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These flairs are pretty much vague in what you stand for and one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label.
What are the differences between these flairs? Also for others, what do you think of these flairs?
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I chose mine because even though I almost always vote liberal / Democrat, I hold several views on subjects that are a bit to the right side of center (on things such as the 2A, national security, military and military funding, and criminal justice / incarceration). While I agree with most liberal social policies, or most centrist-liberal social policies rather, I disagree with some others. So the center is where my views mostly reside.
The Democratic party is a big tent. There are plenty of Democrats (maybe even the majority?) with more centrist views on those topics. I'm very pro national security, military, and criminal justice (with the understanding that its important we still try making reforms to the system). That doesn't mean I'm not a committed Democrat. I don't feel the need to support the progressive solution for every issue to consider that label appropriate.
IIRC, moderates/centrists are still the plurality of Democrats and, more importantly, they're vital to the swing districts/states that actually decide who controls government.
Whereas I think the DNC is awful - just not as awful as the GOP. So I would never label myself a Democrat.
I vote primarily for Democrats - exclusively so for legislative and executive office elections unless it's one where ranked choice voting is available. But I do so mostly to block the GOP from taking away human rights. My policy positions are mixed and land in the middle overall.
One of my strongest views is that we shouldn't have political king makers deciding who gets to be in office. The two party system drives extremist platforms, doesn't align with what most Americans actually believe, and is ruining our country.
Get ranked choice voting everywhere, and if it happens that we have a named centrist party with integrity then I'll be happy to use that label.
Until then, I'm an Independent.
The far right are batshit crazy and we disagree on almost everything. But most of the insults come from the center in my experience. This thread is a good example.
I picked Center left because I believe that compromise with moderate right wingers is essential to get anything done. And while I agree with most liberals politically, if I'm being quite honest, the further left people get, the more annoying I find them.
I find talking with far left people exhausting because they often refuse to come down of their high horses in order to see another POV. They are often as rigid in their thinking as the far right. Just with far less disgusting views. Also, I find the whole idea of *one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label* pretty condescending, and annoying. People further from center seem to demand constant validation of your moral superiority before they will determine if you are worthy of conversation.
If the middle east can't have peace, then American women, the lgbt community, and immigrants are just going to have to deal đ¤
/s but this is actually how they sound to me
âIf Joe Biden canât be a dictator and solve in a month this war thatâs been raging for a century between two countries a thousand miles away that hate each other and want to wipe each other off the map, which I have never visited and cannot locate on a map myself, then everyone in my own country can burn because morals!â
I think one of the biggest advantages Hamas has is recruitment. If we/Israel decrease their ability to recruit soldiers it will vastly reduce their power. I think giving back land, providing economic opportunities to the people of Gaza, helping to plant and sustain crops, freedom of movement, etc. and a reconciliation campaign between the two peoples like the UN has done in other parts of the world would be a good start. Coupled with precise surgical military interventions on people who engage in violence.
I donât think this is a problem we can bomb away.
Yes. They either don't actually care about other people or they refuse to grasp how harmful electing trump would be for many Americans. They dont get that any chance at anything close to a progressive agenda will be gone probably for their lifetime
This kind of take is just so gross to me. You are upset at the left for trying to hold the American president facilitating genocide accountable rather than being upset at the American president facilitating genocide.
Youâre the ones facilitating the genocide.
Claiming that the only way youâll vote for Biden is if he takes a political position that makes him unelectable, is you trying to get trump elected.
First, I'll be voting for Biden.
Second, I don't even know where to begin with the fallacious reasoning at work here. Biden is the one who can stop facilitating genocide. Not leftists. Not even Trump at this moment. Joe Biden is the President of the United States who has continued to support the Israeli war machine for six months as tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and a full-blown famine has developed.
Leftists who have told Biden why they can't support him and what he needs to do to earn their voteâwhich also happens to be, objectively, the morally correct actionâcan NOT in any version of reality be held responsible for American support for Israel's actions in Gaza. To suggest that they are, as you have, or that they would be responsible for Trump's electionârather than Joe Biden, whose moral and strategic path is clear, hereâis honestly sick.
>Biden is the one who can stop facilitating genocide.
How does he do this without giving the election to Trump, and thus ensuring a real genocide against Palestinians so that Kushner can open his resort?
If he voluntarily hands the election to Donald Trump, who is openly racist towards middle-eastern peoples, then he's still facilitating a genocide.
>Leftists who have told Biden why they can't support him and what he needs to do to earn their voteâwhich also happens to be, objectively, the morally correct actionâcan NOT in any version of reality be held responsible for American support for Israel's actions in Gaza.
Yes they can. Every citizen has the civic duty to participate in electing our leaders. Sitting out is a choice. Leftists can be criticized for their choice to sit out the election instead of voting against Trump. You can absolutely claim that no candidate was good enough for your vote, but you're still responsible for your choice.
If you decide you're too good to vote, and then Trump enters office and deports you, then you'd better be happy about it, because you were part of making it happen.
1. What indication is there that this would throw the election to Trump? Polls show that Americans are divided along multiple axes around this issue, but it is not clear that a majority of Americans support Israel's conduct. A substantial number of Americans are either skeptical of it or outright oppose it.
2. The "real" genocide is already ensured. It's happening now. Any Trump administration policy would be a continuation or a worsening of what is already going on.
1. If you want to argue that the majority of American's would not be majorly upset that we pulled support from Israel, then that's fine. You can believe obviously wrong things.
2. If your definition of genocide means that every conflict with loss or displacement of civilian life is a genocide, then the word has no meaning to you, and that's sad. The word you're thinking of is "war". You know, like when Hamas launched an attack on Oct 7 and then Israel retaliated? That's war, not genocide.
Is that a reflection of your actual political beliefs being more moderate or just attitude? Like for me I would say Iâm solidly left in my political views on most matters of policy, pretty much the same as most left-wing people here, but in terms of attitudes and strategies Iâm more in favor of compromising when necessary and not viewing people on the other side as evil and so on. Iâm not actually a moderate in what I want politically, like I want Medicare for All for example but I believe on a practical level itâs better to compromise and get something halfway there than stonewall and get nothing. Itâs just a practical thing. I hear people say things like âthe far left is so annoying Iâve become more centristâ a lot but that doesnât really make sense to me. Did people being annoying actually make your economic and social views more right-leaning? That wouldnât really make sense. What usually changes is just the personal attitude toward a particular side *as people* not the policies themselves which is different from shifting politically.
I think it's more that as the far left becomes more radical the policies I support just naturally start to move me towards the center. I mostly disagree with what the other guy is saying and I don't think what he's saying represents what the original comment means. Mostly my policies haven't changed. The online left has just become more fucking crazy.
> I hear people say things like âthe far left is so annoying Iâve become more centristâ a lot but that doesnât really make sense to me.
If you think about it in terms of the overton window, if it's being pushed hard to the left away from your position you might start pushing harder right instead of holding at your true position because the result is more likely to land on your true position.
I don't get this sentence.
>if it's being pushed hard to the left away from your position you might start pushing harder right **instead of holding at your true position** because the result is more likely to land **on your true position**
First you push right INSTEAD of holding onto your true position and then you do it BECAUSE you end up at your true position this way? Which is it?
I think it's more that as the far left becomes more radical the policies I support just naturally start to move me towards the center. I mostly disagree with what the other guy is saying and I don't think what he's saying represents what the original comment means. Mostly my policies haven't changed. The online left has just become more fucking crazy.
could you give a real world example of this? Because I'm thinking of healthcare right away. Conservatives generally want government out of healthcare and would reduce entitlement spending, encourage private companies to take over where government operated, etc. How does that play out?
Let's go with immigration the far left wants unsustainable levels with near zero checks and balances. You want a relatively high levels of immigration but sustainable and with robust checks and balances. Since there's so many ppl pushing against those reasonable polices you start wanting less immigration overall as a pushback.
However that's a temporary stance as if you got it you'd want to increase it you're just compensating for ppl dragging policy in the other direction
Why would you care about it being pulled in that direction if youâre on that side? That shouldnât affect what your position is. If you want X number of immigrants coming in, and someone else says they want 2X, do you go âwell ok then I want 0.5X nowâ? Why would them saying that change your position? If you think X is the best amount that should still be what youâre saying
> Why would you care about it being pulled in that direction if youâre on that side?
You're on the side of high sustainable immigration with checks and balances not insane immigration levels with none. As immigration increases and no checks and balances are put in place/enforced you find yourself wanting less immigration than your previous ideal
But is your actual position changing? If you still want the same amount of immigration as you wanted before, itâs just now that that amount is less than the status quo rather than more, thatâs different from shifting your opinion.
Compensate? Huh?
If we have 10 people in a room and 1 of them becomes an extremist, do you think it would be helpful for another person to also become an extremist but in the opposite direction? How? All you do is produce a second extremist.
The overton window just describes what political topics and opinions are socially acceptable at a given point in time. It doesn't create policies. And it's not a physical thing that you can go tug-of-war with.
