Demographics Poll: What is your political affiliation?
semiticgoddess
Member Posts: 14,903
This is the fifth in a series of polls to measure the demographics of the Beamdog community (I was just curious). The poll is anonymous by default, but you're welcome to discuss the issue publicly if you like.
The definition of these terms varies from country to country, so choose the option based on the term's meaning in your home country.
The other polls are here:
Sex/Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Nationality
Religion
The definition of these terms varies from country to country, so choose the option based on the term's meaning in your home country.
The other polls are here:
Sex/Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Nationality
Religion
- Demographics Poll: What is your political affiliation?104 votes
- Liberal22.12%
- Conservative16.35%
- Independent6.73%
- Libertarian9.62%
- Centrist4.81%
- Far Left12.50%
- Far Right2.88%
- Apolitical (no political affiliation)15.38%
- Other (please specify via post or PM if you wish to remain anonymous)9.62%
Post edited by semiticgoddess on
1
Comments
I think it's actually a pity that parties have now become so dominant in many countries. That makes bipartisan cooperation more difficult and hinders finding a resolution of issues that don't split along party lines - Brexit is a good example of that in the UK at the moment.
That said, as I grow older, I'm becoming more open towards conservative ideas.
And while I don't want to have anything to do with politics, I know dealing with it is inevitable. Since I am aware than I can, even in minimal way but still, affect other people's lives by my decisions as citizen, I do vote. But in my instance, voting is less of a decision of "who is the best candidate" but rather "which testicle I want to be shot in first". So it's bad-worse kind of decision.
I don't view politics as a "vote for the lesser of two evils" thing. I think there are legitimately good and conscientious people running for office, and it's our duty to keep them in power as a check against the corrupt and the dishonest. I don't expect a candidate to be everything I want in a politician--after all, I'm not the only voter with a say in the matter.
I think that outlook is healthier in the long run. Our response to the flaws in our government should be frustration and agitation rather than despair and resignation. In that sense, I think I agree a lot with @O_Bruce. Whatever our grievances with politics today, we need to stay engaged if we want things to change.
Gettin' mighty tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils. I'd rather get to choose between the greater of two goods for a change.
I don't like any of the political parties - partially because there aren't any that advocate for the type of economic system I'd like to see, and partially because of the self-serving corruption one sees in politicians of all stripes. There have been a few politicians I've actually believed in, but I usually vote for lesser evils.
Typically I vote for one of the more right-leaning parties. It's definitely one of the ones furthest to the "right". Again though, it's more about choosing the least bad alternative rather than a good one, since there really aren't any. The word "conservative" can't really be used I feel, because if any party's trying to conserve a lousy status quo while heaping additional fees, taxes and bureaucracy on top of everything, it's one of the left-leaning parties which have had too much power for too long.
As I've grown older I've realized two things:
1: I have moved slightly further to the left, though I dislike how more far-left parties "steal" empathy, compassion etc and call them their own. It's perfectly possible to vote non-left and still be sympathetic for immigration, progressive views on sex/gender/abortion/whatever.
2: No democracy can survive without free media. Without a free media questioning politicans, forcing them to explain the shit they do, digging up corruption and getting bad ppl kicked out of office, you no longer have a democracy. A lot of media is just a massive can of turds, pushing their agenda and not being objective.
Politics always goes in waves, or cycles. We've been having such a great era now with the best freedom ever for a long time that ppl have grown complacent and don't understand that the the moment you stop fighting for that freedom, you lose it.
Bah, I feel bitter today. /rant.
I guess it is safe to say that I have little positive view on politics when every four years (in the last two decades more like two or three) we get to vote again and the result is changing dramatically for each of the parties.
I know politics is important if done right. Even if many parties are small, they are apparently representative enough for a decent chunk in society to get a say in things. It just always seems so inefficient.
Anyway, my affiliation is towards everywhere in the spectrum, so whatever, I vote for a phenomenon called "green progressive" in the hopes that enough good (r)evolutions happen to help the planet.
But yeah, I'm a socialist, as you probably guessed.
And I'm definitely of the opinion that Liberalism is firmly right wing.
