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How do you identify politically?


Panoptes

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Greetings fellow psyfans and goaheads. I have some questions for the community regarding your political views and am hoping to get a pulse on wether there are any trends or consensus (if any) politically speaking amongst our niche community.

Are you interested in politics? If so, how do you identify politically? It wouldn't hurt to mention where you are from and if you support some local parties, if any.

I'll go first.

I am addicted to politics and news in general. I really enjoy Vice news and progressive talk radio/youtube channels. I also enjoy listening to opposition outlets and some of the crazies as well to know what i'm up against. Keeping up with the news gives me clarity and I find it strangely therapeutic. I often find myself listening to political talk shows or congressional sessions in my free time and while I'm in bed preparing for sleep.

I'm from the US of A and identify as a social democrat/social libertarian. We have a two party system here, which is largely frustrating because you feel forced to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than supporting a movement that you actually agree with. Our spectrum here has shifted so far to the right considering international standards, which is quite a shame imo.

I look forward to reading your responses and perhaps even starting a dialogue about general politics or something specific if you guys are up for it.

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anarchist here. i'm not sure if the ideal society would be anarcho-communist, anarcho-collectivist or anarcho-syndicalist, but the beauty about anarchy (among many other things) is that multiple economic systems can be tried out in different regions or side by side in the same region and the people work out which works best.

 

obviously i do not associate with or vote for any party with conviction. but as i don't see anarchy being established here (or in fact anywhere) anytime soon, i'll try vote for the most reasonable option (preferably left of the conservatives who call themselves "social democrats") while we're still bound to this system.

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I started out as a republican (USA version that is) with a mix of libertarian ideas with it. This lasted till middle school or early high school, I can't remember (I became interested in politics from a young age). From there, I started to branch out more and became libertarian. During my first year in college though, I was introduced to a wide variety of stuff and eventually came to accept what is known as Anarcho-capitalism. I'm no hardcore believer, but I believe that what it promotes and the ideas of it are great since people will be able to associate/do what they wish to do, choose their own security, etc. Plus in such world, there can still be other anarcho groups such as anarcho-communism, etc.

 

I used to be addicted to politics and such but it was always with care since from an early age I've always been suspicious of news and governments from what my parents have told me and other folks since they lived in the Soviet Union. But now days, I could care less about politics, I see it all as garbage and nonsense. Just folks trying to grab power for themselves despite what they may say about serving the people or promoting democracy. Plus, as a Christian, I can't see myself supporting any government because of all the evils and etc that are involved. But like Padmapani, I don't see such a society to come soon so I just try to live as I can with the resources that are available.

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I am total for a liberal system with a social backup for the weaker in the community...

 

Liberalism is the best way imo because it guarantees freedom in what you do... If I want to party untill 10.00, I must be able to do that, I don't need any people telling me "this club closes at 4". I want to be free and responsible for my own deeds!

 

Although I am not socialist in the European way at all (politically) I think there must be a back up for people that really need it (handicapped people, people that can't work anymore and partly people without a job, but only for a period of time) :) That is the only reason why I like to pay taxes... but at the moment I pay 45% taxes, and i'm not sure where it all goes, but not where it belongs!

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Nowhere. In my opinion modern politics oppose individuality. I believe that:

 

-No one is really left or right. It all depends to the situation and what's in our favour.

-Political parties are anti-democratic by nature.

-It's in human nature to abuse the system therefore corruption will happen no matter the person, party or idea.

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Leftist here. There isn't any party or ideology that embodies what I like, and actually, I don't know what interests me the most. The only thing I'm sure about is that I am anti-capitalist.

But when I go voting, I don't vote for ideas but for people. I already have voted for ecologist, center-left, communist and conservative right-wing candidates.

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Padmapani- I'm a little shocked to be called a conservative haha. My roommate is an anarcho-communist and we share similar sentiments. Although I sympathize with the movement and the sad history behind it(Spain and Russia and how they were massacred by everyone) I find its vision to be a bit out of reach and over idealistic (nothing wrong with being a little idealistic imo). I think its too big an overhaul of the system and over estimates the malleability of human nature and human intellect.