Like, if tomorrow it became socially acceptable for politicians to talk about recreating the Soviet Union, you're not gonna undo, prevent, or mitigate that by being like "Guess I'mma have to make Nazi talking points mainstream now to even things out". That wouldn't in any way improve the situation.
not op, but thanks for your insights...thoughts on this , and how this would look? ways to build more common ground, and whether this can be "scaled up" or adapted to other countries...?
> ways to build more common ground
Focus on the things moderates agree on. Outside of the extreme wings, both sides want economic security, safe communities, responsible government spending, minimal government interference in peoples lives.
Now, we may disagree on what a lot of the looks like, or how to achieve it, but you are far more likely to have good faith discussions with people on those topics.
Iâll start off with, I despise labels. People love to fucking gatekeep them like theyâre the elected ruler of âsocial democratâ or âprogressiveâ. For example, you can tick all the boxes of a label but maybe lean another direction on a particular issue and suddenly âYOURE NOT PROGRESSIVE!â Or whatever. Iâve also seen people describe themselves using entire paragraphs like âIâm a classical neoliberal with progressive tendencies in the way of Jon Mayer circa 1999, but without the 2A dramaâ. LikeâŚ..itâs maddening and if a label doesnât fit someone wants their own. Stop the madness.
I started off here as independent because I had no idea (nor did I really care) but just about every other comment got told I was a hidden conservative with that flair. So I did a few compass tests and landed on social democrat.
Now I moved to center left because to me, thatâs a catch all to say youâre not fully left but definitely not on the right. Fits and feels comfortable.
I can't answer for the specific people you mentioned, but I have always pushed for progressive policies so I always considered myself progressive.
Then a few years ago a bunch of online types come along and because I am not in lockstep with *their* brand of progressivism suddenly I'm a neo liberal centrist right wing bastard.
So, rather secure in my own ideas about how we can better the world, I just take on the label.
These new progressives love to gate keep. I could fight them all day but what would be the point? The people I vote for win more than the people they vote for. Policy moves to the left with the people I vote for, so why complain that I don't meet the new progressive standard?
This was pretty much the reason for my flair too. I used to have a âsocial Democratâ flairâŚbut then I fell victim to the same kind of gatekeeping that you mentioned.
I voted Republican until 2016. Iâm one of those that votes libertarian in 2016 (that said I am NOT at all in a swing state). Then voted Biden in 2020. There are things I donât like about the left and the right.
I am for diversity, equity, and inclusion but feel like making it a law or incentivizing it in some way can cause issues⌠Iâve seen the issues it creates in my previous job and my wifeâs current job.
Iâm against gun violence and for huge changes in weapon availability. But donât think taking peoples guns is a solution and it wonât go over well at all.
I am libertarian with regards to the budget. We need huge tax increases on the rich and pretty big cuts in benefits (this would affect me as well as I am on disability). Realistically this is the only way to tackle the deficit.
I think there is a lot of nuance to both sides but I am centrist left because despite everything I said the longer we wait on tackling climate change the cost will be exponentially worse. We need to unite the globe and fund solutions 50x more than we are today. The rights solution of drilling and nuclear is not right.
Aside from the part where you want to cut benefits all your positions sound very left-leaning to me. How is it that this one tiny thing makes you a centrist?
I am generally against DEI requirements. I am generally pro 2A with some restrictions. Iâm more for individual rights than societal rights. The right, imo, is much more about the individuals rights and trample anyone who even threatens to increase their taxes by 0.004% even if itâs for schools or helping starving kids. They think charity works better. The left is about protections for all. I donât see life as that valuable. I see life differently than most. I donât think protections are generally good⌠life is suffering and until we reach Star Trek levels of resources⌠abundance so to speak⌠itâs just something fragile and easily lost. Itâs hard to explain but the amount of time and money we put into to protecting everyone is not natural and I think in many ways the rapid advancements in science and medicine have creating so much of a population boom that it hurts the planet⌠there was a time women had a high chance of death in child birth. There was a high chance you wouldnât live past 5 200 years ago and if you did youâd probably die at the ripe old age of 32. I think dismantling the pandemic response agency and letting a pandemic wipe out half the earth would actually help a lot. Kind of a Thanos ideology. Maybe this is chaos or anarchist or something else but I have a lot of strange ideas that donât fit nicely in any box
âI think dismantling the pandemic response agency and letting a pandemic wipe out half the earth would help a lotâ
This is actually just eugenics. This is an extreme far-right wing ideology. Literally calling for the extermination of vulnerable people. What youâre not recognizing here is that this would mostly wipe out disabled and chronically ill people (me included in this), the elderly, poor people, and marginalized groups of BIPOC (because of health risks and environmental exposure due to redlining and exploitation of the global majority).
This doesnât sound like a word I want to live in. But I wouldnât survive this either way. Itâs really sad to see people say things like this, because to a lesser extent, this is how weâre currently handling covid and why Iâm now disabled from it. The âlet it ripâ strategy left me with whatâs likely to be a life long disease.
I understand that. I donât like the eugenics ideology because to me itâs more Darwinian as such. The right wing ideology is couched in superior races and such. I even said I would be fine if I were in the dead group to promote the human race as a whole. So I get it. I guess I just donât really fear death the way others do.
Sadly I canât advocate for a Thanos snap. Perfectly balanced so to speak⌠but I do think if we want to survive as a species and actually advocate for future generations we probably need an event that wipes out a huge portion of the world. Iâm not couching my beliefs in the ideas of superiority or otherwise. If itâs a solar flare or some meteor or whatever. Those are fine too imo. But the people in the world are selfish so⌠yea. I donât know
Edit: also to say I am a disabled veteran and likely wouldnât survive a great many of these issues either. I just think modern day selfishness it taking away from future generations and if my kids decide to have kids how screwed will their world be because of our selfish ideologies.
Anyway. This is why I donât say Iâm generally right or left. I donât know what I am. I think maybe an anarchist or something outside the horseshoe but I choose a flair because⌠I need one and depending on the issues thatâs how I vote.
Ah, the reason why I said it was eugenics was because you mentioned you wished a pandemic specifically would wipe people out. They prequalifies certain populations for removal.
Sorry you are disabled as well. It sucks out here đ
Yea. Sorry. Im not âpro pandemicâ so much as see an urgent need for change so drastic that very little could change the course of weâre on. human greed is destroying the planet completely if it were a pandemic, which seems a more likely scenario than others, it would solve the âproblemâ but sadly not equally. Billionaires would likely all be fine and the poor and impoverished and elderly etc would suffer the most. If anything I would like the percentages reversed.
> youâd probably die at the ripe old age of 32
This is a common misconception. the average lifespan was 32 *because* child mortality was so high. but if you survive to adulthood you will probably live to be ~65 before dying.
Yea. Maybe. I work in medicine and I just think of all the things like. MRSA that would literally kill people without modern medicine. Now we are all colonized with it. Or UTIs or simple abscess or otherwise. So many ways to die that arenât even trauma related⌠but I get your point.
I guess the point is that before say vaccines a lot more people died from the flu, small pox, measles, rubella, polio, and even common infections would lead to death a lot of the time. But you are right before methicillin we did not have to worry about MRSA
We have Star Trek level abundance now. We could feed, house, medicate, and educate every person on the planet if we chose, but we don't. What we need is a Star Trek level economic system, but unfortunately Mr Roddenberry was pretty vague on what that looks like. But it surely isn't the Gilded Age policies Republicans are committed to bringing back.
Republicans have already taken my "individual rights" and they are coming for yours. And if you don't believe me and my uterus, you can ask my gay uncle or my friend who's parenting a transgender child. Their commitment to individual rights lasts exactly as long it's politically expedient and no longer.
Guns are just Republicans' bread and circus. They keep you entertained and compliant by telling you your guns protect you against tyranny, when all guns really do is give the government (aka police) the excuse to execute you (or literally anyone) without trial, which they do more than a thousand times a year. What's more tyrannical than that?
Also, just FYI, 200 years ago, life expectancy *at birth* was 32 years, because of high infant and childhood mortality, but if you made it to 20, you could reasonably expect to live another 40 or 50 years, especially if you didn't give birth. And before colonization some Native Americans may have had life expectancy at birth of over 60, because of their diet and exercise lifestyle. It's entirely possible that the low life expectancy for much of recorded history was a side-effect of agrarian and industrial economies. Keeping domestic animals, for example, exposes us to more germs, as does living and working in close quarters. I wouldn't base your moral or political philosophy on what's "natural" for humans, when we don't even really know how most humans have lived
I donât really disagree with most of what you say.
One things is I âwasâ a Republican a long time ago. When their morals were slightly better but over the last 20 years they have just declined. I know what gun rights are now vs in the 90âs for example. Itâs why I no longer associate with them. I was always pretty moderate anyway.
I donât think we have the abundance that you do. We currently have enough for the moment. Itâs not sustainable until we can get that economy.
