Where are you on the Political Spectrum and why

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Are You A?

Moderate

Liberal

Conservative

You left off the category of "Conservative."

I'm economically conservative (euro-version) and liberal with all else.

I fall into the old definition of "liberal." Meaning I support economic and personal freedom, civil liberties, and equality before the law. However, the modern definition of "liberal," at least in the United States, is quite a bit different.

This spectrum is a bit useless unless we're only polling Americans on Social issues. And even then, it's not fool proof. I met a group of Mennonite Christians this summer. They're very conservative people, but don't believe in using the political process to force their views on others.

I don't believe in manifesto politic or tying myself down to a particular political ideal just because. Many political party’s policies are there for the sole reason of having a position, or being the opposite position, or in more resent times policy stealing tactics. If you go to a comparable party but in a different region or country they might well have some completely different positions on that issue. But these traditions carry on somewhat in their regions.

People don’t think for themselves often enough. They get sucked into this silly absolutist nonsense. I believe in political dynamism because the best decisions consider the situation at the time, and situations constantly change. That being said I tend to be fairly liberal in the broader sense of the word.

I have a social conscious. I do believe the businesses can be involved in some "social capitalism”, but I don't think they just do that on their own accord. There has to be really reason do otherwise they won't, as the past experiments have shown. That is just human nature. If we learn anything from the current economic crisis, it is that capitalism is just as idealistic as anything else.

At the moment we are supporting corporatism (Mussolini would be proud). There are many types of protectionism. We are going to need regulations it is a question of what kind. The current system is favourable to bloated corporation and also doesn’t help developing countries (especially as we hypocritically bully them into not having their own protectionism).

A good example of corporate protectionism is the patent system, which supports corporations, and not innovation. Individuals come up with ideas. Many good ideas are not even funded by corporations, as they don’t tend to do initial research anyway as it is too risky to be attractive to them. Then they snap them up. That is the fallacy of “intellectual property”.

I am beginning to think the way forward is to limit patents if not get rid of them all together. I certainly disagree with ever greening patents. Maybe it would make some sense to give a possibility of a head start as an option, as ideas are fragile to begin with that the may never see the light of day otherwise (which is something that has happened with the current patent systems due to the intentions of the firms approach to help finance patents and also because of legal disputes and bankruptcies). I think it is a waste if an idea can’t be use because the origionators can no longer execute it

Also they should make it more difficult for business to use the courtroom to tie up their competitors as their primary strategy. Which is something that some cooperation rely on heavily because of their diseconomies of scale. The law should not be used like this. You could force them to halt trading for periods if they want to persist with this route (I don’t think financial disincentives alone will work). This is just of the top of my head I can see some problems with it naturally.

Anyway to fix that.

Fastest way would be to PM a mod.

I'm mainly liberal, however, I demand strict punishments for those who physically harm others. I'm libertarian with other laws.

Peace.

Like how, I know I just want to hear the reason why you think that?

I'm a minarchist and proud of it!

Me too. A friend of mine came up with the "Three Laws" idea:

1)Don't kill anybody
2)Don't hurt anybody
3)Don't steal from anybody

The United States currently has over 1,000,000 laws on the books. (Land of the free?)
How many laws do we really need?

Liberal in views. Democratic Socialist in politics.

Meaning high taxes at source(income tax), high social spending(free medical etc) where the difference in wealth from poor to not, is less. Down side is Taxes and less reward for more educated work.

The modern left wing is focused on punishing people for success and forcible redistribution of wealth. Obama was even talking about imposing a windfall profit tax on oil companies- retroactively stealing their money because people are pissed about what something costs in a market economy. Also, American liberalism puts a lot of emphasis on restrictive regulations that are interpreted by many as limiting personal freedom, as expressed in criticisms of the "nanny state." There are a lot of regulations that don't really serve much purpose, but can get pretty obnoxious. It goes back largely to FDR and the welfare state he established, though LBJ's "Great Society" pushed it much farther. In addition, the left wing is not as interested in equality given the focus on affirmative action. I came from a suburban area where I saw loads of affirmative action money passed out to people who certainly did not need a helping hand. Racial bias is racial bias, regardless of what direction its in.

Not that the American conservatives are any better. The only position of social conservatism that is even remotely justifiable is pro-life, and even that is only if you accept their definitions. But my original point was that the definition of liberalism has changed- originally, economic liberalism meant standing for the free market; today, economic liberals propose ideas that border on socialism.

Moderate. I have strongly agreed views with both sides of the spectrum.

The poll left out some choices. For example the choice: to the right of Genghis Kahn.