A word or 2,000 on political leanings. - EverCrest Message Forums

Author

Topic: A word or 2,000 on political leanings.

Karnaj

Road Warrior Queef

posted 04-02-2004 05:13:08 PM

Most people are familiar with the traditional "right-left" political scale; indeed, it's heavily referred to in media today(the religious right, leftist unions, etc.). This scale, however, is linear and a woeful oversimplification of political leanings, which are, in actuality, split up into two separate, perpendicular lines, much like the familiar X,Y coordinate plane on your graphing calculator. Before I explain further, I would like to define two terms: authoritarian, and libertarian. These are pure definitions, and not precisely indicative of real-world political opinions.

Authoritarian is just a fancy way of saying that the government should be in control, and one should be totally obiedient to it.

Libertarian, as you might guess, is the opposite: saying the government should have no control, and should be totally obiedient to the people.

Re-inventing the wheel:

OK, so now that we know what those are, we can examine political views in terms of authoritarianism and libertarianism. There is not one, but two scales that we must consider, with the above terms at opposing ends. These two scales are economic and social, and we will address both in turn.

Economic libertarianism means that, in general, the government should have less influence in the affairs of the economy. The freer the market, the better.

Economic authoritarianism tends favoring and increasing government control and regulation of the private sector. As was discussed by Maradon and myself the other day, this is a property of socialism and communism.

The social scale includes any number of issues related to civil rights, political freedoms, and the like. Social libertarians assert that the government has no right to meddle in the affairs of the people, and should focus on other issues. Often social libertarians oppose legislation by the government to that end(I.E. a gay marriage ban, anti-abortion legislation, prayer in school, etc.). Legislation which discriminates or favors one group is opposed. The more freedoms people have, the better.

Social authoritarianism takes two slightly different forms. There are those who feel that the government can and should be a positive force in the personal lives of the nation's people and should legislate morality, for lack of a better term. Then there are those who feel the rights of individuals should be revoked in deference to the state. These would include Communists(but not socialists!), religious fundamentalists (observe the religious right in the USA and the Islamic theocracies in the middle east). Both are socially authoritarian, even though their aims are slightly different (but do sometimes overlap).

What about the middle?

Now that we understand that there are two different scales with their own criteria, let's take a moment to talk about where these two meet, that is, what is centrist or moderate.

If you imagine the two scales as lines of finite length who can slide back and forth, then you see that their intersection point can and, in practice, does change. So it is with centrists, or moderates. What might be considered economically libertarian in the EU would be blatantly authoritarian in the U.S., because the intersection point is much further towards the economical-authoritarian edge in the EU than it is in the States. What is economically moderate there is authoritarian here.

Ya dig? Good. Let's move on to....

American political terms re-examined:

When people speak of 'conservative' and 'liberal,' they usually mean with regards to the social scale of the above. Economically speaking, however, the terms are flip-flopped! In other words:

Conservative - one who typically favors decreased government intervention in economic matters (economic libertarian), but feels that the government should legislate morality (social authoritarian). An EC example of this: Azizza.

Liberal - one who typically favors increased government control over the economy (economic authoritarian) but less control over over moral affairs and personal freedoms (social libertarian). EC example of this: well, a lot of people, really, but none typify it well enough to be singled out.

Confusing, ain't it? But that's politics, I guess. A note, though: the terms are not set in stone. There is a great deal of flexibility within the bounds of what's called authoritarian and libertarian, so don't be too offput by them.

Other pertinent terms:

Libertarian - A.K.A. the classic liberal, one who is both economically and socially libertarian. One who believes the government has neither the right nor the competence to regulate the economy or personal morality/freedoms.

Moderate - Ah, the vast majority of us. Centrist socially and economically speaking, the face of the moderate has changed massively in the last 50 years. Using today's moderate as a baseline, the moderate of 1954 would equate somewhere roughly with the likes of John Ashcroft or Rush Limbaugh (maybe even further the right!). Conversely, the moderate of 1970 would be seen today as a damned, dirty hippie. A present-day moderate in the U.S. is probably somewhere to the right of an EU converative. This just goes to show that the two scales are always in motion, and sometimes slide incredibly far to the right or left of each. Which brings me to another important point...

Right? Left? How do they work, now?

OK, so we've looked at the two scales. Can the right and left still apply? Sure! But you have to take care in how you use them. In general, conservative = right, liberal = left. But, as we've seen, conservative and liberal each cover different aspects of authoritarianism and libertarianism! So, one must take care to note that when one says, "I'm economically right of center," or something equivalent, he's an ecomonic libertarian, but if one says "I'm socially right of center," then he's a social authoritarian! Opposite holds true of liberalism, as we've seen.

How the fuck did it get like this?

If you examine the history of the Republican and Democratic parties, their stories show how they landed on opposite sides of the coin for these social and economic scales. But, since I don't feel like typing all that up, I invite you to look and learn for yourself.

Wrap it up, I have to take a piss

The ultimate purpose of this is to help you, John and Jane Q. ECer, to figure out where you stand politically. Many of us will be voting in November, and a lot of us will be voting for the first time in a national election. Using these two scales, you might find it easier to determine which candidate which you agree with the most, and if it helps you make a more informed vote, well then, shit, that's the whole point of the process.

Comments, corrections, additions, and flames are welcome.

That's the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell. - Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith