Political Compass mega thread 2011

leincar

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Do you need all that money?

I have a lifestyle so yes. Why should I have to apologise for what I earn. It took me twenty years of working to get where I am and I am now in to my sixth year of living very well, and able to put some aside for my family.

Why do people feel(this is not a reflection on you personally) in this country that we should come down to a certain level. Why not buck the trend and try and raise people up. It may not always work, but the alternative in this country at the moment is the sh1t for everyone.

Don't forget most people who earn a good wage are good people who dislike and despise both what has happened and the government that caused it.

If you take just a little bit of time to figure it out you will find that we have more in common then you think. For a start, we want rid of this government, we want people to prosper, we want a future not only for our kids, family and friends but, we want a future for ourselves.

Back to a wealth tax for a second. If I sell shares I pay capital gains tax, that is fair, if I sell a second property at a profit, I pay capital gains, if I get a dividend on a business I have invested in, I pay capital gains. All of that is reasonable, I have no problem with it but, for any government to take a tax off me, for assets I have, when I have bought those assets, on net of tax income is theft, pure and simple.

phantom_lord

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Its not a smart comment at all, its a legitimate question,who actually needs that amount of money? No one, and thats why a wealth tax is a good thing, you will still be left very well off while ensuring that those further down dont suffer harsh and undue cuts to social welfare.

Why don't they try and work on as being successful as leincar instead of essentially stealing his money?

Capitalism rewards success and innovation making huge strides in enriching society as a whole and ensuring the efficient allocation of resources. Socialism retards growth and basically makes everyone poorer. what kind of incentive is there to be successful or work hard in a society where your money is taken and given to someone on the dole?

Wolfe Tone

leincar wrote: »

I have a lifestyle so yes. Why should I have to apologise for what I earn. It took me twenty years of working to get where I am and I am now in to my sixth year of living very well, and able to put some aside for my family.

Why do people feel(this is not a reflection on you personally) in this country that we should come down to a certain level. Why not buck the trend and try and raise people up. It may not always work, but the alternative in this country at the moment is the sh1t for everyone.

Don't forget most people who earn a good wage are good people who dislike and despise both what has happened and the government that caused it.

If you take just a little bit of time to figure it out you will find that we have more in common then you think. For a start, we want rid of this government, we want people to prosper, we want a future not only for our kids, family and friends but, we want a future for ourselves.

Back to a wealth tax for a second. If I sell shares I pay capital gains tax, that is fair, if I sell a second property at a profit, I pay capital gains, if I get a dividend on a business I have invested in, I pay capital gains. All of that is reasonable, I have no problem with it but, for any government to take a tax off me, for assets I have, when I have bought those assets, on net of tax income is theft, pure and simple.

With any luck in 15 years or so I will be making large amounts of money, I would have no problems paying higher taxes, or indeed a "wealth" tax, if it helped insure that those further down, who arent in such a good position dont pay too high a price.

southsiderosie

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

With any luck in 15 years or so I will be making large amounts of money, I would have no problems paying higher taxes, or indeed a "wealth" tax, if it helped insure that those further down, who arent in such a good position dont pay too high a price.

What kind of "price" are people "further down" paying? How much further down? This is all very vague.

Wolfe Tone

southsiderosie wrote: »

What kind of "price" are people "further down" paying? How much further down? This is all very vague.

Considering I had just been talking about social welfare surely that is obvious.

Wolfe Tone

phantom_lord wrote: »

Why don't they try and work on as being successful as leincar instead of essentially stealing his money?

Capitalism rewards success and innovation making huge strides in enriching society as a whole and ensuring the efficient allocation of resources. Socialism retards growth and basically makes everyone poorer. what kind of incentive is there to be successful or work hard in a society where your money is taken and given to someone on the dole?

Oh yeah, cause everyone can get to that level? There aint room at the top.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

southsiderosie

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Considering I had just been talking about social welfare surely that is obvious.