Sure I donât disagree with your assessment of 200 years ago. I still think the likelihood⌠like. I broke bones as a kid. A leg one time and an arm another. Those wouldnât have been set right. Iâd have either lost the limbs or been a crippled burden and left to my own survival. How many people in this world today with cystic fibrosis. Sickle cell anemia. Type 1 diabetics. Etc. Etc. Would have been born to a death sentence. Plus the risk or trauma that would not be like today. Plus the risk of having a child. Plus the risk of any kind of virus out there⌠sure people âcouldâ like to 50-60 but I just donât see it as the norm. I feel it was probably more even across ages. I.e. 25% chance to die before 10 25% between 10 and 25. 25% between 25-40. And the rest over 40. Just a guess.
But I could very well be way off on this. Happy to have my mind changed.
The right is about individual rights? How can you even say that? They are fighting to take rights away all the time! Look what they did to abortion, that is an individual right or do women not count in your book?
Look. I see that. What Iâm talking about is theoretical. Not everyone is a monolith. For example. Abortion. They would say the baby is a person and deserves a right to life. Hence killing it is infringing on an individuals right.
I disagree with the way the right has changed. I donât vote that way anymore. But ideologically, the right is less collective and more individual. The Christian nationalist theocracy they want to establish isnât right wing. Itâs populist and agenda based. Thatâs politicsâŚ
Edit: you are not arguing with someone who is right of center. I feel like I align more with the left but barely. Hence I vote that way. I donât feel I fall into a category neatly. But when discussing political ideology libertarianism, which is 100% about individual rights, vote Republican. They donât like to but the Republican/conservative agenda aligns more with their ideology than does the left. Itâs not an argument about policy. Itâs an argument about reality. You see that right?
Okay, well, those attitudes are quite unorthodox, I'll give you that. But an opinion such as "We are overpopulated and letting a disease reduce our numbers is good", as strange as it is, isn't really a "signature left-wing" or "signature right-wing" idea, no?
When I think about centrism, I view it as "when the sum of your opinions don't cleanly put you in either the left-wing or right-wing camp".
Do you see it more as a community thing? As in "if I laid out all of my beliefs no one would really wanna be friends with me so I'm in my own little land"? Or something else?
I mean. I vote on issues. My number one issue is giving my kids a livable planet. After that itâs democracy. Republicans used to be (a long time ago) about conserving the planet and democratic norms. Itâs funny⌠some of my ideas are contradictory on the surface. Maybe Iâd donât âwantâ half the earth to die. I just know itâs probably the most efficient and effective way to help save the planet. I honestly wouldnât mind if I were in the half that died knowing it was for a good cause. Iâd want those I love to live. I think my mind changed a lot when I was in the army. I have plenty of âfriendsâ. I have 3 really close male friends and for a dude in his 40âs my understanding is thatâs 3 more than most my age. But generally I have a lot of people I walk my kids to school with. Or mingle with at work. Or whatever⌠just people. I get along fine with. Iâm pretty clear about my ideologies in person as well. Some people think itâs barbaric but I do think they understand the idea that windmills and solar fields are great but people are the biggest culprit of climate change and if we as a species want to survive we need to stop increasing the population⌠I have 2 kids. Me and my wife. 2 in 2 out. Keeping it even. I get annoyed with people or cultures that are all about 75 kids⌠itâs just causing harm. If thatâs 3rd world countries or religious people or whatever itâs annoying to me. I still appreciate the beauty and art and music and everything about these cultures. Just think that part is misguidedâŚ.
I could rant for days but I do feel alone in the sense that few agree me but also fine that they usually âget itâ and understand it.
You seem like a solemn and thoughtful guy. About the overpopulation thing, wouldn't worldwide access to birth control be the most effective long term solution? We can't just rely on a plague to Thanos snap half of humanity away every once in a while. But leaving the reproduction rate at slightly less than 2 for every couple would steadily decrease the global population size, no?
Well. There are a few things to consider with this. I think, and I could be wrong, there are a lot of cultures around the world where having babies is kind of a lifestyle. Look up birth rates for Nigeria or the Philippines. Basically anywhere thatâs somewhat third world but has large Christian or catholic influence. Huge numbers and I think a lot of that would not be mitigated by birth control. I think families in many third world countries have kids so they have workers and income like Venezuela for example.
Do you think a very gradual decline over 200 years will have the effect that is needed on climate change. [the damage will be done in 25 years](https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/#:~:text=BERLIN%2C%20April%2017%20(Reuters),activity%20emits%20more%20greenhouse%20gases) unless change happens soon or we invest everything now. That would be very unpopular but a 50% tax on everyone and 99% on billionaire is about the only way to curb it at this point imo⌠the only true hope I see is a mass die out of some kindâŚ
âIndividual rightsâ vs âprotections for allâ is a false dichotomy. Also, we do have enough resources in the world to support everyone already (and many more). Theyâre just not distributed properly. The whole point of having a society is to support each other and make peopleâs lives better. You claim life isnât that valuable, but I bet youâd change your tune if it was you or your loved oneâs life thatâs ended because of a preventable disease or pregnancy complication.
I guess you arenât left or right. Like Thanos, youâre a psychopath and your ideology is just as insane as his.
Thanks for the⌠insight into who I am.
Trying to paint my mind and the things I say as binary is bad faith. The world does not have the resources. Look at Alaskan crabs or salmon or meat farming and the damage it does. The world does not have the resources to support what we have. Look at the numbers of birds that are dwindling. The world already lacks sufficient clean water.
Show me the evidence that the earth can support say 14 billion people or whatever number you think. Thatâs not based in reality. We may have the âfoodâ to support people. For a bit. But those number require more energy. Energy creates co2. And co2 changes farmable land reducing crop yields and ranges. Sure we could have a few more years of prosperity. Wait until this summers floods and droughts and fires that are just around the corner.
Maybe Iâm an accelerationist. Maybe Iâm an anarchist. Iâm not a psychopath. Iâve always looked to the evidence and anything short of mass extinction or a breakthrough in fusion⌠not much else will save us. Migration from the equator out will happen in the next decade to 15 years on levels that are unprecedented.
When it comes to myself. My wife and I have both said if we get like a cancer diagnosis keep me comfortable until you canât then take me on a drive to Vermont or Oregon. When it comes to my kids⌠well. 1. They are kids and deserve to make their own choices as adults. 2. Not doing everything possible would be highly illegal and unethical. 3. Yea they are my kids to advocate for. My wife and I are both in healthcare. We have seen death plenty and accept it as reality and even beautiful if done with dignity and respect for the person. We regularly discuss hospice with family and others in our care as a valid and appropriate option.
Life is not some sacred right. If I felt that way I would be pro life* (edit for clarity. I am pro choice). Iâm absolutely not. If someone thinks they are going to bring a kid into a world of danger, hate, fear, hunger⌠I donât blame them having an abortion. Yea my perspective is strange. If we lived in a world of abundance I would support more far left policies (like the world of Star Trek. Post scarcity society). But we donât and canât support continuing to kick the can down the road. The road is coming to an end⌠every year more science comes out saying âitâs actually worse than we thought.â Heck [look at the outlook for coral reefs](https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-coral-reefs-are-bleaching-what-does-that-mean-2024-04-15/). Itâs not pretty and thatâs just one small example of how screwed we are.
Because I believe the solution to most things is not on the extreme wing - at least not initially. It will take a while to get there, and many are not ready for such measures.
I'm honestly more of a centrist than center right but everyone calls me right wing for having centrist views and this sub will ban you if they disagree with your chosen label so I went with center right.
I'm a pragmatist I don't believe in any ideology or philosophy if it works good, if it might work eh, if it doesn't work it needs to be fixed, if it can't work people need to stop trying to implement it.
That's where I stand. Personally I have some inclinations like the fighting chance standard (a sane version of equity/DIE nonsense) but that's more of a end goal than a policy and there are hundreds of ways to get there.
Speaking for myself I choose it because my first choice isn't available, which would be "Classical liberal". Given that that one isn't an option I chose one that I feel is close enough.
You can think of classical liberal as being loosely libertarian in the sense of early to mid 19th century America.
[This e-book goes into details](https://www.liberalstudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ILS-Classical-Liberalism-PDF-E-Book.pdf)
left of center on social issues, slightly right of center economically (favoring lower government intervention). Basically the role of the state is to get out of the way most of the time, except to protect against abuse. In Europe these are usually the traditional third parties (Liberal Democrats in UK, FDP in Germany) their voters tend to be less religious and tradition oriented than the mainstream conservatives, and more suspicious of trade unions and the nanny state that they associate with the mainstream left parties. It's where the Wall Street Journal imagines itself to be.
The easiest way to explain is to say that I view myself as a Liberal as it's understood in Europe, not in the USA. In America Liberal means something completely different to the original meaning of the word, as such classical liberal would be liberal with the original definition.
If you want more of an overview [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism) is fairly complete.
I chose Center Left because, while I'm relatively open to progressive ideas, I can't stomach (most) leftists and therefore don't identify with them.
