Author Topic: What are your political beliefs?  (Read 23893 times)

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Offline Osama bin Bambi

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What are your political beliefs?
« on: June 04, 2012, 03:29:05 am »
So... uh, I realize that we used to have a "Religious Affiliation" thread on the forum until it went dead or something. So I figured we should have one for political beliefs too. Not necessarily what party you prefer, but political beliefs themselves (as we all know politicians do a real fuck-up job of representing what the people actually want once they get into office).

My only request is that this thread not turn into a debate.

Uh... okay. As I've stated around the forum before, I'm a left-libertarian. I do lean towards minarchism, as I don't believe that protection of life, liberty, and property prevents governments from making business regulations to protect consumers. I slightly lean towards voluntaryism because I think that ideally all human relations should be voluntary, and the government should also protect against coercion. But I disagree with the idea that a stateless society is the best way to bring this about. I think a minimalist state, one only big enough to effectively defend people's liberties, is a small price to pay and a "necessary evil" for people to be free. Also, I'm kind of a secret Chomsky fangirl.
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Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2012, 04:24:54 am »
Believe it or not, I'm actually a capitalist.  I do believe that the market is a game to be played and played well.  My problem is that currently, people are being cheated out of the game, and that the game itself is spiraling into a self-destructive frenzy not seen since a brick was thrown into a dryer.

If I seem like a socialist, it's because I recognize that the market needs to take a bitter pill known as "Human rights" and swallow it.

I also think people should be quite free to believe in unicorns, dragons, and what have you, simply because I believe freedom of thought is the most important thing on this planet, and once you start saying what people cannot think, you set up a dangerous precedent.  That being said, their beliefs should be restricted to their own lives, and it should not affect anyone else's, either.  You come up and tell me you believe in unicorns, fantastic, I'm genuinely interested in how you came to that conclusion, even if I disagree with it and think it's loony.  You come up and try to push unicorns onto me, saying that I'm stupid for not believing in them, and most importantly, try to affect my rights with your beliefs, then you get a boot to the head.  (No, not literally)
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Offline Fpqxz

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2012, 04:34:16 am »
Also, I'm kind of a secret Chomsky fangirl.

Heh, I like some of Chomsky's stuff too.

Believe it or not, I'm actually a capitalist.  I do believe that the market is a game to be played and played well.  My problem is that currently, people are being cheated out of the game, and that the game itself is spiraling into a self-destructive frenzy not seen since a brick was thrown into a dryer.

If I seem like a socialist, it's because I recognize that the market needs to take a bitter pill known as "Human rights" and swallow it.

Well put.

Anyway, I don't consider my own beliefs to fit into the standard left-right paradigm, or even the conservative/liberal/libertarian paradigm.  I guess if you had to apply a label to my beliefs, it would be "left-wing nationalist/pragmatist".  Here is a bullet-pointed list of my basic positions (not complete, but this is what I think off the top of my head).  I recognize that this list is somewhat biased toward U.S. politics, but a good deal of it could be applied to other countries as well.

*The state should provide (or at least subsidize) those goods and services which are beneficial to economic development, productivity, and domestic peace, such as healthcare, education, public infrastructure, law enforcement, and so forth.
*Going along with the first point, public investment in industries and research which would promote future growth is a good idea.  This is especially true for those industries and technologies which could promote energy independence and make fossil fuels obsolete.  Furthermore, investments should, where possible, be targeted toward regions which are economically deprived.
*Our foreign policy and defense policy should be one which promotes peace and the development of the poorer nations, not one of empire and nation-building by military means.
*Elections should be publicly funded.  No more of this "donate to my campaign and I'll promote policies favorable to you" crap, which as far as I'm concerned is just legalized corruption.  The idea that the 1st Amendment protects campaign contributions as speech is ludicrous.
*Stop using the criminal justice system to solve problems which could be more easily solved at the community level.  Most drug offenders would be better off in treatment than in prison.  Cannabis should be legalized and taxed.  Imprisonment, in general, should be reserved for certain classes of serious crimes (e.g. violent crime, sex offenses, organized crime, espionage/treason, etc.).  Even things like petty theft could be handled through fines and restitution.
*The immigration system needs to be overhauled to avoid backlogs which leave people in legal limbo.  We need to make sure people aren't detained or deported for specious reasons (like minor drug possession, etc.), and that migrant's due process rights are protected, while still making sure that people who do meet the legal requirements to stay are processed quickly and fairly.  We need to eliminate illegal immigration, which is an affront to the rule of law.  If we need farm workers and such, a guest worker program would be a better choice.
*Shorter term lengths for copyrights, and provisions to discourage copyright and patent trolling.  The system has been abused long enough.  There is certainly no need for terms exceeding an author's life.
*A commission should be put in place to study the current system of farm subsidies, and determine which should be cut.  The big agribusinesses have abused this system long enough as well.
*A financial transaction tax...something like 0.3% on securities trades.  It would provide a great source of revenue, and it would also discourage algorithmic trading, which adds market volatility.
*Privatization of state assets and services should be curtailed.  All too often, it is an excuse to fire unionized workers and award big contracts to politicians' friends and relatives.  (This goes double for prison privatization, which leads to all sorts of abuses.)