Prepare for a wall-of-text, let me discuss some issues one-by-one:
Immigration:
has become the most hot-button issue as of today pretty much all over the western world. There are both economic and cultural reasons to be for/against immigration. In many parts of europe, people view immigration with scepticism that disrupts the "invisible glue" that forms the homogeneous ethnic nation state. Given the history of failed multi-ethnic states (i.e. Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, USSR, and even Switzerland during the 19th century), the scepticism is not unwarranted. Now imagine letting people in from completely different continents/cultures and the differences between the various neighboring european tribes seem trivial. Within a given society, the working class are most likely to insist on the "ethnic glue" as an identity because that's the most they have when they are becoming left behind in the automatisation trend. They are the first ones to turn towards the immigration sceptic populism we see throughout the western world today.
The situation in the new world (i.e. Canada & U.S.) is somewhat different, since these are settler countries and the "invisible glue" that binds together the settler tribes isn't as strong as in most parts of the world. The political and economic class are much more successful in selling the benefits of immigration and making the questioning of a generous migration a taboo topic until very recently. They stand to gain the most from migration because of economic reasons: a. to increase the size of the labor pool and b. to maintain the pension system without making the politically difficult decision to raise the retirement age. There are other benefits for them, including a new pool of voters for certain political parties (different in each country).
The mass migration we see today is a recent phenomenon because now everyone in Africa, Asia, and the middle-east have smartphones. I am generally against migration in most forms, with very few exceptions.
Healthcare:
It's a hot-button issue in the U.S. and parts of central europe where I come from but for different reasons. Countries such as Hungary have had a mass-exodus of doctors due to low pay and underinvestment in healthcare infrastructure while having an aging demographics. The quality of healthcare is very low for this reason. The U.S. in the meantime has a monopoly and malpractice lawsuit problem (read: 'defensive medicine'), which inflate the cost of healthcare so U.S. spends by far the most on healthcare in relation to its GDP. Neither private nor socialized healthcare will bring down the costs due to entrenched monopolies; the problem is very specific to the U.S. Some issues less specific to the U.S. is the increased awareness and demand towards higher-quality healthcare as well as the larger pool of older people (good thing: people don't die as young).
Climate Change:
It's better to be safe and minimize CO2 emissions, since there's no reload button for this planet. That being said, I see hydro- and nuclear energy as the least worst evil that is easily scalable at a low cost. Reneweable energy sources just can't be stored reliably, and practically all energy infrastructure needs to be rebuilt to account for the load swings in weather, sunlight, etc. There are issues with nuclear energy: large up-front cost, and the bad PR that it got (read: Chernobyl mismanagement), and the high cost of upgrading older generation reactors. In some countries such as Germany, it seems to have become a taboo to use nuclear energy. After turning off their nuclear reactors for the sake of environmentalism they now contribute more to climate change by substituting nuclear with coal and importing energy from neighboring countries. There's unfortunately a lot of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and denial around this issue that prevent real progress from being made.
Education:
The student loan burden in the U.S. is a complete disaster that is a culmination of several trends, some of which are present in other countries i.e. U.K. In most of history, a formal higher education was not necessary for the masses and was used primarily by the elite as a ticket into specially-prepared jobs. After WW2, it was decided to open up the doors of higher education to the masses with the "G.I. bill". There were plenty of jobs requiring higher education back then and few people had degrees as a % of the general population. Soon, higher education become a growth industry and new universities opened. Higher education became more and more as a product to be consumed with new frills and features. Soon it become a taboo to *not* go to the universities. As the proportion of the people with degrees increase so did the market value of the degrees they held decrease. It also gobbles up per-capita resources and the time spent to start a family (read: lower fertility rates). There's a monopoly issue here yet again; this time the higher education institutions are the monopoly for a career in the modern world. One way to solve this (I think) is to replace the degree system with required certifications/exams and then leave the university attendance optional. It's now easier than ever to self-educate than ever by watching Youtube videos, for instance. 99% of the population will still struggle to learn without help, so the option of going to live classes and seminars will never go away.
