RedWine
06-16-2006, 09:32 PM
Can't decide how to vote in the next election? What sign to put on your lawn? Read on, and find out where you fit in on the political spectrum.
Steps
Figure out how active you think government should be in the lives of everyday people. Should they take care of all of the basic needs of every person? Should people be responsible completely for their own necessities and behavior? Somewhere in the middle?
See where your thoughts fit within the political spectrum. Only the characteristic five positions are discussed here. Note: more complete political spectrums have 2 axes: social issues and economic issues.
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/47/spectrum3lt.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Socialism is state control of industry (but not small businesses) and distribution coupled with vast social programs and a fair amount of wealth redistribution. Taxes are usually high, but many services like health care, education, and welfare/Social Security are free. In Marxism, socialism is the transition stage between capitalism and communism.
Communism, which many Europeans and Americans consider evil, is the extreme left version of socialism, and has been very popular in the past, with its failure due mostly to the greed of its rulers, not the ideology itself. The basis of the doctrine is elimination of private property, a state-owned means of production, and, finally, the deterioration of a centralized government into a collective society.
The Democratic Party is the major left-wing party in U.S. politics. It is left-leaning on social and economic issues, although the lack of strong third parties in the U.S. forces people who are liberal on one axis but conservative on another to choose the lesser of two evils (the Democratic or the Republican parties). Democrats tend to support at least some abortion rights, civil unions or gay marriage, some form of economic safety net and welfare, and stricter environmental and economic regulations.
The Republican Party (a.k.a. the G.O.P.) is the other major player in U.S. politics. Republicans are right-leaning on both the social and economic axes: they tend to support "family values", increased deregulation of the environment and the economy, smaller government, fiscal responsibility, and individual responsibility (no welfare, et cetera). Republicans feel that people need to make their own way, and that welfare makes people lazy or dependent on the government. Usually, Republicans and Democrats have opposite opinions on major issues. The current administration is Republican, but it has deviated from traditional Republican ideas such as fiscal responsibility in recent years. Contrary to popular belief, the Democratic and Republican parties have nothing to do with democracy and republics, respectively. Both parties favor democracy, and both operate in a republic (the United States).
Libertarianism is sometimes referred to as "social Darwinism" and asserts that people who are successful should get what they want and inherit positions of power and that those who are not should not receive aid, so that the most fit citizens control the resources of the nation, hopefully using their intelligence for the good of the country. Libertarians are socialy liberal but economically conservative: they want to keep the government out of peoples' personal decisions (drug use, marriage, and so on) and out of the economy. Granting more personal freedoms is a socially liberal position, and economic deregulation (laissez-faire capitalism) is an economically conservative position.
Steps
Figure out how active you think government should be in the lives of everyday people. Should they take care of all of the basic needs of every person? Should people be responsible completely for their own necessities and behavior? Somewhere in the middle?
See where your thoughts fit within the political spectrum. Only the characteristic five positions are discussed here. Note: more complete political spectrums have 2 axes: social issues and economic issues.
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/47/spectrum3lt.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Socialism is state control of industry (but not small businesses) and distribution coupled with vast social programs and a fair amount of wealth redistribution. Taxes are usually high, but many services like health care, education, and welfare/Social Security are free. In Marxism, socialism is the transition stage between capitalism and communism.
Communism, which many Europeans and Americans consider evil, is the extreme left version of socialism, and has been very popular in the past, with its failure due mostly to the greed of its rulers, not the ideology itself. The basis of the doctrine is elimination of private property, a state-owned means of production, and, finally, the deterioration of a centralized government into a collective society.
The Democratic Party is the major left-wing party in U.S. politics. It is left-leaning on social and economic issues, although the lack of strong third parties in the U.S. forces people who are liberal on one axis but conservative on another to choose the lesser of two evils (the Democratic or the Republican parties). Democrats tend to support at least some abortion rights, civil unions or gay marriage, some form of economic safety net and welfare, and stricter environmental and economic regulations.
The Republican Party (a.k.a. the G.O.P.) is the other major player in U.S. politics. Republicans are right-leaning on both the social and economic axes: they tend to support "family values", increased deregulation of the environment and the economy, smaller government, fiscal responsibility, and individual responsibility (no welfare, et cetera). Republicans feel that people need to make their own way, and that welfare makes people lazy or dependent on the government. Usually, Republicans and Democrats have opposite opinions on major issues. The current administration is Republican, but it has deviated from traditional Republican ideas such as fiscal responsibility in recent years. Contrary to popular belief, the Democratic and Republican parties have nothing to do with democracy and republics, respectively. Both parties favor democracy, and both operate in a republic (the United States).
Libertarianism is sometimes referred to as "social Darwinism" and asserts that people who are successful should get what they want and inherit positions of power and that those who are not should not receive aid, so that the most fit citizens control the resources of the nation, hopefully using their intelligence for the good of the country. Libertarians are socialy liberal but economically conservative: they want to keep the government out of peoples' personal decisions (drug use, marriage, and so on) and out of the economy. Granting more personal freedoms is a socially liberal position, and economic deregulation (laissez-faire capitalism) is an economically conservative position.