 

desysko- I'm a little scared of ancaps tbh. The Ayn Randian vision of society pitting every man for himself and fetishizing freedom and rejection of social pact to a dangerous extent. In the last presidential election cycle here in the US, Ron Paul was asked what would happen to a 30 yo man who chose not to pay into health insurance and happened to fall deathly ill. Ron Paul replied church philanthropy as the crowd cheered "let him die!" Sickening imo. I do agree with libertarian types regarding social liberalism but not at all regarding economic liberties and the religious like worship of the free market.

 

Anoebis- From my understanding of your post we seem to be on the same page. Well regulated capitalism with a strong social safety net is the way to go. Why not take advantage of the strengths of both systems, that is capitalism's distribution of scarce resources, innovation, incentive structure and socialism's human friendly mindset.

 

Ormion- I do agree with your 2nd and 3rd point. There will never be a perfect society because humans are flawed being. Now to say people aren't left or right is a stretch, though I do understand how circumstance does heavily impact ideology.

 

Cynos- What points of liberalism do you agree with? What are your critics of liberalism?

 

 

Scandinasia- I do have some anti-capitalist views but I don't outright dismiss the system. It does have it pros that sort of manage some of humanities weaknesses. The way I see it history is a gradual shift to the left and we tend to be right more than not.

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desysko- I'm a little scared of ancaps tbh. The Ayn Randian vision of society pitting every man for himself and fetishizing freedom and rejection of social pact to a dangerous extent. In the last presidential election cycle here in the US, Ron Paul was asked what would happen to a 30 yo man who chose not to pay into health insurance and happened to fall deathly ill. Ron Paul replied church philanthropy as the crowd cheered "let him die!" Sickening imo. I do agree with libertarian types regarding social liberalism but not at all regarding economic liberties and the religious like worship of the free market.

 

One thing to note is that Ayn Rand and Ancaps are not synonymous despite what folks may think. Most Ancaps actually don't take Rand as Ancap because of what her and your cult group promoted. Ron Paul is just one person and also not synonymous with Ancapism as he never has officially called himself that, but more of Libertarian. There are plenty of other folks who have done a better job at explaining and writing about Ancapism.

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Padmapani- I'm a little shocked to be called a conservative haha. My roommate is an anarcho-communist and we share similar sentiments. Although I sympathize with the movement and the sad history behind it(Spain and Russia and how they were massacred by everyone) I find its vision to be a bit out of reach and over idealistic (nothing wrong with being a little idealistic imo). I think its too big an overhaul of the system and over estimates the malleability of human nature and human intellect.

 

 

 

 

 

Scandinasia- I do have some anti-capitalist views but I don't outright dismiss the system. It does have it pros that sort of manage some of humanities weaknesses. The way I see it history is a gradual shift to the left and we tend to be right more than not.

i'm talking about the various "social democratic" parties over here in europe ;). the best example is the greek pasok imploding and the voters switching over to syriza because the social democrats have drifted so far to the right as to be almost indistinguishable from the conservatives. or if you look to germany a decade ago, the social democracts together with the greens implemented a program of social cuts that's like the wet dream of every conservative. it's not much different for labour in the u.k. or really anywhere else. i guess the democrats and republicans in the u.s. would also qualify...

 

we don't know if anarchy works unless we give it a try. things have looked pretty good in spain and the ukraine until they were invaded and defeated. to be completely honest, i don't even think that a first try will lead to a stable and ideal system. after all, the french revolution led to the dictatorship of napoleon... but the idea all humans should have equal rights and that no one should have power over others (which has been proven in history to always lead to corruption, exploitation and violence) is just so obvious, that we should try to get as close to that ideal as possible. i think that you'd have to be very idealistic to believe that a society with hierarchies can be a just and humane society at all :)

 

 

 

i'm not scandinasia, but you shouldn't confuse market economy with capitalism. there are even multiple left-wing branches of anarchism that embrace a market economy.

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By capitalism, I mean the current global system who acts like a sophisticated bot programmed to exploit the workers in order to create wealth for wealth's sake, and that is based on the old-fashionned concept of infinite growth, applied to a limited world.