Well it's not. What is "too high a price" for not being a lawyer or in some other high-paid profession? What exactly do people with high paying jobs owe others in society who do not earn as much money? You seem to think this is self-evident, but it is not.

southsiderosie

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Oh yeah, cause everyone can get to that level? There aint room at the top.

Not everybody is going to be rich. But I fail to understand how, for example, my working at a private law firm in some way kept down the bike messenger who delivered legal documents to me, or the city clerk who stamped them.

phantom_lord

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Oh yeah, cause everyone can get to that level? There aint room at the top.

There's also no level of serfdom like you seem to imply.

Wolfe Tone

On the one hand donegalfella is pointing to the advances and increased wealth of the lower classes, and on the other he is moaning that it is just this which is undesirable as it eats into profits.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Oh yeah, cause everyone can get to that level? There aint room at the top.

Screw that crap, my great-grandfather was an itinerant farm labourer (i.e. very poor), my grandfather drove a bulldozer for a living, his kids went on to be a stockbroker, carpenter, manager and a small business owner. We aren't born fixed in our class like in the 1700s.

leincar

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Sadly, I couldn't agree more. Sometimes I think people get the impression I'm a 'master of the universe' from Bonfire of the vanities. I'm just someone who got on by being good at his job, and after sending out many, many letters getting an unpaid internship with Harvey Goldsmith back in 1985.

Wolfe Tone

nesf wrote: »

Screw that crap, my great-grandfather was an itinerant farm labourer (i.e. very poor), my grandfather drove a bulldozer for a living, his kids went on to be a stockbroker, carpenter, manager and a small business owner. We aren't born fixed in our class like in the 1700s.

Oh so you are saying that it is possible, for everyone, to get to the tippy top and make tons of money? As long as they work hard?

leincar

nesf wrote: »

Screw that crap, my great-grandfather was an itinerant farm labourer (i.e. very poor), my grandfather drove a bulldozer for a living, his kids went on to be a stockbroker, carpenter, manager and a small business owner. We aren't born fixed in our class like in the 1700s.

Yep, my old man left for the U.S. in 1938 with the clothes on his back and a spare pair of underpants( he told the story often). He landed on Utah beach on D-Day with the 4th infantry division, later becoming a radio technician. Due to his political beliefs he came back to Ireland just as the era of McCartyism was happening. He spent the rest of his working life in R.T.E. working a couple of jobs to get us through collage.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Oh so you are saying that it is possible, for everyone, to get to the tippy top and make tons of money? As long as they work hard?

Which part of "don't contribute quips, contribute points" don't you get?

Eliot Rosewater

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Oh so you are saying that it is possible, for everyone, to get to the tippy top and make tons of money? As long as they work hard?

I think you're shifting the goalposts here. Before on this thread you have argued, in effect, for a maximum wage, yet here you have raised the standard of success to the "tippy top" i.e. far above what one would envisage to be a maximum wage.

I think this "the rich getting richer; poor getting poorer" mantra doesn't hold true to reality, nor this notion that the majority haven't benefited. When I look around my middle-class estate I see at least two cars outside most houses, and Sky dishes on the roof.

Wolfe Tone

nesf wrote: »

Which part of "don't contribute quips, contribute points" don't you get?

Its a genuine question, and a perfectly valuable point, you seem to be suggesting that under our current system if people work hard everyone can achieve financial success. In your charming anecdote you made no mention that someone else has taken the "lower class" place of your ancestors.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Its a genuine question, and a perfectly valuable point, you seem to be suggesting that under our current system if people work hard everyone can achieve financial success. In your charming anecdote you made no mention that someone else has taken the "lower class" place of your ancestors.

You are completely missing my point. The problem isn't what you're saying but how you're saying it. Making a reasonable argument that social mobility is all well and good but that it doesn't solve the problem of economic inequality is completely acceptable on this forum. Making that point by making a cheeky statement misrepresenting someone's point is disruptive and not welcome on this forum.