There are probably other things I could list, but this is the most important stuff.
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Offline largeham

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2012, 04:56:53 am »
Dirty Trotskyist (who woulda guessed?) bastard, with shades of left-communism.

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2012, 05:14:53 am »
I'd say I'm a standard left-leaning capitalist. I believe that a strong private sector is the best way to drive the economy, but at the same time we need a government to sort out things the private sector won't do or won't do correctly, as well as keep it in line.

Funnily enough, I guess I'm also technically a bit of a nationalist, in that I believe the government has no business even sending out foreign aid (much less full-blown military interventions such as what happened in Libya) as long as there's even one homeless person within our own boarders, though everyone having a decent standard of living is a kind of an ultimate end goal we should all be aiming for (if that makes any sense).

Offline Fpqxz

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2012, 05:17:42 am »
Dirty Trotskyist (who woulda guessed?) bastard, with shades of left-communism.

Are you referring to me?  How exactly do I fit the criteria for Trotskyism?  If anything, I'm advocating a somewhat more practical-minded version of Social Democracy.

Though as far as socialist ideologies are concerned, Democratic Socialism is a pretty interesting model, perhaps the closest thing I've seen to a left-wing utopia.  Pity it hasn't really been tried yet.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 05:20:12 am by Fpqxz »
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Step down Mr. and Mrs. Politically Correct.
It's so easy to be "punk" and "aware" living at home.
You can't change shit, you're too self-righteous;
you're the bigots you flaunt to loathe.
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Art Vandelay

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2012, 05:24:17 am »
Dirty Trotskyist (who woulda guessed?) bastard, with shades of left-communism.

Are you referring to me?  How exactly do I fit the criteria for Trotskyism?  If anything, I'm advocating a somewhat more practical-minded version of Social Democracy.

I believe he was referring to himself.

Offline largeham

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2012, 05:29:48 am »
Dirty Trotskyist (who woulda guessed?) bastard, with shades of left-communism.

Are you referring to me?  How exactly do I fit the criteria for Trotskyism?  If anything, I'm advocating a somewhat more practical-minded version of Social Democracy.

Though as far as socialist ideologies are concerned, Democratic Socialism is a pretty interesting model, perhaps the closest thing I've seen to a left-wing utopia.  Pity it hasn't really been tried yet.

Art Vandelay is correct, I meant myself. Also, the term democratic socialism is crap. The socialism is about workers controlling the means of production in a democratic fashion. It's original use was meant to distinguish socialists (as the socialism-communism split didn't occur until Lenin) from anarchists.

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Offline Søren

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2012, 05:36:22 am »
My political beliefs are limited to this simple statement

"do what you fuckin want. Just leave me alone and I'll play by the current rules"
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Offline Fpqxz

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2012, 05:38:18 am »
Art Vandelay is correct, I meant myself. Also, the term democratic socialism is crap. The socialism is about workers controlling the means of production in a democratic fashion. It's original use was meant to distinguish socialists (as the socialism-communism split didn't occur until Lenin) from anarchists.

Ahh, I see...my humblest apologies.  This is what happens when I wake up in the middle of the night and get on the internet due to insomnia.  Well, that and I start looking for old out-of-print metal albums to download.