I am also aware that other forms of capitalism do exist in some bright minds.

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I guess one problem with the word capitalism is that when folks use it, they mean different things. Some folks would think of it like how Scandinasia mentioned while others use it to describe the idea/belief that we should be allowed to trade, do, etc whatever we want without interference from another power, or etc. It becomes a huge battle of semantics.

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Left. Not comunist but I beleive in free education and free healthcare, letting the refugee's being processed fairly and humanley even the boat arrivals. I thnk everybody should have a good quality of life partially subsidised by tax payers money with the opportunity to make more of it if they care to push harder.

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Cynos- What points of liberalism do you agree with? What are your critics of liberalism?

 

I agree with the equal rights, individualism, ambientalism, same sex marriage and freedom of expression; but the things I dislike from it are modern feminism (the one that demonize men), abortion (in some cases), gun control, political correctness and how some people abuses of these freedoms.

 

Also, I have some nationalist and traditionalist tendences.

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I am total for a liberal system with a social backup for the weaker in the community...

 

Liberalism is the best way imo because it guarantees freedom in what you do... If I want to party untill 10.00, I must be able to do that, I don't need any people telling me "this club closes at 4". I want to be free and responsible for my own deeds!

 

Although I am not socialist in the European way at all (politically) I think there must be a back up for people that really need it (handicapped people, people that can't work anymore and partly people without a job, but only for a period of time) :) That is the only reason why I like to pay taxes... but at the moment I pay 45% taxes, and i'm not sure where it all goes, but not where it belongs!

Very Similar to my views Joske. Liberal but with social concern for the vulnerable. I believe in the need of a government, but a small one with little interfierence in people's lives and businesses.

 

I would also add the I'm ALL IN for true financial equality/true capitalism. What we have now is more like cronyism or aristocrachy. Big companies have all kinds of means (financial or not) to crush their competition, reaching to the point of even influencing the law makers and the legal system. How can little businesses thrive in an uneven field??

Of course, let's not even get started with the banking system.

 

They say that the business enviroment is the human jungle. I disagree with that, I think nature, albeit cruel, is much fairer than business. No animal has the ability to change the environment, big businesses CAN!

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curious to know what's wrong with abortion? You do that until almost the end it's just a bunch of cells...

 

If it's product of a rape, that's ok.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I guess I would have to take some sort of online quiz to see where the wind blows in my case :D!

 

I find it perfectly fine to have to go and protect my country, family, myself with assault rifle is situation comes to it, I guess Im not the only one from this PLUR family.

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Nowhere. In my opinion modern politics oppose individuality. I believe that:

 

-No one is really left or right. It all depends to the situation and what's in our favour.

-Political parties are anti-democratic by nature.

-It's in human nature to abuse the system therefore corruption will happen no matter the person, party or idea.

Well put, Ormi, well put :D!

On a side note - what happened now in Greece is huge disaster wait to unfold if the rest of the world allows it to.

 

 

Leftist here. There isn't any party or ideology that embodies what I like, and actually, I don't know what interests me the most. The only thing I'm sure about is that I am anti-capitalist.

But when I go voting, I don't vote for ideas but for people. I already have voted for ecologist, center-left, communist and conservative right-wing candidates.

I guess ex-commie occupied countries have totally different ideas of what the communism IRL is all about :D!

Sure, its people, who ruin and corrupt system, but 50 years of slavery for "communism" is something hard to battle against when you hear words communism is good or something among those lines over here :D!

And its not like, so called fathers of commies ideas were all about PLUR themselves, were they ;)?

 

 

I guess one problem with the word capitalism is that when folks use it, they mean different things. Some folks would think of it like how Scandinasia mentioned while others use it to describe the idea/belief that we should be allowed to trade, do, etc whatever we want without interference from another power, or etc. It becomes a huge battle of semantics.

Perhaps we should try to look up it in dictionary and simply use meaning found there?

Otherwise its pretty much up to anyones own interpretation and/or experience of what this or that social/political/ecomonical structure/system is all about.

 

Left. Not comunist but I beleive in free education and free healthcare, letting the refugee's being processed fairly and humanley even the boat arrivals. I thnk everybody should have a good quality of life partially subsidised by tax payers money with the opportunity to make more of it if they care to push harder.

