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What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:50 am
by Stretchycheese
I would just like to get a notion as to what the general political leanings of the Slymepitters are. FTB'ers might tar us as libertarians or conservatives but I don't think that holds up in reality. I think we're more likely a politically diverse group that just happens to share a skepticism of dogmatic gender identity politics and radical feminist demagoguery. In other circumstances, we might be at each other's throats. :P

I have left of centre views, myself. From that political compass test (www.politicalcompass.org) I scored somewhere in the middle of the lower left quadrant.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 12:43 pm
by Lsuoma
I I'm very lower left quadrant: I was fairly close to Tony Benn when I did the political compass thingy back in the days when he was still an entity in UK Politics.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:26 pm
by Stretchycheese
I think it's also the anti-authoritarian stance many of us have, regardless of our political differences, that turned us off to the FTB/Skepchick crowd. Paula Kirby wasn't the only one to pick up on the "totalitarian thought" from them. Vilification of dissent, groupthink, declaring critics persona non grata, banning or suppressing criticism, even occasional threats of violence, polarization, "you're with us or against us" mentality, character assassination, divisive ideological and KKK-esque rhetorical labels like "gender traitor", "chill girl", "sister punisher",... and all sorts of other red flags.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:05 pm
by KiwiInOz
I'm left libertarian on the Political Compass scale - in the company of Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. Nevertheless, I'd be quite happy having a beer with Barrack Obama, and one of my good friends is probably right libertarian.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:46 pm
by petal
It looks like I'm almost an anarchist. No, but Economic Left/Right: -4.38, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44 which puts me further away from authroritarian than Gandhi or the dilly lama

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:36 pm
by TheMan
Close to mine Petal...

Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 12:54 am
by rayshul unplugged
I chose libertarian because I think it's probably the most important - I'm libertarian on personal issues in the I-think-everyone-has-body-autonomy and can do what they want with their body. Far left when it comes to social services, far right when it comes to respecting cultures and where doing-what-you-want-to-your-body conflicts with what social services want to keep you away from. Economically slightly left of centre.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:19 am
by Stretchycheese
*Bump*

Interesting diversity in political views. It's ironic that the A+ crowd say they want to foster diversity, but in reality they act more like an insular cult, demanding absolute homogeneity and chasing away dissenters. The Slymepit actually has greater political diversity than A+, but with the one thing we have in common being the opposition towards dogmatic ideological feminism.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:44 pm
by Eucliwood
rayshul unplugged wrote:I chose libertarian because I think it's probably the most important - I'm libertarian on personal issues in the I-think-everyone-has-body-autonomy and can do what they want with their body. Far left when it comes to social services, far right when it comes to respecting cultures and where doing-what-you-want-to-your-body conflicts with what social services want to keep you away from. Economically slightly left of centre.
Far right when it comes to respecting cultures? What's that mean?

Anyway, my political leanings are Whatever Makes Sense and Whatever Works Best as well as Whatever Results In The Most Pros.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 3:02 am
by rayshul
Eucliwood wrote:
rayshul unplugged wrote:I chose libertarian because I think it's probably the most important - I'm libertarian on personal issues in the I-think-everyone-has-body-autonomy and can do what they want with their body. Far left when it comes to social services, far right when it comes to respecting cultures and where doing-what-you-want-to-your-body conflicts with what social services want to keep you away from. Economically slightly left of centre.
Far right when it comes to respecting cultures? What's that mean?

Anyway, my political leanings are Whatever Makes Sense and Whatever Works Best as well as Whatever Results In The Most Pros.
I don't give a shit about people's cultures.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:11 pm
by Lurkion
I think we should respect people's cultures only to a certain extent (i.e. if they sit on the floor while eating, who gives a shit but if they want to believe in a magical fairy God with a strict set of rules or want to cut up their kids' genitals, then we should feel free to criticise them).

One of the worst possible things to be is a cultural relativist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism).

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:58 pm
by another lurker
rocko, I already like you!

welcome aboard!

I am also a noobie (been here a whole enitre day wooo), but as of yet, am too damn lazy to properly introduce myself!

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:51 am
by rayshul
rocko2466 wrote:I think we should respect people's cultures only to a certain extent (i.e. if they sit on the floor while eating, who gives a shit but if they want to believe in a magical fairy God with a strict set of rules or want to cut up their kids' genitals, then we should feel free to criticise them).