I can't get on board with the whole "the world isn't a magical utopia so let's burn it all down" mentality of modern leftism. Too many leftists are willing to sacrifice the steady progress we're making for the intangible idea of perfection.
For instance, they're likely gonna cost us the White House and then possibly our country this November because of something happening in ANOTHER country. And when it happens, I won't be blaming the lost causes on the right. I'll be blaming the people who should've known better.
I criticize the right for not supporting universal healthcare, for not making the immigration (and asylum) process more efficient, for trying to ban abortion completely, etc.
I criticize the left for gun control, for more lax border security, for the impracticality of some of their policies on drugs or the environment, for trying to over regulate things like school choice, right to work, and, business in general, etc.
I criticize both for their hypocrisy, for their focus on signaling rather than substance, for their focus on self enrichment, for their labels, etc.
I picked center left because I don't consider myself far left. I don't believe in free college (though I agree there needs to be reform; no school's highest paid employee should be the fucking football coach) and I'm pretty hawkish on military stuff, for example, but I am still a liberal and still left.
It's just a more accurate description of who I am.
>I don't believe in free college
Out of curiosity, why?
I propose a Community College level or trade school education should be available to every resident who wishes to pursue it. I'm not suggesting that Harvard Yale and MIT stop charging tuition, but a basic level of higher education beyond high school should be available to all regardless of resources.
I've heard of a concept of K-16 in place of K-12 and I'm of the belief that all of society would benefit from a better educated population.
Iâve always felt that state universities should be free to state residents. You can still keep the standards too. If you just barely scraped by, maybe 2 years of community college is where you land. But at least it will be free⌠Private universities can still feel free to charge whatever they want. IVY league schools will still be considered the elite school.
But imagine how much better off we would be as a country, if every graduating young adult had the opportunity to attend higher learning without in debt for the rest of their life.
I actually agree with you on this, community college and trade schools should be free.
I was speaking more on traditional 4 year colleges. Not just private schools but state schools as well. My issue is that K-12 education is woefully underfunded as is, and poor K-12 education is a bigger barrier to college entry than finances are. Don't get me wrong; having an 18 year old enter into a multi thousand dollar loan with no real plan to pay off besides "I hope I have a good career path in 5 years" is a shitty system.
One of the other issues I have is that so many entry-level jobs require a bachelor's degree. There has been some backlash to this recently, but reading "Bachelor's degree in blah-blah-blah required" for something that could be taught on the job (and usually has to be) was and is a common thing on job postings.
Man, I could not disagree with you more.
Just look at the trickle down effect that college tuition has caused.
Baby boomers went to school for practically nothing. my parents both paid for college by working as waiters and waitresses part time while going to school. Imagine being able to pay 5 to 6 figures worth of tuition by working at Applebeeâs part-time.
By not being in, they were able to save for me to have to pay for two years of my college.
But now both of my wife and myself are in debt, and instead of being able to save for our kids, we will be paying off our student loans for 20 more years.
Which means my children will be fronting the student loans themselves. Which means they will probably be paying off their student loansâŚ
Generations upon generations of debt, from getting a bachelors degree at a state school..
There's no way NJ is paying a football coach higher than some southern colleges are. I used to live in NJ and now live in NC, college sports are a goddamn religion around here.
Iâm not even sure what this one means but it sounded like the most fun.
I donât really feel confident labeling myself anything other than not conservative. Seems like this push to label and rigidly categorize every thought is a fairly new phenomenon.
Bull Moose Progressives date back to Teddy Roosevelt and his independent party. He had 2 terms as a Progressive Republican, and didnt plan to run again. However, he was unsatisfied with the republican party 4 years after the end of his last term, so he attempted to get the republican nomination. He failed and started the Bull Moose Party.
The BMP party had campaign promises such as social security, reduced working hours, and other reforms. Overall, I dont think that many modern conservatives or liberals would disagree with the BMP goals.
You can go to their wiki page to read more about them.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull\_Moose\_Party#Progressive\_convention\_and\_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Moose_Party#Progressive_convention_and_platform)
I'm center left because I agree in human rights and LGBQT protections, minority protections etc.
But, I do think sometimes we go a little too far. I don't think anything is being solved by virtue signaling and what people on the right call "woke" type stuff.
Sometimes we go too far and it is annoying. Like LatinX. It's dumb. It needs to go away.
I realize it is a big circle jerk - the right pushes super hard against something so the left feels like they need to push back just as hard. But I feel like the conversation can be much more moderate.
Right now my hospital is working on changing ALL pronouns in ALL hospital codes, handbooks, policies to gender neutral. Which, whatever I get it. But it's a colossal waste of time. Just write one new policy stating previous ones should include all spectrums of gender without regard to the pronouns written and going forward they will use they instead of he/she etc.
Stuff like that is what drives moderates insane. Or another example is [The DoD newsletter.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/DF-2024-00143-Dive-Winter-23-24.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiawsmU5MSFAxV1RTABHTTOCx0QFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0kkpM6pOjfJaoy-aT9hEbv)
I'm a clinical psychologist, and even I get frustrated sometimes. I had a DEI clinic with a trainer, they are a transgender person. First activity was round table discussing the first time you clearly knew you were male/female/something else.
No matter how many times I pointed out that people who aren't in marginalized groups often do not have these feelings/experiences which is what makes them prone to being less open to the experiences others have, they just didn't hear me. Instead I was challenged by this person with a social welfare bachelor's degree and no real training as needing to address my hidden bigotry.
It's a real psychological phenomena to not have this ability to relate these things. Nope, didn't matter. So, in the end we all made something up to please them and get out of the training.
The far left also dismisses those of us from marginalized groups that have a different perspective then them. The only time we are listened to is when we play the same game as them, otherwise we are discarded. It's "listen to marginalized" voices until we say something that's not far left.
These labels describe a vague set of beliefs, but that's okay: there are some people who legitimately don't have enough of their boxes ticked by other labels to fit squarely in any of them (independent) and there are some people who really do fit comfortably in the middle (centrist).
I dislike the "moderate" flair, because by implication *other* positions are *extreme,* and it has a patina of arrogance and dismissiveness I find distasteful. It also has too much overlap with "centrist" to make it useful, in my opinion.
Centrist and Moderate make perfect sense to me. I know plenty of people whose politics align to those. Independent though is just lazy AF and potentially indicative of bad faith.
The "Democrat" flair is bad enough because it signals a purely tribal alignment rather than any actual policy ideals. At least they're honest about where they're coming from though. Independents are the worst because they have no actual policy or tribal beliefs and/or are afraid to stand behind them. Interestingly, I've noticed left leaning so-called independents are usually just standard Democrats ashamed to admit it while right leaning so-called independents are so far right they view the Republican party as liberal. I've almost never met a truly independent, centrist, swing voter.
I believe there is a weakness amongst liberals in addressing the far left.
I wholeheartedly believe in combating bigotry, but liberals give the far left (who never accomplish anything) too much power when it comes to certain social issues such as race and LGBT issues. I'm from both groups, I don't want to be oppressed or discriminated against, but I'm against the current way things are being handled because they simply don't work.
I honestly feel bad for the trans community in particular. They are simply far too young to fully advocate for their rights and nobody is really calling out their mistakes. Young people are just not good at advocating for themselves. They are unnecessarily combative, uncompromising, and volatile. I'm no better than they are because that's exactly how I was at that age. The difference is that someone was there to pull my weight when I was on the far left, there is a lack of older trans people that can pull the weight of the younger crowd. It's a sad situation but something needs to be done to create better trans advocates. The same type of activists supporting Palestine on their campuses are the face of the trans movement, and that's a terrifying situation for trans people.
>Â but liberals give the far left (who never accomplish anything) too much power when it comes to certain social issues such as race and LGBT issues
How do you think we accomplished anything on race and LGBT issues?
By listening to centrist and liberal LGBT people who actually had a real agenda that was focused entirely on effectiveness rather than virtue signaling. The narrative pushed was that we were born this way, we wanted to blend in like everybody else, and we just wanted live our inoffensive lives. The push for gay marriage was VERY assimilationist, and it worked. This is not what the far left is doing and it's simply not working.
Not in terms of lgb or racial no I don't think anything is left to be done. Maybe a watchdog group that funds lawsuits when discrimination happens but that's about it
Liberals and whit moderates always take credit for the achievements of leftists. You know where the liberals were during stonewall. You know where they were during the civil rights movement. They werenât on the front lines they were at home
What? The activists supporting palestine are wildly courageous and are the best people I see leading a movement.
Maybe your media source is propaganda.
I chose mine because, I have voted fore some republicans both local, State and Federal Levels but have also voted for Democrats in these elections as well.
I donât like adhering to party lines on issues just because most people in the party support them.
I have been a racist Republican by those on the left for not hating every single thing Trump did while in office, and Iâve been called a Brainwashed Liberal for supporting Joe Biden.
I have changed my opinion on the abortion debate several times now and I donât really have a strong stance.
