on which side of the aisle do you sit?

[whatever]

left and left, if I hadn't made that obvious over the last year

I'm far enough left to think that most politicians are either douchebags (reps) or pussies (dems)

[pure_mercury]

Originally Posted by Cimarron

2 is a really small sample size, though.

Of course, and it's not random at all (two posters who read the Political threads and felt like responding). Interesting nonetheless.

[Orangey]

Heh, that's a lot of social lefties so far.

[Cimarron]

Originally Posted by Orangey

Heh, that's a lot of social lefties so far.

That's generally how it is on the internet.

[Little Linguist]

Not trying to be a jerk: but define 'right' and 'left' because I think there is a lot of ground covered by those two terms. How far right and how far left? Think: political diamond rather than political spectrum.

[Oleander]

Hoo! You have a point there Linguist. Some people think Anarcho-Socialist an impossible union of direct opposites. When I think Left, I think as far as possible freedom for everybody to do whatever they want to do, something like an aristocratic slave state without the slaves (robots anyone?). But by 'Freedom', the Right often means freedom to choose between a few choices of what is necessary to survive that are set for you. Rightist freedom is like a supermarket stuffed full of different brands except they're all beans. Leftist freedom is directing a cook or doing it yourself.

[Little Linguist]

Originally Posted by Oleander

Hoo! You have a point there Linguist. Some people think Anarcho-Socialist an impossible union of direct opposites. When I think Left, I think as far as possible freedom for everybody to do whatever they want to do, something like an aristocratic slave state without the slaves (robots anyone?). But by 'Freedom', the Right often means freedom to choose between a few choices of what is necessary to survive that are set for you. Rightist freedom is like a supermarket stuffed full of different brands except they're all beans. Leftist freedom is directing a cook or doing it yourself.

Exactly. Far left and far right have nothing to do with freedom, with the possible exception of anarchy. Anarchy would be extreme far left; so would communism; socialism would as well; some might even argue that the green party is. But they are fundamentally different!! One could argue bible belt, national socialism, conservative nationalism, neo-conservative fanaticism, monarchism, are all far right, but have very, VERY different purposes. Eh, not even to mention the stuff in between.

Some ideologies are contradictory. Take internationalism. That could be far left, center, far right or anything in between depending on the circumstances.

So, at the risk of sounding NT, I'm leaving that one alone until it's classified better....

[Lateralus]

I'm not comfortable voting without definitions. I think I'm what most people would call socially left, but I'm not certain of that. Would me voting that way imply that I support things like affirmative action and slavery reparations?

Economically, does 'left' mean lots of government intervention, 'right' very little government intervention? And what does neutral mean? Does that mean you support a 'mixed' economy? I ask this because some people could interpret 'right' to mean you support corporatism, 'left' socialism/communism, with 'neutral' being non-interventionist.

[Little Linguist]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

I'm not comfortable voting without definitions. I think I'm what most people would call socially left, but I'm not certain of that. Would me voting that way imply that I support things like affirmative action and slavery reparations?

Economically, does 'left' mean lots of government intervention, 'right' very little government intervention? And what does neutral mean? Does that mean you support a 'mixed' economy? I ask this because some people could interpret 'right' to mean you support corporatism, 'left' socialism/communism, with 'neutral' being non-interventionist.

Eh, yeah, exactly!!! Socially left can mean anything from NO government (anarchy) to liberalism (SPD/Democrat), to extreme governmental control (communism). Eh. Like I said, I'm leaving it alone until it's defined better.

[Orangey]

I think that, to keep the poll simple, the categories were boiled down to fewer, larger (and yes, therefore more ambiguous ones). With this in mind, I'm thinking that fiscally left and fiscally right would encompass both the more libertarian views of those sides and the more authoritarian (I'm thinking of political compass). So both go into the one category.

As for social, I'm guessing that it depends on which you are in general. So for most issues, do you fall more to the left or right for the majority of them? In other words, out of, say, abortion, gay marriage, and affirmative action (this is just an illustration, there are of course many more issues), are your views mostly left, right, or equal between them all (neutral)? And I think that it's fairly obvious that a left position on something like abortion is pro-choice. That's not to say that someone who is pro-life isn't socially left, but when looking at the composite of all your opinions, if they are mostly to the right you'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that you are socially left. If those three issues were all the issues possible, and I were at once pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and anti-affirmative action, I wouldn't be able to consider myself socially left. I think that much is fairly unambiguous.