Now, I understand you are out of this discussion and Im sure we wouldnt agree on this anyway, but the question for those taking part in this discussion:

Do you find it OK people fleeing their own countries instead of cleaning mess up at their own home before running around world looking for naive European countries with generous social benefit systems and not giving a flying fuck about integration and respect of local culture and laws?

I understand that countries which abused certain regions as colonies throughout centuries or at least decades are just getting back what they might have inflicted on occupied/suppressed people, but how about the rest, the ones who never occupied anyone, who never sucked out life force and wealth out of other peoples lands, countries, is that fair to them, especially given recent talks about how EU wants to creat refugee quotas and spread them around the whole EU and pay for refugees settled in each and every EU country?

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I guess ex-commie occupied countries have totally different ideas of what the communism IRL is all about :D!

Sure, its people, who ruin and corrupt system, but 50 years of slavery for "communism" is something hard to battle against when you hear words communism is good or something among those lines over here :D!

 

Actually, communism was never really applied in History. Staline and Kim Jong Un certainly has nothing to do with this ideology. The weak spot of communism is that it always tend to give birth to totalitarian offsprings. Which is bad. I agree.

But in these countries, the communist regimes were born from a revolution. In France, which is a democracy applying pluralism, communists are part of the political landscape since a long time, and they don't want to set up a revolution.

We already had communist ministers, communist representatives at the chambers, and today, some mayors in more or less big cities are communist.

I wouldn't vote for a commie as president. But for local elections, they are pretty good.

That said, I am not communist myself and though their movement has some interesting elements (so do the liberal movement), I don't think they are the solution we need for our world. They are too old-fashionned, and live in a imaginray past, while we're dealing with a real present and future.

Unless they mutate into a modern form maybe ?

 

Of course, the better choice would be to take the best elements from every ideology and to merge it together, but of course, this won't happen.

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I hate politics with a flaming passion. It's all bullshit and I feel that political parties shouldn't exist. They only serve to divide us. Which is the reason they exist; those who dictate the party's platform and have the most to gain from it are the ones who benefit from that division. We unwashed masses don't.

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I never get the idea behind political parties. Isn't it better to have a parliament of individuals instead of groups? Humans tend to

have a more crowd psyshology when belonging to a group which leads to less ideas and opinions.

Here in Greece we have 300 person parliament. You'd expect to have 300 different opinions, but we only have 6 as many as the parties. Even worse if someone disagrees with the official party line they remove you from the party completelly. So democratic.

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Now, I understand you are out of this discussion and Im sure we wouldnt agree on this anyway, but the question for those taking part in this discussion:

Do you find it OK people fleeing their own countries instead of cleaning mess up at their own home before running around world looking for naive European countries with generous social benefit systems and not giving a flying fuck about integration and respect of local culture and laws?

Yes i find it OK.

Otherwise i would probably not be posting in this forum. :ph34r: :ph34r:

 

I would be a total hipocrite if i had something against traveling to other countries and breaking cultural/social norms and laws.

(f.ex. traveling to india, taking drugs, dressing inappropriately, dancing to loud foreign music... not giving a flying fuck, that's how this scene begun.)

 

Do you think such behavior is ok as long as it's for pleasure but not fore those in need? Please explain. <_<:P

 

I understand that countries which abused certain regions as colonies throughout centuries or at least decades are just getting back what they might have inflicted on occupied/suppressed people, but how about the rest, the ones who never occupied anyone, who never sucked out life force and wealth out of other peoples lands, countries, is that fair to them, especially given recent talks about how EU wants to creat refugee quotas and spread them around the whole EU and pay for refugees settled in each and every EU country?

 

Getting back? Do you really think refugee migration is on par with murder and enslavement of millions? :huh:

Do you think the poor EU countries have the right to put people on a plane against their will and send them in to a warzone? :blink:

Should we close the door on refugees and just hope they die quietly? :unsure::wacko:

 

Please react agressively and insulting. Im a troll, it feeds my ego. :lol: :lol: :D

 

:rolleyes:

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