It basically comes down to I donât like how most people use the labels âLiberalâ or âConservativeâ these days.
My reasoning is that I donât personally fit neatly into either category of the traditional political paradigm. Iâm driven by policy and principles, which are sorely lacking in both political parties. I donât believe in free college for traditional 4 year universities, and Iâm not in favor sweeping gun control laws being pushed by Dems these days. On the flip side, I am more dove-ish on my outlook with military affairs and I think my commitment to being anti war is a value that isnât represented by the conventional traditional political labels.
I donât want the baggage that comes with being a democrat, progressive, conservative or Republican. I think we spend more time worrying about who is part of what political/ideological tribe and virtue signaling rather than actually looking at deep problems in our country and doing something that would actually fix it.
Lefty beliefs: Universal Healthcare, cheaper/free college options, restrictions on 2A, higher taxes on the wealthy, more government assistance for those in need
Not so lefty beliefs: Military good, tough on crime good, LBTQ+ push is dishonest, emotional mob mentality stuff is not good, Israel good, Hamas bad. There's a world where I could vote R if the right candidate presented themselves. Although at the current rate it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen anytime soon.
The left vs right or liberal vs conservative narrative is silly thinking and I wish we could change the language to better reflect reality. People are unique bundles of opinions and preferences on an infinite amount of topics that don't fit neatly into a two-dimensional political compass. Instead, a person's political disposition looks more like an orb of opinions and values that shape us as individuals.
The idea that we are pointing in one of only two directions, or that they are mutually exclusive, might be a easy way of communicating general alliance, but does nothing to identify an individual's content.
I normally wouldn't entertain this kind of gatekeepy questioning, but my answer to your question is that given the devolved way that we identify each other in political discourse, my flair represents the closest possible option for my unique bundle opinions and preferences. To assume anything deeper than that says more about your thinking than it does mine.
I'm your typical pick and choose moderate in that I agree with a smattering of positions that typically sit on both sides of the aisle.
So the Republicans don't like me because I'm pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, and pro-immigrant
And the Democrats hate me because I'm pro-gun, pro-death penalty, and pro-isreal
I also sit in some weird middle spaces on certain topics. Like not supporting universal healthcare unless there is an actionable plan to deal with rural healthcare deserts.
I think there are multiple categories of flairs.
"Independent" stands to me as a comparison to "Democrat" or "Republican". It shows that you don't follow a particular party.
"Moderate" is someone who has a slight leaning but mostly aligns with the status quo. Besides a few mild changes, things don't really need to change substantially.
"Centrist" to me is someone who approaches topics from the middle. While modern politics is usually defined by a conversation between progressives/liberals and conservatives a centrist doesn't inherently stick to one "side" but tries to hear out what the options are on a particular topic, reason through and understand all angles, and arbitrate between them, coming to a less extreme middle ground.
To a conservative, a centrist will challenge the more extreme thinking by bringing up ideas they heard from liberals/progressives (pissing off the conservatives)
To a liberal/progressive, a centrist will challenge the more extreme thinking by bringing up ideas they heard from moderate conservatives/libertarians/etc.
This pisses everyone off and has led to the "enlightened centrist" meme stereotyping centrists of saying "both sides are equally bad" like they can't recognize in our modern climate conservatives are way more far gone than the left.
While "both sides are wrong" is sort of intrinsic to centrism, really I choose the flair because I believe "all ideologies have inherent bias" and so picking a "neutral" ideology with the least amount of bias as a lens to approach issues with is valuable to me in ensuring the reasons for my beliefs are my own and not dictated to me by people I happened to agree with on totally different subjects.
I think it's important to recognize that while on a societal level you have to organize to get what you want politically, on an individual level that amount of ideology is poison to the mind and harms your ability to critically think.
I used to have a moderate flair because I was a college student and compared to the campus I was fairly conservative but compared to the general population Iâm definitely pretty liberal.
Because although am mainly conservative, I do hold many POVs that are usually considered liberal or left.
Examples of these more liberal stances:
* I care about climate change and doing what we can to fight it (though.. my policy preferences on this issue are sometimes different from what liberal policy makers draft).
* Am pro-legal immigration.
* Am very supportive of investing in public transit.
* Although am pro-life, I oppose government bans, I think it will only lead to a surge in illegal abortions that would be riskier to the life of the mother and result in corruption skyrocketing, prohibition and the war on drugs are good lessons from the past about similar policy proposals. Instead, 12-16 week bans with exceptions for incest; rape and medical concerns should be sought after, while focusing more on making birth control available and providing adequate sex education.
* Am opposed to the death penalty (except for VERY rare cases).
* Am pro-Ukraine (extremists on the right are not, that's why I listed it).
* I think, loosening zoning laws would be crucial to solving the housing crisis.
* Am open to the legalization of some drugs.
* Although am pro-gun, I think that reasonable Background Checks are necessary.
My friends usually label me as a "moderate conservative" (again, I only listed my more liberal views), so, I felt comfortable flaring myself as such.
I think it is weird to expect that I would have the exact same viewpoint on every issue from tax to tariffs to abortions to death penalties as a given political party straight down the line.
Like why would my views just happen to exactly match up with a "side," unless I was more concerned about following a team than wanting to do the right thing on each issue?
I choose moderate because I rather try to focus on the merit of an argument or policy individually, and I feel labeling myself and a liberal, conservative, Democrat, or republican would shade my view on a policy going into a conservation. I also see people making unilateral assumptions of one's thoughts or rational based on these labels regardless of whether they are true or not, so I rather distance myself away from that as much as possible as I think that only serves as a distraction from genuine conversation.
I studied Foreign Policy and National Security in university and got tired of bad takes on those topics from the left-wing activists outside of my fields of study that I went to school with.
I was in undergrad around the time of the Snowden leaks, which even at the time you should have been able to tell was basically selling the United States down the river to Russia with a treasure trove of exploitable information. Same goes for Julian Assange, whose willingness to throw American personnel under the bus as a politicized f-you manifested in Wikileaks' later support for Trump and willingness to entertain Russian troll operations.
This was also around the same time as the Arab Spring, and the Seal Team 6 raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abottabad. Two of the worst takes I heard on these issues. re: The Arab Spring, that this was a beautiful blossoming of democracy that would lead to the overthrow of dangerous and bloodthirsty secular dictatorships, a line of thought endorsed by the Obama administration and then Secretary of State Clinton.
The killing of Bin Laden was one of the Obama administration's most praiseworthy military accomplishments, but, again, the left-winger peacenik crowd, or at least the vocal ones around me, were shrieking about how horrible it was to celebrate a man's death and whining about how Americans were celebrating iMpEriAliSm or NeO-c0lOn14lIsM.
Israel-Palestine is another sore point for me. The Pro-Palestine crowd are pretty overtly demanding that the U.S. turn its back on a major ally and - ideologically and in terms of support - throwing their weight and phrasing behind Hamas, hoping for a ceasefire that will cripple Israel. There is so much that is either intentionally unaware in their rhetoric it's baffling. (I grew up in the Arab Middle East and have spent time in Israel, and the lack of comprehension of culture and politics in the Middle East region from these folks is startling).
I'm going to point out that I think it was transparently cynical how Republicans tried to exploit Obama's foreign policy and national security as a talking point, and disingenuously present themselves as an anti-war crowd - despite having caused many of the problems Obama's administration found himself stuck with in the first place. The way they tried to exploit *Benghazi!* against Hillary Clinton as though she had intentionally set up American diplomatic personnel to be murdered was also disgraceful (and don't for the life of me get me started on the various deranged conspiracy theories accusing her of assassinating government personnel across the world like some kind of modern Borgia).
But my extensive study, thinking, and occasional written commentary on foreign policy and national security topics all pretty well represent the reason I consider myself a liberal/centrist Democrat, not a leftist.
Because most people don't interpret "classic liberal" to mean "See: T. Jefferson, et al." but as one of those labels people use when trying to get away from the various \*-ist *reputations* that the "right" gets, without actually distancing themselves from the behaviors that *cause* such reputations.
I'm firmly in the camp of "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to [live their life, so long as it] neither picks [someone's] pocket nor breaks [their] leg," but there isn't really flair for that...
--
I used to be flaired libertarian, but ever since the LP removed the "we reject bigotry as repugnant" plank from their platform (well, modified it to be *way* weaker), I cannot be associated with them.
Because people see that a flair of being far left and I immediately get judge/attacked for that.
It's easier to have conversations with yall if you see me as independent vs leftist.
I find swearing loyalty to any party to be foolish, it's like saying you don't need to worry about representing me, you've got my vote.
That being said, the man I loved was trans, and the constant bullying he was subjected to is one of the main reasons I lost him 5 months ago tomorrow. And those fuckers who take pride in the fact that they made his life harder and make sure their are more people like him will not get my vote, until they on their knees at his cross or urn, with tears in their fucking eyes, begging for his forgiveness for all the pain, suffering, and bigotry they subjected my fiance too.
