What are your political leanings?

[Cascadian]

I am just wondering where you are on the political spectrum.

[election_2004]

1. Where's the category for moderates?

I'm smack in the middle, dammit.

[Piperay]

20. Yeah, me too

I didn't see that category so I had to vote that I was DLC. :-( :shrug:

[Cascadian]

2. I am pretty complex politically!

I consider myself a believer in civil liberties and the government should not interfere in one's personal life unless they break the law. But I also believe in Universal Health Care and I think some industries and institutions should be nationalized (railroads, Federal Reserve, oil companies just to name a few.). I also believe in a strong environmental policy and money spent on using and researching alternative energy sources. So I am a Libertarian Socialist with some Green leanings. I also still think that if states like Washington and Oregon want to peacefully break away from the Union they should be allowed to. That will not happen for a while however.

John

[La_Serpiente]

5. I wish states could break away

I want Hawaii to break away. We are 5000 miles away from Washington and sometimes, i feel we cannot get our voices across.

[Cascadian]

6. Hawaii never should have been taken over.

It was a huge injustice that America colonized the Hawaiian Islands like it did. I think they really should break off. It wasn't ours to take.

I hope someday it will be free again!



John

[tom_paine]

3. Radicalized moderate

This country was founded on the principle of the extremes counterintg each other's passions in order to sdteer a course down the middle.

I still believe in that. I will always believe in that. A moderate, as I see it, always acts to drag things back to the center. When the Right is getting too powerful, the moderate joins with the Left, when the Left becomes too powerful, vice versa.

Radicalization occurs when it becomes clear that one side is no longer interested in the Constitutional System at all, but desires hegemonic, unchecked power...a decidely unAmerican concept.

At such time, there is nothing to be done but to take every action possible to preserve the integrity of the systm for future generations.

It does not mean the destruction of conservative thought (though the Busheviks hardly classify as conservatives...more like monrachists if you asked me) any more than the Bushevik desire for the destruction of liberal thought is a path to a Strong, Healthy Republic.

It does mean putting a stop to the Imperial Family, while there is still a Constittuion and Bill of Rights left to defend. This, clearly, does NOT fall into the category of DLC centrist, but it IS centrism of another sort...a truer sort, IMHO.

[FDRrocks]

4. Demo Socialist...

although true communism has never been tried in nation-state history.

[jmags]

7. Do you think it could be?

[FDRrocks]

11. I posted a theory on this before...

That Marx was right in predicting a worldwide shift towards communism... but didn't take into matter that huge capitalists interest would interfere. I'm not saying Russia or China or other small nations did it right... they were, after all, nations, which contradicted the idea of Marxism. What I mean is the huge progressive era the world had in the early 20th century and the special-interest/capitalist dominance we now live in. I think progress towards a more humane, natural state was supposed to happen, but was interrupted by unnaturally powerful intrests.

[Rowdyboy]

8. Liberal Democrat

somehow that got left out of your list.

[DeepModem Mom]

18. Liberal Democrat

We desperately need political balance, and sanity, restored in this country, with "liberal" no longer a word to run away from, and "conservative" a description not of a right-wing extremist, but of a right-of-center moderate.

[sandnsea]

9. I'm a Democrat dammit

The party of workers, family and American values. That doesn't seem to be listed.

[sventvkg]

22. LOLOLOLOL That's the funniest thing I have seen all day!!!

Democrats are SO far away from that picture you painted that its' almost absurd. Please scrutinized voting record and speeches and you will see that they are basically right leaning and not much different then Republicans by and large. You are deluding yourself that the party is anything like what it once was.

[Dr Satan]

10. anarchists and libertarians

how can you tell the difference?

[Wwagsthedog]

12. I took a test that said I'm a leftist libertarian, whatever that is

Someone else posted this first:

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/usprimaries.html

[John_H]

13. An absolutely delightful example of one-percenter psychology

According to this poll, you're either a socialist democrat, a DLCer, or a wingnut. Afraid more people might indicate they're mainstream democrats than left wingnuts? Welp, just leave it off the poll, Elmer!!

[burr]

14. Truman-Carter-FDR Democrat...

I support Carter's approaches to energy policy and human rights.

Truman's policies on healthcare reform and economics.

And FDR's approach on foreign policy and tax policies.

I also support a strong, competitive free market...in which the government does little to pick winners or losers. The government owes it to small businesses to get out of the patent and copyright business...people need to make money from their ability to make deals and to make competitive products. They should not make money by arresting people who are competitive, or who simply make better products! Nor should they be able to just buy these competitors out!

[CivilRightsNow]

15. A pretty neat site

http://www.politicalcompass.org

I think this test is a pretty nifty one, if anyone is bored and feels like taking it :)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

16. You left out 'Democrat'

[DoNotRefill]

17. I don't fit into any one category.

I'm big on civil rights, pro-choice, pro-guns, pro-cigarettes, pro-pornography, pro-drugs, pro-whatever as long as everybody's over 18 and consents. I support social programs across the board, provided that they're optional and nobody is forced to take part of it except to pay for it.

I think Government should be there to provide a helping hand, but not to insinuate itself into our lives. If people need help, the government should try to help them, but without sticking it's nose too far into their business. And I don't like the idea of the Government telling us we can't do something because it's bad for us.

[Don_G]

19. Other

I'm kind of "Centrist" but given the fact that there was no "Lay-A-Way" optioion offered....

Personally, anyone who dicks with a signigicant amout of America's econony should be investegated and prosecuted to the fullest extent that the "law" offers. "They" may have committed a crime, but at what extent to the economy and how much did it cost the investeors without forewarnng?

I also believe in cleaning up "one's" mess as it happens. Recognize a problem and and care of it ASAP...or use the Federal Government to handle the situation twenty or fifty years down the road after it's too late.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Left libertarian.

Libertarian socialist, syndicalist anarchist, take your pick of labels...puts me politically somewhere in the same neighbourhood as Noam Chomsky (which is a long way away from most people in the US who call themselves "libertarian").

[iverglas]

23. good grief

My only guess for the high proportion of "democratic socialist" responses ... vs. the remarkable scarcity of anything that democratic-socialist me would regard as democratic socialist on this board ... is that we lefties stay up later than others. Or, I suppose, are more concentrated in later time zones.

I continue to recommend the site I first saw posted at DU for locating one's self on the two-dimensional political plane:
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/index.html

(edit: oops, I wasn't the first, so just allow me to add my voice to the references for that site!)

(There are other possible dimensions -- see, e.g.,
http://www.journal.law.mcgill.ca/arts/453gonth.pdf
http://www.uichr.org/resources/eb/weston4.shtml
but the liberty/equality axes are those most discussed at present.)

Even "liberalism" is not a line -- what of "social liberalism" and "economic liberalism", and all those who claim to be one but not the other?

A "social liberal" values individual freedom. A "fiscal liberal" values equality of benefits and opportunities. (And there, even that Political Compass gets it a bit screwy, defining "left" as state control and "right" as absence of state control, when surely the real issue is the purpose for which state control is, or is not, exercised.)

A democratic socialist values both, and strives for the solutions that are most respectful of each ... and does not engage in knee-jerk "my freedom(right) trumps your right(freedom)" responses to any problem.

.

[GOPBasher]

24. You left quite a bit out.

Most of the Democratic party falls somewhere in between socialists and DLC centrists. You should have at least one category in between those, if not two.

[Zynx]

25. I am kind of a maverick Democrat.

I don't really tow the party line on a number of issues and I instead just go with what I feel comfortable with. This creates a weird mix of issues.