It is perfectly possible to argue almost every position (and definitely your's) reasonably without being disruptive, so either you do that or you no longer get to post here. Taking someone's point that clearly says X and saying "oh so you're saying Y" because you want to talk about Y is not behaviour that is acceptable here and you need to cut it out.

What you're doing is not conducive to neutral argument on this forum but will provoke poor reactions by others. This is trolling whether you intend it or not.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Wolfe Tone

So again, it seems you are saying that it is desirable to pay people as little as possible, the absolute bare minimum to keep them alive, all so you can "reinvest"? Or am I picking you up wrong?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

So again, it seems you are saying that it is desirable to pay people as little as possible, the absolute bare minimum to keep them alive, all so you can "reinvest"? Or am I picking you up wrong?

Competitiveness isn't just about rock bottom wages, in fact for the kind of industries Ireland does rock bottom wages would be a really bad thing. The reason is primarily worker motivation. Poorly paid workers don't work very hard or very well compared to decently paid workers. Any company that demands rock bottom wages for high level work will get nowhere. It's only in the really low skill jobs that really low wages are acceptable and that is generally only the case because such jobs are mere stepping stones for people rather than long term careers most of the time.

When most of those on the right say we need lower wages they're not saying we need the lowest wages. The issue is this: we need our external determined wages, those in the export sector, to match up with our internal determined wages, those in the domestic sector. We can play silly buggers and drive up our domestic wages by selling houses to each other but doing so cripples out export sector because if export determined wages are relatively low compared to internal ones then workers are poorly motivated etc leading to a poorly working export sector. We don't need rock bottom wages but we do need wages that are comparable to our major trading partners and that means we need out wages to be similar to those in the rest of the EU which means we need welfare rates and public sector wages around the same level too.

irishh_bob

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: 0.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.05

KnifeWRENCH

^ Quite similar to you.



Although when I did it a couple of years ago, I was slightly to the left instead of slightly to the right.

I'm giving Labour my first preference, so I'm not too sure how accurate it is. (I'd consider myself lower down on the libertarian axis tbh.) Still a bit of fun doing it though.

El Weirdo

Here I am.

telekon

The vast majority, like myself, seem to be in the 'green bit'. (I can't post it for some reason, anyone want to let me know how? )

I think everyone's socially liberal attitudes askew the results as from an economic and justice viewpoint, I would be quite conservative...

FreudianSlippers

tmclaughlin02

Surprised by the result. Thought I'd be on the right and more authoritarian. How good an indicator are the particular range of questions?

leincar

This has me towards the Green end of things. The last election maybe, not GE 2011.

Soldie

Killer Pigeon

Eliot Rosewater

It's strange - I did the test twice, answering the same accept for 2 or 3 "undecided" ones, to which I answered Strongly Agree the first time and Strongly Disagree the second time. The results were a full two units apart (in the economic direction).

Anyway, here's the average. Far out as people go, I suppose.



I found it interesting watching my changing results on this quiz from the ages 17 onwards. I started roughly centre, and travelled a line curving downwards to where I'm about now.

evercloserunion

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

It's strange - I did the test twice, answering the same accept for 2 or 3 "undecided" ones, to which I answered Strongly Agree the first time and Strongly Disagree the second time. The results were a full two units apart (in the economic direction).

Anyway, here's the average. Far out as people go, I suppose.

<snip>

I found it interesting watching my changing results on this quiz from the ages 17 onwards. I started roughly centre, and travelled a line curving downwards to where I'm about now.

At 17 I was a socialist, I have since completely abandoned that ideology and the change in my position as per the test has been minimal to be honest. I don't think the test adequately reflects the very large difference between a left-wing approach to capitalism and socialism proper. That is, a communist would get much the same score as someone who just really supports a social democratic market economy.

ei.sdraob

evercloserunion wrote: »

At 17 I was a socialist.