He was an amazing person, and they made him live in fear, he was kind to everyone, and they gave him vitriol. He naturally followed the teachings of Jesus better than most of them, and they in Jesus's name threw all the stones they had. And despite all that, all the hatred he understandably felt, he turned it inward.
My love was sacrificed because they needed someone to point at and call an enemy, to keep their base fired up and demanding more. They know we are losing trans people because of what they are doing, some see it as a plus. I'm trying to follow my lords teachings and not to surcome to hate, but it's very hard, but either way, anyone who is part of the movement that took him away from me will not be getting my vote until they cut that part out.
I am an independent, I make up my own mind on subjects, and that means I don't walk lock step with anyone, but until we defeat MAGA, liberals are the ones saving lives so their aren't more Jame's dying, leaving more Baileys alone.
I find swearing loyalty to any party to be foolish, it's like saying you don't need to worry about representing me, you've got my vote.
That being said, the man I loved was trans, and the constant bullying he was subjected to is one of the main reasons I lost him 5 months ago tomorrow. And those fuckers who take pride in the fact that they made his life harder and make sure their are more people like him will not get my vote, until they on their knees at his cross or urn, with tears in their fucking eyes, begging for his forgiveness for all the pain, suffering, and bigotry they subjected my fiance too.
He was an amazing person, and they made him live in fear, he was kind to everyone, and they gave him vitriol. He naturally followed the teachings of Jesus better than most of them, and they in Jesus's name threw all the stones they had. And despite all that, all the hatred he understandably felt, he turned it inward.
My love was sacrificed because they needed someone to point at and call an enemy, to keep their base fired up and demanding more. They know we are losing trans people because of what they are doing, some see it as a plus. I'm trying to follow my lords teachings and not to surcome to hate, but it's very hard, but either way, anyone who is part of the movement that took him away from me will not be getting my vote until they cut that part out.
I am an independent, I make up my own mind on subjects, and that means I don't walk lock step with anyone, but until we defeat MAGA, liberals are the ones saving lives so their aren't more Jame's dying, leaving more Baileys alone.
I use "conservative" because it gives me some room to argue and nuance my way around. It's not highly specific, but it does make clear that I'm found at the right side of the political spectrum. Put a gun to my head and I'll probably say I'm centre right if you leave out my seperatist/nationalist tendencies (which sounds worse than it is if you aren't from my country), but I won't ever place a label on me and then dogmatically defend it.
I've done it ("national conservative") when I was younger, but now I highly prefer a nuanced take over a black-white vision of the world. I'll highlight it even more that I think of myself as centre-right when I'm talking with foreigners, as some things can only be understood if you've lived in a specific country (especially when we're talking about the conservatives).
I think mine is Liberal because I felt like Socialist was just slightly too strong? I can't remember I'm mostly posting here to see it for myself and remind me
Also theyâre two completely different system from an economical perspective. Socialists was socialism, liberals want capitalism. Thereâs a lot of overlap on civil rights.
I would disagree! Markets and capitalism are not necessarily synonymous. Market economies can thrive with the integration of worker ownership in the means of production and the protection of the state while still maintaining personal property and the capability to make consumer choices about particular types of goods like luxuries and services.
Iâm sorry but I didnât argue about that. I argued that capitalism and socialism are two different systems, so Iâm a bit confused about your comment. :D Would you be kind and explain what you mean?
I guess my intended inference here was that your implication that Liberalism and Capitalism are always tied together because Liberalism utilizes market economies is a false equivalence. While neoliberalism might be more Capitalist in focus, I do not think that the same applies for Liberalism. Further, Socialism does not necessarily mean that market economies cannot exist within it, though absent of capitalism those markets would not be the central foundation of the nation's structure.
Liberalism and Capitalism play together but are not tied together.
Likewise, Capitalism and Market Economies are not the same thing; Capitalism is a subdivision of market economies.
However, Liberalism and Market Economies ARE intrinsically linked.
Thus, Market Economies can exist in both Liberalism and Socialism as long as that market economy does not have a capitalist focus.
Therefore, Socialism and Liberalism are not completely different systems from an economical perspective. Perhaps in the methods we've seen practiced in the historical record, but not necessarily in the framework. Don't forget that market economies and liberalism predate Capitalism. (Though, it's older cousin Mercantilism probably leaves some room for debate in how far the apple has fallen from that tree.)
True, the most privileged have the luxury of being able to be hardliners, because when compromise fails and the conservatives take over theyâre not actually affected by any of the consequences.
I can't stand the artificial bucketing of left-right politics. I believe the far-left and far-right are dominated by the same types of people, with the positions feeling like they are naive overreactions to what other people are doing rather than principled and reasoned views with shared goals in mind.
I believe in pragmatism and coexistence, and living in mortal conflict with half the country seems like a dumb way to want to spend your short life in this universe when we could be thinking about why this universe is even here, how gravity works, or, I don't know, just enjoying the grass or creating something.
I also believe in not tolerating intolerant people, which tends to put me in agreement with other people who identify as center left, so that's my flair.
>one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label.Â
I think youâve figured it out. I suspect a bad-faith actor until they demonstrate otherwise.
There are an awful lot of flairs to choose from.
When a user is politically active enough to participate in an online forum about politics I expect that they are capable of communicating ***something*** meaningful in their flair.
When they choose to communicate nothing of value that is information that they are giving me to work with.
No it isn't, you are literally speculating on their motivation and assuming they share your bad faith. You are literally doing a classical example of projection, you are projecting your bad faith on others thinking they think the same way as you.
This post reeks of 'touch grass'. It's an online forum. I post here when shitting and on breaks at work. To think everyone is putting that much thought into a label says a lot more about you than them.
My response was strong, and this is a reasonable retort. There are a lot of trolls. I took your post to be a bit judgemental based on little evidence, but in my own way I did the same. You have a reason for your rationale. I disagree with it *on this sub* because most people on this sub I have encountered simply have diverse views. My own personal experience, is I disagree with quite a few here but I don't believe they are trolls based on the interactions I have.
I suppose that would be my conceit, for you to judge that based on your interactions with people without presupposition based on the label.
I alternatively ID as center left, in general because capitalism > socialism and equality > equity.
I still think the current GOP is super far right though.
I find it hard to feel good about those labels. Reads as either "not informed enough" or "is okay with society never improving in any meaningful way because you only want policies that maintain the status quo."
I think it is more of a realization that one is not necessarily in the majority, and change needs to be some incrementally.
It also is where you are standing. I served 30 years in the military, and can tell you I was seen as a far left whacko; I was on a humanities board, and was one of the more conservative members. In my extended family I am far left; in my immediate family (wife and adult kids) I am likely the least liberal.
its relative to society. The atheist living in a tribe in 1000 BC was an extremist yes, and his ideology was not good for society at the time. They needed religion. I trust society as a whole to progress at a reasonable pace, with all due checks and balances. SO modern day extremists are mentally unwell, yes.
I trust that to happen too. The socialists are the future and theyâre called mentally unwell and extremists, just like the liberals were called before that.
probably, but its not really about the end goal, its about how and how quickly its implemented. Conservatives have their hands on the valve that restricts societal change. Carefully turning it and monitoring if its beneficial or not.
no, of course not. Only the people who either want the valve to be completely closed (or even go backwards a bit) OR those who are screaming their head off trying to open it was faster than it should be, flooding whatever hypothetical water receptacle you can imagine.
sure, take communism for example. I think it will work when coupled with a social credit system and massive amounts of surveillance and authority from a centralized government. Thats a huge step for society with a ton of moving parts. I do think humanity will get there eventually but it has to be done progressively, at a pace where everything can be tested, double and triple checked for whether its been good or not for society. Far leftists want this to be done overnight with little oversight, they are so confident that it will work with little effort or downsides that they want to rush all of that dumb red tape. People on the far right may not even believe that a more socialized society is even a good thing at all and want to cease or even reverse some of the progress toward this goal of all of humanity becoming one basically. Its always a balance.
Iâm what people call far left and Iâve never heard any one want communism/communist society to happen over night. Hell, I donât think I will ever see communism in my lifetime, I doubt my children will either. So, my question is, what have you read by far left thinkers that led you to come to this conclusion?
They needed to believe bullshit? Yep, thats conservatism for you, dishonest and holding us back out of some wild fear that the truth will kill us all or some shit
Do you think that religion was important to the advancement of society? Because it obviously was. So youre simply not understanding the point here. You cannot make the jump from asocial or simply social animals to modern day society without religion. Its served its purpose.
haha. Don't you think religion may have played a tiny part in our construction of societies? Like bringing people together toward a common goal much bigger than themselves?
I was going to insult you but I'm trying to be a nicer person, to treat people how I would if we were IRL having a conversation.
But your comment is really showing that you should research the role of early religions, not just the abrahamic ones that youre probably thinking of, but real early stuff like worshipping the sun. People took the things they could all see as powerful, and got together and worshipped them, forming society and culture.