As far as terminology is concerned, I understand your objection (and I admire your grasp of history), but I was referring to the modern permutation of the ideology.
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Offline DarkfireTaimatsu

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2012, 05:44:29 am »
My political beliefs are limited to this simple statement

"do what you fuckin want. Just leave me alone and I'll play by the current rules"

This right here.
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Offline Fpqxz

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2012, 05:47:05 am »
My political beliefs are limited to this simple statement

"do what you fuckin want. Just leave me alone and I'll play by the current rules"

This right here.

Everyone doing what they want sounds great, but it does little to solve the macro-level problems of the broader society.
Read some real news:  Allgov.com, JURIST

Quote
Step down Mr. and Mrs. Politically Correct.
It's so easy to be "punk" and "aware" living at home.
You can't change shit, you're too self-righteous;
you're the bigots you flaunt to loathe.
--Thought Industry, Boil

Offline largeham

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2012, 06:51:30 am »
Ahh, I see...my humblest apologies.  This is what happens when I wake up in the middle of the night and get on the internet due to insomnia.  Well, that and I start looking for old out-of-print metal albums to download.

As far as terminology is concerned, I understand your objection (and I admire your grasp of history), but I was referring to the modern permutation of the ideology.

That's cool, people do make mistakes. I should hope I know a little about the history of socialist thought. So I'm guessing you mean social democracy? The problem is that social democracy sold its soul over a century ago.

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Ah ah ah aaaaah!
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I used to wonder what socialism could be!
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Until you all shared its materialist dialectic with me!

Offline Morgenleoht

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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2012, 07:07:27 am »
Democratic socialist-capitalist meritocrat: everybody deserves equal rights, a basic (decent) standard of living, and the right to rise or fall based on their own merits, but nobody should be screwed over. Believe or say what you want: I have the right to a) laugh at you or b) argue with you if I disagree. Just keep violence out of it.
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Re: What are your political beliefs?
« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2012, 07:29:00 am »
I would say I'm a libertarian who will defer ideological purity for pragmatism. For example, even though I consider myself libertarian, I see a definite need for government intervention in certain areas (especially areas that are necessary for the public good). I think the government can run a fire department, police station, school, university, roads, libraries, dams, bridges, public transportation, and even health care system better than any private business. The difference between the government running these things and not things like video games or car manufacturing is that in these areas innovation is not a drastic concern. Not to mention when these areas are left to private businesses corners end up being cut to maximize profits.

Economically, I would say the same. As WTF said, I think everyone is entitled to a decent living wage and in a country like this where the top 1% makes exorbitant amounts and a CEO makes over 450 times what their employee makes, yeah, I'm for laws regulating that. Personally, one law I'm kind of curious about would be one that reads as follows "No person shall make more than 20 times what someone in their business makes; adjusted for hours worked, benefits, etc."

Foreign policy, I'd say that we should not go invading other countries which happen to have oil. We should use diplomacy a bit more, cut our defense spending to something more reasonable, and use more targeted assassination attempts (such as drones strikes or special ops) to take out the foreign combatant who want to do us harm.

Other than that, I just want to legalize pot.  ::) Also, if I use libertarian in quotations, I'm often talking about minarchists who want to do away with government because something like the FDA or EPA cuts into their profit margins (or Teabaggers who don't know what they're protesting).

EDIT: upon re-reading Wykked's post I see she uses Minarchism to describe herself. I think what we are operating on are two different understanding of the words. Often when I use such quotations around libertarian it is for someone who is more ideological than pragmatic (such as those who oppose Single-payer health care despite its better than American health care in every regard or those who would do away with the EPA and FDA because they don't see the need for it). To adopt a position of Edmund Burke, I'm talking about someone who doesn't understand that government programs generally arise organically. People who would rather "throw the baby out with the bath water" by making such drastic changes to programs which people before us put in place for a legitimate reason. Hope this clarifies, I'm a bit sleep deprived at the moment and have a bunch of things to get to which I am dreading. But yeah, when I say "libertarian" I am not talking about people like you or myself.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 07:39:58 am by QueenofHearts »