Main Menu

The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

IndigoPrime

I wouldn't go as far as Shark. I'd say people can broadly be placed into certain areas of alignment, but left/right is a very reductive way of doing so, given that it's usually talking about economics, or trying to overlay economics and social thinking. That doesn't really work, because you'd place Labour and the Greens in a similar lefty slot, despite Labour being broadly authoritarian, and the Greens being far more liberal/libertarian in nature.

The political compass (like other, similar systems) is a little better at this, placing economic thinking on left/right and auth/lib on north/south. I suspect the majority of people here would tend towards the lower-left quadrant on that model (libertarian left), or not be too far over the boundaries if in one of the others.

CalHab

It's a nonsense anyway. My reasonably centrist views in Scotland would, if transplanted to the US, have me labelled as a "commie". There is good policy and bad policy, that's the only useful paradigm.

Eric Plumrose

Quote from: marko10174 on 19 December, 2017, 12:24:28 AM
on what side of the political spectrum do you all align yourselves with? left? right? centrist?

Socially conscientious.
Not sure if pervert or cheesecake expert.

Professor Bear

Left and right are increasingly irrelevant as political identities, the only reason they persist is because of the UK's shitty electoral system and effectively binary choice of parties.

Steven Denton

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 19 December, 2017, 07:04:39 AM
I don't subscribe to the false left/right paradigm. I believe the questions of left or right are artificial constructs designed to attract people to certain parties and present the illusion of choice.

There has been a considerable polarisation of support in what are effectively two party races normally ascribing Left and right to the two camps.

socially liberal/conservative, Authoritarian/Libertarian, Socialist/Capitalist, Democratic/autocratic they all describe interacting sliding scales of vastly differing opinions.   

However when two right wing capitalist parties sitting slightly apart at the same end of more or less all of the scales as your only choices yet some how they are referred to as left and right the terms do become as meaningless as randomly ascribed colours. Like red and blue.

TLDR: I kind of agree with you 

Theblazeuk

I'm the opposite of whatever the Daily Mail is, always.

That carries on through to blue ****ing passports. Never have I struggled to censor a swearword more on this board.

The Legendary Shark

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




sheridan

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 01 January, 2018, 02:09:05 PM
"The monarchy earns more than the average UK worker by 00:43 on 1st January."
And that's mean average of £28K - median average for a UK worker is around £21,500, while median average household income (two adults) is around £22:500 (those figures are few years out of date, but wage inflation hasn't been large enough to make a huge difference).

Tjm86

In today's news we hear that Trump has literally resorted to 'my one is bigger than yours' in his diplomatic manoeuvrings with North Korea.  I am minded of the future shock "War Game" (prog 287) in which a couple of kids are playing at thermonuclear war.  Only now we've got grown ups behaving like kids but with a nuclear arsenal.   :o

sheridan

Quote from: Tjm86 on 03 January, 2018, 03:29:56 PM
In today's news we hear that Trump has literally resorted to 'my one is bigger than yours' in his diplomatic manoeuvrings with North Korea.  I am minded of the future shock "War Game" (prog 287) in which a couple of kids are playing at thermonuclear war.  Only now we've got grown ups behaving like kids but with a nuclear arsenal.   :o
Just when you think you've seen it all, he shows even less self-awareness of the image he's portraying (of being an extremely insecure, small* person).

* small-minded, small-handed and other areas...

Tjm86

... and in todays news, Nigel Farage is going for the Dave Channel award for the most amusing Twitter thread.  He decided it would be a good idea to ask for suggestions on what to ask Michel Barnier in his meeting later and received some amusing suggestions.  I think he's considering changing the thread title from #askBarnier to #ownGoal.

JayzusB.Christ

Well, I must say I did enjoy that Farage Twitter thread immensely.  It was up there with the Twitter responses to his previous statements about being broke and miserable in terms of schadenfreude comedy gold.

I have to ask, though, does anyone actually like him?  Everyone I've ever spoken to thinks he's an utter tosspot.  But yet he's all over the media, and his opinion is the one referred to time and again to counterbalance the more rationally-minded commentators on social politics.  Am I still just trapped in the little wishy-washy liberal non-UK bubble that stopped me from foreseeing Brexit and that tiny-handed little gobshite that calls himself President of the US?
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Professor Bear

Farage is a useful idiot to keep the Overton Window framed around the right and the far right, rather than around the right and the left.  I imagine it also helps that UKIP represents the opinions of a lot of conservatives.
The Greens are more electorally representative, but the BBC - despite its mandate demanding it do so - has repeatedly refused to give the Greens representation similar to that they've given to UKIP.

JayzusB.Christ

#13933
I had to look up the Overton Window, but yeah, I get you.
I've been listening a lot to James O'Brien on youtube, but my friend in England tells me LBC is a right-wing station.  I've never listened to anyone else on LBC but I know that the frog-faced UKIP Mosley/Del-Boy wannabe in question has a slot on it too.

I fully understand that this is a shamelessly ad-hominem judgement on Farage, but I'm giving myself a free pass because he's a racist, hypocritical cock.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Professor Bear

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 07 January, 2018, 05:20:00 PMI've been listening a lot to James O'Brien on youtube, but my friend in England tells me LBC is a right-wing station.

It is very much a right-wing station and O'Brien is a small-c conservative - quite a few small-c conservatives now being default lefties because large-c Conservatives have lurched so far to the right.  What you're likely hearing on YT is edited highlights of O'Brien tackling the Little England nutjobs that comprise LBC's primary audience and actually asking them questions about their straw men rants rather than indulging them as other LBC presenters do.
Having said that, I have no idea why Owen Jones presented shows on the channel.  Possibly he just likes to appear in media organs that damage the left.