If there ever was good reason for 17 year olds not to vote :P

IrishWhiskeyCha

What I find fascinating about this thread, and it has actually has reinforced my belief about forums, is how unrepresentative a forum can be of national demographics. The majority of people including myself are in the Green Quadrant and virtually 95% are Libertarian, which I would find hard to believe if a proper independent survey was taken randomly. Not saying this to antagonise just an interesting observation. Anybody agree?

AhSureTisGrand

Economic Left/Right: -0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72

nesf

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

What I find fascinating about this thread, and it has actually has reinforced my belief about forums, is how unrepresentative a forum can be of national demographics. The majority of people including myself are in the Green Quadrant and virtually 95% are Libertarian, which I would find hard to believe if a proper independent survey was taken randomly. Not saying this to antagonise just an interesting observation. Anybody agree?

Average user here is under 35. People under 35 tend to be more socially liberal and more to the economic left than the average of the population normally. Nothing surprising at all in this thread.

Cat Melodeon

I did this a good few years ago, was well over to the right and up. I've definitely been getting more left-wing as I've gotten older (36 now), will probably end up an anarchist if this continues.

evercloserunion

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If there ever was good reason for 17 year olds not to vote :P

Ridiculous, I know socialists in their 30s, should we deny 30 year olds a vote? Joe Higgins is an MEP and has a strong chance of getting into the Dáil. Clearly it's not just the 17 year olds.

I know you were half-joking, but it is actually a common enough argument against giving young people a vote that they would use it to vote for positions we disagree with, which is absurd and anti-democratic.

FreudianSlippers

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

ei.sdraob

evercloserunion wrote: »

Ridiculous, I know socialists in their 30s, should we deny 30 year olds a vote? Joe Higgins is an MEP and has a strong chance of getting into the Dáil. Clearly it's not just the 17 year olds.

I know you were half-joking, but it is actually a common enough argument against giving young people a vote that they would use it to vote for positions we disagree with, which is absurd and anti-democratic.

Its a joke calm down , instead of worrying about 17 year old voting how about figuring out ways of getting the election turnouts to be higher. I swear anyone who complaints and doesnt bother to vote have only themselves to blame.

evercloserunion

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

Not everyone in the green quadrant is far-left. As I said above, you could get a very far left score just by being a social democrat. I'm sure social democrats scare you as well but you must agree they're not as bad as the reds hiding under your bed.

K-9

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.62&soc=-2.46

K-9

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

It isn't really, none of the main 3 parties are Left as represented by the diagram, only SF would be.

Lockstep

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I swear anyone who complaints and doesnt bother to vote have only themselves to blame.

I wish I could like this more than once.

The amount of people who don't vote or get involved politically but feel entitled to complain really irritates me.

WeeBushy

Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=6.75&soc=9.03

I think we should start a political party

LeixlipRed wrote: »

I find some of your posts truly scary. That's the worst of the lot so far. I just can't believe how naive you are. Try explaining this post to someone who just got laid of by a MNC as part of a cost-cutting measure so they can exploit cheap labour in Dictatorstan. How would you begin to rationalise it?

His beliefs are scary.....f*ck sake mate , your the one who talked about the 1916 rising and bin charges and called them 'the same thing' before , You may disagree and think that socialism is the way to go , But hes right , You cant make jobs out of nothing , socialism at its heart doesnt work , Id rather most people in jobs and some of them poor than everyone in sh*t jobs and all of them poor

Eric Cartman

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

blue square is best square

Anonymous1987

What I expected, previously I scored slightly into the green quadrant but previous to that I was centre right also so I guess I've come full circle.

For a good deal of the questions I find myself pondering whether to reject a statement based on an exception to the rule but I think the best way to approach it is to agree or disagree with the sentiment of the statement rather than the language or logic of the statement.

The way the questions are phrased, many people end up in the green quadrant, a worthwhile exercise would be to read through the FAQ and revisit the test.