One of the worst possible things to be is a cultural relativist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism).
See, I don't think that part falls under "respecting their culture". It's none of my fucking business where people choose to eat or do whatever they want as long as it's within the law and it's not so barmy that it requires another law to be made specifically to ban it because we didn't have one in the first place. Otherwise it's just people going about their business.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 10:38 am
by Git
Wayhey, I'm the only right-of-centre peep here.

Though I support equal-marriage, reproductive rights and am very anti-statist. Odd that.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 11:02 am
by Blizzox
is this "European socialism"? or "damn red commies socialism" from "amurrica"?

i voted socialist, but im probably more a social republican in European political terms

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:48 pm
by daisyw
The only political party I support is Pirate Party Australia. At least they're trying to do some good for Australia.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:49 am
by rayshul
AspieAtheist wrote:The only political party I support is Pirate Party Australia. At least they're trying to do some good for Australia.
Quite like your Sex Party too. Pity they did do a bit of the "WE MUST HAVE EQUAL NUMBERS OF WOMEN AND MEN IN PARLIAMENT" schtick though.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 2:43 pm
by windy
I'm also very lower left on the compass test. Politically I'm Green (although the quality of green parties can be a bit hit and miss especially on the national level), closest to European social democrats out of the major parties.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:54 pm
by BaconNutellaFiend
Nice to see at least one other Pirate :)

I took the quiz and came up: Economic Left/Right: -9.88, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.00 .

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:55 pm
by Sheogorath
I'm a pragmatic idealist with anarchic, socialist and centrist leanings/standings.

My primary dogma is self preservation at all cost unless it isn't really worth it. The practical application of that depends on what and who I consider a part of myself at any given moment.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 5:35 am
by sacha
I consider myself a centrist

the quiz says:

Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.00

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 9:18 am
by Cunning Punt
Economic Left/Right: -6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.36

I thought some of the statements were a bit dodgy. For example, there was one, "In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation." To which I strongly disagreed, but the next question was, "It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals." I think that in some cases that is true, which would seem to contradict my position on the previous statement. My point being that we should try anyway.

And this one: "There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures." I think there are some cultures which are less civilized in terms of the overall happiness or suffering of their members, but that doesn't mean I think the people are savage or uncivilized by their nature.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 5:44 pm
by Skep tickle
Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.13

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 1:09 am
by TedDahlberg
Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.15

Which is probably about right. My major problem when it comes to voting has always been that every party has at least some point I disagree quite strongly on. So usually I end up casting a blank vote. Last election (Sweden) I did vote for the green party as the lesser evil, even though I strongly disagree with their anti-nuclear power stance.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:08 pm
by Chilly P.
I guess I have much of an anarchist bent - decentralized, local voluntary decision making whenever possible.

Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.87

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:29 pm
by Turglemeister
I would say I'm inspired by ideas about anarchism, but worried about how they would apply to the real world.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:57 pm
by Jimmy Russel
Left anarchist.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:54 pm
by Al Stefanelli
I'm a card-carrying member of the Socialist Party of the United States, which is Democratic Socialist.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/faceboo ... &soc=-5.49

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:52 pm
by Metalogic42

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2013 5:03 pm
by another lurker

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:44 am
by Pagancat
AspieAtheist wrote:The only political party I support is Pirate Party Australia. At least they're trying to do some good for Australia.
Australia has a pirate party? Why do I think thats less cool than it sounds?

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:43 pm
by lonesagi

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 5:05 pm
by 16bitheretic
Pagancat wrote:
AspieAtheist wrote:The only political party I support is Pirate Party Australia. At least they're trying to do some good for Australia.
Australia has a pirate party? Why do I think thats less cool than it sounds?
Pirate parties are also springing up in some Scandinavian countries. I know Sweden for sure has one.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:17 am
by Jimmy Russel
16bitheretic wrote:
Pagancat wrote:
AspieAtheist wrote:The only political party I support is Pirate Party Australia. At least they're trying to do some good for Australia.
Australia has a pirate party? Why do I think thats less cool than it sounds?
Pirate parties are also springing up in some Scandinavian countries. I know Sweden for sure has one.
I believe Sweden's Pirate Party were the original.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:01 am
by Za-zen
My results from that test are interesting, to me anyway lol.


Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.08

I'm further left than i thought, and more deeply libertarian than i thought. (According to the results).

