgt. Sensible

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Don't forget that Marx at the Socialist International became irritated at people turning his thoughts into dogma and insisted that at least HE wasn't a Marxist!

For a start, Marx was dead well before the formation of the Socialist International. You're probably thinking of the IWMA and the First International which Marx, being an authoritarian bureaucratic anti-democratic kind of chap, did his best to subvert and control for the benefit of communists alone, as he believed his followers to be the natural vanguard of the workers' movement. He dismissed Bakunin's idea of "free organisation of the labouring masses from the bottom up" as "foolishness" and when he found himself outmanouvered by the Blanquists who were even more into centralising power than he was, he transferred the IWMA general council to New York, as far away from Europe as possible.

Nearly fifty years before the Bolshevik coup effectively ended the Russian Revolution, Bakunin predicted that once in power, Marxists would be every bit as despotic as the ruling class whose place they had taken and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would in fact be a dictatorship over the proletariat. Right about that one was he not.

Akrasia

Karl Hungus wrote:

National Socialist Worker's Party is the Nazi Party. I'd be fairly certain the extra 'ist' doesn't make a difference.

well there is a socialist workers party who are marxist in nature. A national socialist workers party seems to indicate the 'Irish socialist workers party' but a 'nationalist socialist' party indicates a Nazi party. It's unclear what the poster means