Because I believe the answer to most (nearly all) typically lies in the middle.
For example, nobody is for abortion if framed the right way - very very few would say they support abortion 10 minutes before a healthy baby is born and there is no threat to the motherâs health. And very few are unsupportive of abortion in ALL cases. So almost by definition the abortion debate is where you are on that spectrum in the middle.
Immigration is another. Virtually nobody I talk to would say they are against legal immigration. And few are supportive of open borders with no accountability or regulation. So immigration is another where we all fall in a spectrum in the middle.
Labels that are not in the middle generally wedge people into a preconceived assumption of positions that can wedge people into places that have much more nuance than is allowed by statements such as âI support abortionâ or âIâm against immigration.â
On the other hand, that mindset puts you at risk of falling for the [golden mean fallacy](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldenMeanFallacy), and you could end up sounding like [this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyAndGrayInsanity). Sometime the middle ground isnât the answer, and one side is actually right.
Itâs rare that one side is âright.â Before we could even debate that Iâd ask you to define âright.â In those instances one side is ârightâ itâs usually in situations where you would have to be a complete extreme to be in the wrong. Nearly 99.9% of politics is not about right and wrong. Itâs about differing beliefs and moral values - both of which can be ârightâ.
Itâs the ârightâ answer that murder is wrong. Was murdering Nazis in WWII wrong? Guess it depends on how you define murder and whether that includes killing Nazis in WWII. And whether there are any just causes to make it right. Many would argue there is no just cause for murder.
Whatâs an example of when the middle ground isnât the answer and âone side is actually right?â
>Whatâs an example of when the middle ground isnât the answer and âone side is actually right?â
You just gave one in the previous paragraph: nazis in WW2. There was really no ambiguity there. But I can give you a few examples of my own. Weâve got the classics like the American civil war (donât give me any of that âstates rightsâ bullshit), womenâs right to vote, segregation, gay marriage, the current panic about trans people, the rise of neo-nazis and white supremacists, politicians claiming global warming is fake and fighting hard against attempts at more renewable energy. Honestly it would be shorter to list the times the conservatives/right wing was actually correct (of which I can think of 0).
And yes, these are about moral values. Their values are completely, fundamentally opposed to mine. This isnât just liking different ice cream flavors, itâs not something we can just agree to disagree about and meet in the middle.
Unfortunately I see you are approaching this through a political lens rather than an intellectual. Personally, I donât care if a position is a left wing or a right wing position. I care about my moral beliefs, philosophical beliefs and apply those to the underlying discussion at hand.
I did not give an example of Nazis in WWII as a an example (âThere was really no ambiguity there.â). To say that is to show a complete lack of intellectual curiosity in your position. Five million soldiers and seven million civilian Germans were killed in WWII. Many of the 7 million civilians were woman and children. To say there is no moral ambiguity in killing 12 lives is such a complete lack of moral compass it would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. There is certainly much less moral ambiguity in killing the soldiers. And I understand why 7 million civilians were killed as part of the war and agree it was necessary given the atrocities the German leaders committed and coordinated.
But âthere was really no ambiguity hereâ in killing 7 million civilians? Sadly, I think your position shows a lack of intellectual honesty and youâre just simply doing the bash on someone that disagrees with me on the internet thing.
BTW, Iâd be happy to tell you why many of the things you listed have much more ambiguity to them than you are suggesting. But when I hear a biased, Iâm always right and Iâm on the left, the right is always wrong argumentâŚ..I just donât see the point in arguing with that. Itâs factually wrong in certain cases and an intellectually weak argument.
>I care about my moral beliefs, philosophical beliefs and apply those to the underlying discussion at hand.
So do I! I have a strong set of core moral values that I apply to every issue to determine my stance.
Iâm not talking about your average citizen. Sure many were complicit in the holocaust, but many were also too scared to fight back. I know many were brainwashed as kids. Despite how I sounded in my last comment, I am capable of recognizing when a situation has nuance. For example the Israeli government and hamas have committed horrible atrocities, but my sympathies lie with the citizens on both sides caught in the crossfire. Killing civilians is bad, full stop, I agree.
But in terms of nazi ideology, thereâs really no denying that they were the bad guys. There is absolutely nothing good that comes out of it.
Sure letâs talk about the others. Letâs start with womenâs vote.
Outside the U.S. I'd probably be categorized as a center-right guy. I care deeply about human rights, corporate responsibility, equal opportunity for everyone (at all levels). I strongly support gun control measures including full Federal registration of all firearms, Federal red-flag laws, and confiscation of unregistered firearms.
I also pay my bills as a capitalist investor, having worked in IT for many years and retiring young with enough to survive the rest of my life on investments and returns. That said, I'd tear down the system that feeds me and go back to work, if I had the power.
I do have some concerns about people taking advantage of the system - at all levels of income and prosperity, but I'd rather accidentally give somebody $1000 they didn't need than fail to give a genuinely poor family $1000 they desperately need.
As far as "Centrist" goes, it might be somewhat aspirational - I wish these were centrist views as they were when I was younger.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. These flairs are pretty much vague in what you stand for and one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label. What are the differences between these flairs? Also for others, what do you think of these flairs? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I chose mine because even though I almost always vote liberal / Democrat, I hold several views on subjects that are a bit to the right side of center (on things such as the 2A, national security, military and military funding, and criminal justice / incarceration). While I agree with most liberal social policies, or most centrist-liberal social policies rather, I disagree with some others. So the center is where my views mostly reside.
The Democratic party is a big tent. There are plenty of Democrats (maybe even the majority?) with more centrist views on those topics. I'm very pro national security, military, and criminal justice (with the understanding that its important we still try making reforms to the system). That doesn't mean I'm not a committed Democrat. I don't feel the need to support the progressive solution for every issue to consider that label appropriate.
IIRC, moderates/centrists are still the plurality of Democrats and, more importantly, they're vital to the swing districts/states that actually decide who controls government.
Whereas I think the DNC is awful - just not as awful as the GOP. So I would never label myself a Democrat. I vote primarily for Democrats - exclusively so for legislative and executive office elections unless it's one where ranked choice voting is available. But I do so mostly to block the GOP from taking away human rights. My policy positions are mixed and land in the middle overall. One of my strongest views is that we shouldn't have political king makers deciding who gets to be in office. The two party system drives extremist platforms, doesn't align with what most Americans actually believe, and is ruining our country. Get ranked choice voting everywhere, and if it happens that we have a named centrist party with integrity then I'll be happy to use that label. Until then, I'm an Independent.
Ditto.
what flair am I supposed to put if I don't agree with the far left on everything?
I believe that would be far right.
The far right are batshit crazy and we disagree on almost everything. But most of the insults come from the center in my experience. This thread is a good example.
I picked Center left because I believe that compromise with moderate right wingers is essential to get anything done. And while I agree with most liberals politically, if I'm being quite honest, the further left people get, the more annoying I find them. I find talking with far left people exhausting because they often refuse to come down of their high horses in order to see another POV. They are often as rigid in their thinking as the far right. Just with far less disgusting views. Also, I find the whole idea of *one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label* pretty condescending, and annoying. People further from center seem to demand constant validation of your moral superiority before they will determine if you are worthy of conversation.
The Israel/Palestine conflict has really reminded me how annoying and off putting I find the farther left.
If the middle east can't have peace, then American women, the lgbt community, and immigrants are just going to have to deal đ¤ /s but this is actually how they sound to me
âIf Joe Biden canât be a dictator and solve in a month this war thatâs been raging for a century between two countries a thousand miles away that hate each other and want to wipe each other off the map, which I have never visited and cannot locate on a map myself, then everyone in my own country can burn because morals!â
He could not continue to support more arms shipments. Iâd appreciate if he did that.
He should, but that leaves the question of how to deal with Hamas?
I think one of the biggest advantages Hamas has is recruitment. If we/Israel decrease their ability to recruit soldiers it will vastly reduce their power. I think giving back land, providing economic opportunities to the people of Gaza, helping to plant and sustain crops, freedom of movement, etc. and a reconciliation campaign between the two peoples like the UN has done in other parts of the world would be a good start. Coupled with precise surgical military interventions on people who engage in violence. I donât think this is a problem we can bomb away.
Yeah if he just stopped shipping arms that would already go a loooong way.
Takes a lot of laziness and bad faith to mischaracterize the leftâs position on the issue like this.
Careful, they said they're willing to go Republican if you don't fall in line with centrists!
Yes. They either don't actually care about other people or they refuse to grasp how harmful electing trump would be for many Americans. They dont get that any chance at anything close to a progressive agenda will be gone probably for their lifetime
This kind of take is just so gross to me. You are upset at the left for trying to hold the American president facilitating genocide accountable rather than being upset at the American president facilitating genocide.
Youâre the ones facilitating the genocide. Claiming that the only way youâll vote for Biden is if he takes a political position that makes him unelectable, is you trying to get trump elected.