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 9:38 pm
by debaser71
Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.51

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 2:48 pm
by codelette

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:34 pm
by LMU
Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.44

So according to their chart, a bit left of Mandela and a bit right of Gandhi.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:45 pm
by skepandsprinkles
Yep, that looks pretty correct

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:47 pm
by Patrick
Economic Left/Right: 5.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.03

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printab ... &soc=-5.03

I self-identify more as an anarchist or minarchist.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:57 pm
by Submariner
This was fun:
pcgraphpng.php.png
(2.72 KiB) Downloaded 270 times

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:04 pm
by acathode
Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.08
(smack in the light green field, like the rest of you it seems)

not very surprised, ideologically I've considered myself a classical liberal with a strong emphasis on personal freedoms and rights for quite some time, but economically I'm leaning to a mixed economy with a strong state. IMO, free markets are usually good, but not always, and you lose most of their theoretical benefits if they aren't regulated to keep monopolies and oligopolies at bay.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:09 pm
by Git
Economic Left/Right: 3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.72

http://www.politicalcompass.org/faceboo ... &soc=-0.72

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:32 pm
by Zenspace
Hmmm, looks like I'm a slightly more libertarian Ghandi:
pcgraphpng.png
(2.72 KiB) Downloaded 251 times

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:14 pm
by Phil_Giordana_FCD
So, no option for apolitics?

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:17 pm
by Lsuoma
Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:So, no option for apolitics?
You an declare yourself a cunt if you wish.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:17 pm
by Lsuoma
s/an/can/

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:00 am
by Git
With this outbreak of political compass-ology, I should really knock up a spreadsheet chart showing all the red dots. Self-selected reponses, i know, but it would be an easy graphic rebuttal to Maoist fuckwits like Setar.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:33 am
by John Greg
That test is really terribly flawed. I am a little surprised no one has pointed the many, many weaknesses it has, one of the most glaring being the lack of a neutral option, and another being the wording of the questions is so poorly done as to render many of the question/answer combinations useless.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 9:05 am
by belial
I define myself mostly as Anti Authoritarian. I'n in favour of socialised medicine but very much against general redistribution of wealth. I back pretty much all the individual liberty causes and I'm pretty much against group rights I back gay rights and equality feminism beacsue they are about individual rights, I hate geneder feminism. I'm a hard nut animal rights fruitcake.

I don't like the political compass because it doesn't show the extreme authoritarian nature of much of the left today.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 3:48 pm
by windy
John Greg wrote:That test is really terribly flawed. I am a little surprised no one has pointed the many, many weaknesses it has, one of the most glaring being the lack of a neutral option, and another being the wording of the questions is so poorly done as to render many of the question/answer combinations useless.
True, it's not great, but since this test is so commonly used it's still interesting as a relative ballpark measure.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 9:06 am
by Wonderist
Bit of an imperfect categorization. For example, I'm far left of centre, but to call me 'socialist' without qualification would simply be wrong. Nevertheless had to go with 'socialist' since it's at least more accurate than a mere 'generally left of centre', especially considering what Americans think of as 'centre' and 'left of centre'. For me, their left of centre is my right of centre.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 7:11 pm
by Titus Biterus
I ticked Libertarian but I'm a moderate one.

Re: What are your political leanings?

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:58 am
by Matt Cavanaugh
Note: For entertainment purposes only. I will make common cause with any skeptic or atheist, regardless of their political views.

* Theoretical socialist, pragmatic liberal;
* Former life-long democrat now independent and revolted by the corruption and hypocrisy of the US two-party buttfuck;
* Don't oppose big gov't per se, just the dickweeds & whores currently in charge;
* Extremely concerned over the recent expansion of the imperial presidency by both Dems and Gops and the abrogation of our Constitutional rights. (Y'all jack off to your 2nd Amd. while they've stolen your 1st, 5th & 6th);
* Alarmed by the growing fascism of the prog left (e.g. OFA, A+, MSNBC);
* Support universal health care and free higher education;
* View the plutocracy as encysted strongyles who must be purged, their stuff distributed at $1 yard sales;
* Oppose immigration legal & illegal as incompatible with environmental sustainability;
* Oppose war as the first option (e.g. Iraq), but acknowledge that bombing the utter shit out of a country is sometimes apropos (e.g. Serbia);
* Enthusiastically support equality on all levels, (just this morning was called by a female friend "one of the best feminists I know, whether you like that label or not"):
* Believe affirmative action should return to JFK's original concept of tearing down barriers, not erecting Sirens of Titan type artificial hindrances to the s.g. "privileged";
* Oh, and nobody's doing a gorram-thing about Global Warming, and that's gonna get us all killed.

Y'all pick a category for me.
(See more of my split personality here: http://trueliberalnexus.wordpress.com/)