Guns:
A hot-button issue in the states that has become very politicized. There are countries with lots of gun control laws and few murders (i.e. Japan), minimal gun control laws and few murders (i.e. Czech Republic, various Balkan countries), lots of gun control laws and lots of murders (i.e. Brazil, Mexico), and minimal gun control laws and lots of murders (i.e. U.S.). There are certainly other issues that are very specific to the U.S. i.e. glamorization of using them on other people, mental health taboos, certain demographics that are overrepresented among the murderers and murdered, etc. Also, people living in the city have less need for them than those living in the rural areas. I don't think the gun control debate will ever be "solved" in the U.S. I'm agnostic about guns because I see a lot of other issues at work that neither political party in the U.S. really "understand" or wants to understand.
Same-sex marriage and non-binary gender rights:
Seems to be more and more accepted in western countries and occasionally in other parts of the world. I remember it being a hot button issue a decade ago and even Obama wasn't for it at a time. Now this seems something which is being more and more accepted by all sides, simply because unlike the other issues above, there are no adverse effects of having same-sex marriage onto other members of society. Rights to non-binary genders is a very complicated issue and affects a very small proportion of the population.
Legalization of Marijuana for recreational use:
As same-sex marriage, this doesn't seem to have an adverse effect on society. Apparently, alcohol is more harmful to the health than marijuana.
By local standards, I am centre left, not far left.
I've been reading political theory since I was 12 or 13 (my Baby's First Leftist was Noam Chomsky but I consider him to be insufferably liberal these days lmao but at least he turned me onto folks like Emma Goldman and Rudolf Rocker who in turn led me into the wider world of political theory) and as it happens I wound up getting a Political Science degree in college (go figure lol) and...I'd talk about the direct action praxis component of my theoretical commitments, but even saying this much is frankly pretty bad security culture. I'll just say that my anti-poverty activism is one above-board thing I do that, frankly, doesn't go far enough (hence the below-board stuff LMFAO) and aside from that I don't see protests and marches and most forms of activism as actually useful or effective in any way (and more often than not are more effective at redirecting radical energies into easily dismissable or neutralizable forms of ""resistance"", the NGO-ization of resistance and all that) but I still attend because it's the radical anti-capitalist version of networking, you meet all kinds of awesome folks there just as frustrated as you that nothing electoral or peaceful or non-violent has ever made even the tiniest dent in what's killing us over the last few centuries to...make some tiny dents with so to speak.
I'm about as far left as the U.S. Green party. Perhaps slightly right of them, perhaps slightly left of them. They make a good benchmark for me because I agree 100% with what was the 2016 Green party platform.
In the context of American politics that probably makes me far left. In the world as a whole, it's just a liberal position.
I take the words of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution very seriously. Equality and liberty for ALL are natural RIGHTS, and we should effect those policies that promote them. I take satisfaction in knowing that (classic) liberalism is at the core of America's foundation.
I would probably consider myself a New Deal Democrat. I believe that a properly functioning, and non-corrupt government with significant, but not total authority has the best ability to implement the MAJOR challenges facing humanity. Addressing climate change and the anthropogenic effect on the environment is a very big and broad problem, far beyond "global warming". Deforestation, ocean pollution as well as acidification, desertification, global warming, all are serious issues that will be affecting millions. Solutions will not be cheap or small-scale.
I sorely distrust "the free market" and "the profit motive". Markets should be as free as possible, but all too often the profit motive boils down to "get mine first, fast as possible, and now I got mine, screw all ya'll."
People lament how "they don't make things like they used to". Obviously, because when you buy something that lasts for 20 years, you're out of the market for 20 years. Whereas if you have to buy something half the price that you have to replace 4 time as often, well, profits just went up 100%.
Likewise, there is no real interest in finding cures to chronic diseases, or orphan diseases (diseases that only a VERY few have, no more than a few thousand in the world). There's no money in spending tens of millions for something only a few dozen or hundred people need. And no money in curing the world of cancer. Or diabetes.
These are literal market failures straight out of an economics textbook.
by the way i live in a small village and i am well aware about how conflicts can rise also in little societies...
i am talking of what gandhi wrote, not about how his teaching is often perceived by people and brought us by the mass media. usually people does not go further than reading his autobiography, if they even do it, there is much more to learn about his message to the humanity and to the way he showed us.
he told that he was sure that his way was the solution of the problems the humanity is facing in the modern era, but he told that probably 300 years are needed until that will happen, only 70 has passed now. at now his teaching is widely ignored or misunderstood, but the problems he outlined in a time when they was not so evident are becoming very apparent and constantly worsening, year after year.