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Author Topic: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?  (Read 950 times)

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Offline Knight of Liberty

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What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« on: January 22, 2014, 08:17:38 pm »
It is a truism in most educated circles that the United States' political spectrum has a sharp rightward skew, but how far to the left of the US political spectrum is the center?  I think we can all agree that several nations in Europe are far to the left of center (Germany and the Scandinavian countries come to mind), so what options are we left with?  For that matter, what & how many extremes is the center between?  I actually don't have an answer in mind here and this has been gnawing at me for a while, so any help you all could provide would be appreciated.
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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2014, 08:19:00 pm »
I dunno... Switzerland, maybe?
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2014, 11:03:54 pm »
Are we talking democracies only? China, North Korea and so on weight the scale pretty bad.
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Offline LeTipex

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Re: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2014, 11:34:45 pm »
The problem is that "right/center/left" are pretty subjective. Each nation has its own opinion of what consistitute a right wing policy or a left wing one, and they don't always map up to a straight line when compared to one another.
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Art Vandelay

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Re: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2014, 11:40:47 pm »
Quote from: LeTipex on January 22, 2014, 11:34:45 pm
The problem is that "right/center/left" are pretty subjective. Each nation has its own opinion of what consistitute a right wing policy or a left wing one, and they don't always map up to a straight line when compared to one another.
That and you have to be really familiar with any given country's politics in order to judge how "left" or "right" it is. Hearing the odd snippet of news about them every now and again is simply not going to cut it.
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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: What Nation is Closest to the Absolute Political Center?
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2014, 01:13:28 pm »
Yeah, the political spectrum is not an absolute thing.  Not only is it different from country to country, it makes frequent changes with time. 

For example, it used to be liberals who supported free trade.  Now, it's conservatives.  Another example is the fact that until the 20th Century, any populist movement was considered left-wing.  If the Italian Fascist Party had been around in the Victorian era, it would've been called left-wing.

And that's not even getting into the fact that these divisions are a relatively recent thing.  They only came to inplay during the French Revolution.  Try to name the political ideology of, say, Thomas Jefferson, and you'd probably be stumped.

In other words, the political spectrum is rather inconsistent.  I think it's an overrated way of describing views.
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