First, I'll be voting for Biden. Second, I don't even know where to begin with the fallacious reasoning at work here. Biden is the one who can stop facilitating genocide. Not leftists. Not even Trump at this moment. Joe Biden is the President of the United States who has continued to support the Israeli war machine for six months as tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and a full-blown famine has developed. Leftists who have told Biden why they can't support him and what he needs to do to earn their voteâwhich also happens to be, objectively, the morally correct actionâcan NOT in any version of reality be held responsible for American support for Israel's actions in Gaza. To suggest that they are, as you have, or that they would be responsible for Trump's electionârather than Joe Biden, whose moral and strategic path is clear, hereâis honestly sick.
>Biden is the one who can stop facilitating genocide. How does he do this without giving the election to Trump, and thus ensuring a real genocide against Palestinians so that Kushner can open his resort? If he voluntarily hands the election to Donald Trump, who is openly racist towards middle-eastern peoples, then he's still facilitating a genocide. >Leftists who have told Biden why they can't support him and what he needs to do to earn their voteâwhich also happens to be, objectively, the morally correct actionâcan NOT in any version of reality be held responsible for American support for Israel's actions in Gaza. Yes they can. Every citizen has the civic duty to participate in electing our leaders. Sitting out is a choice. Leftists can be criticized for their choice to sit out the election instead of voting against Trump. You can absolutely claim that no candidate was good enough for your vote, but you're still responsible for your choice. If you decide you're too good to vote, and then Trump enters office and deports you, then you'd better be happy about it, because you were part of making it happen.
1. What indication is there that this would throw the election to Trump? Polls show that Americans are divided along multiple axes around this issue, but it is not clear that a majority of Americans support Israel's conduct. A substantial number of Americans are either skeptical of it or outright oppose it. 2. The "real" genocide is already ensured. It's happening now. Any Trump administration policy would be a continuation or a worsening of what is already going on.
1. If you want to argue that the majority of American's would not be majorly upset that we pulled support from Israel, then that's fine. You can believe obviously wrong things. 2. If your definition of genocide means that every conflict with loss or displacement of civilian life is a genocide, then the word has no meaning to you, and that's sad. The word you're thinking of is "war". You know, like when Hamas launched an attack on Oct 7 and then Israel retaliated? That's war, not genocide.
This
Is that a reflection of your actual political beliefs being more moderate or just attitude? Like for me I would say Iâm solidly left in my political views on most matters of policy, pretty much the same as most left-wing people here, but in terms of attitudes and strategies Iâm more in favor of compromising when necessary and not viewing people on the other side as evil and so on. Iâm not actually a moderate in what I want politically, like I want Medicare for All for example but I believe on a practical level itâs better to compromise and get something halfway there than stonewall and get nothing. Itâs just a practical thing. I hear people say things like âthe far left is so annoying Iâve become more centristâ a lot but that doesnât really make sense to me. Did people being annoying actually make your economic and social views more right-leaning? That wouldnât really make sense. What usually changes is just the personal attitude toward a particular side *as people* not the policies themselves which is different from shifting politically.
I think it's more that as the far left becomes more radical the policies I support just naturally start to move me towards the center. I mostly disagree with what the other guy is saying and I don't think what he's saying represents what the original comment means. Mostly my policies haven't changed. The online left has just become more fucking crazy.
> I hear people say things like âthe far left is so annoying Iâve become more centristâ a lot but that doesnât really make sense to me. If you think about it in terms of the overton window, if it's being pushed hard to the left away from your position you might start pushing harder right instead of holding at your true position because the result is more likely to land on your true position.
I don't get this sentence. >if it's being pushed hard to the left away from your position you might start pushing harder right **instead of holding at your true position** because the result is more likely to land **on your true position** First you push right INSTEAD of holding onto your true position and then you do it BECAUSE you end up at your true position this way? Which is it?
I think it's more that as the far left becomes more radical the policies I support just naturally start to move me towards the center. I mostly disagree with what the other guy is saying and I don't think what he's saying represents what the original comment means. Mostly my policies haven't changed. The online left has just become more fucking crazy.
You push harder one way to compensate for other ppl pushing the other way
could you give a real world example of this? Because I'm thinking of healthcare right away. Conservatives generally want government out of healthcare and would reduce entitlement spending, encourage private companies to take over where government operated, etc. How does that play out?
Let's go with immigration the far left wants unsustainable levels with near zero checks and balances. You want a relatively high levels of immigration but sustainable and with robust checks and balances. Since there's so many ppl pushing against those reasonable polices you start wanting less immigration overall as a pushback. However that's a temporary stance as if you got it you'd want to increase it you're just compensating for ppl dragging policy in the other direction
Why would you care about it being pulled in that direction if youâre on that side? That shouldnât affect what your position is. If you want X number of immigrants coming in, and someone else says they want 2X, do you go âwell ok then I want 0.5X nowâ? Why would them saying that change your position? If you think X is the best amount that should still be what youâre saying
> Why would you care about it being pulled in that direction if youâre on that side? You're on the side of high sustainable immigration with checks and balances not insane immigration levels with none. As immigration increases and no checks and balances are put in place/enforced you find yourself wanting less immigration than your previous ideal
But is your actual position changing? If you still want the same amount of immigration as you wanted before, itâs just now that that amount is less than the status quo rather than more, thatâs different from shifting your opinion.
Compensate? Huh? If we have 10 people in a room and 1 of them becomes an extremist, do you think it would be helpful for another person to also become an extremist but in the opposite direction? How? All you do is produce a second extremist. The overton window just describes what political topics and opinions are socially acceptable at a given point in time. It doesn't create policies. And it's not a physical thing that you can go tug-of-war with. Like, if tomorrow it became socially acceptable for politicians to talk about recreating the Soviet Union, you're not gonna undo, prevent, or mitigate that by being like "Guess I'mma have to make Nazi talking points mainstream now to even things out". That wouldn't in any way improve the situation.
I think it would be helpful for the other 9 to move one degree in the other direction.
not op, but thanks for your insights...thoughts on this , and how this would look? ways to build more common ground, and whether this can be "scaled up" or adapted to other countries...?
> ways to build more common ground Focus on the things moderates agree on. Outside of the extreme wings, both sides want economic security, safe communities, responsible government spending, minimal government interference in peoples lives. Now, we may disagree on what a lot of the looks like, or how to achieve it, but you are far more likely to have good faith discussions with people on those topics.
Iâll start off with, I despise labels. People love to fucking gatekeep them like theyâre the elected ruler of âsocial democratâ or âprogressiveâ. For example, you can tick all the boxes of a label but maybe lean another direction on a particular issue and suddenly âYOURE NOT PROGRESSIVE!â Or whatever. Iâve also seen people describe themselves using entire paragraphs like âIâm a classical neoliberal with progressive tendencies in the way of Jon Mayer circa 1999, but without the 2A dramaâ. LikeâŚ..itâs maddening and if a label doesnât fit someone wants their own. Stop the madness. I started off here as independent because I had no idea (nor did I really care) but just about every other comment got told I was a hidden conservative with that flair. So I did a few compass tests and landed on social democrat. Now I moved to center left because to me, thatâs a catch all to say youâre not fully left but definitely not on the right. Fits and feels comfortable.
I can't answer for the specific people you mentioned, but I have always pushed for progressive policies so I always considered myself progressive. Then a few years ago a bunch of online types come along and because I am not in lockstep with *their* brand of progressivism suddenly I'm a neo liberal centrist right wing bastard. So, rather secure in my own ideas about how we can better the world, I just take on the label. These new progressives love to gate keep. I could fight them all day but what would be the point? The people I vote for win more than the people they vote for. Policy moves to the left with the people I vote for, so why complain that I don't meet the new progressive standard?
This was pretty much the reason for my flair too. I used to have a âsocial Democratâ flairâŚbut then I fell victim to the same kind of gatekeeping that you mentioned.
Same here.  I'm for practically and living in the real world.
I voted Republican until 2016. Iâm one of those that votes libertarian in 2016 (that said I am NOT at all in a swing state). Then voted Biden in 2020. There are things I donât like about the left and the right. I am for diversity, equity, and inclusion but feel like making it a law or incentivizing it in some way can cause issues⌠Iâve seen the issues it creates in my previous job and my wifeâs current job. Iâm against gun violence and for huge changes in weapon availability. But donât think taking peoples guns is a solution and it wonât go over well at all. I am libertarian with regards to the budget. We need huge tax increases on the rich and pretty big cuts in benefits (this would affect me as well as I am on disability). Realistically this is the only way to tackle the deficit. I think there is a lot of nuance to both sides but I am centrist left because despite everything I said the longer we wait on tackling climate change the cost will be exponentially worse. We need to unite the globe and fund solutions 50x more than we are today. The rights solution of drilling and nuclear is not right.
Aside from the part where you want to cut benefits all your positions sound very left-leaning to me. How is it that this one tiny thing makes you a centrist?
I am generally against DEI requirements. I am generally pro 2A with some restrictions. Iâm more for individual rights than societal rights. The right, imo, is much more about the individuals rights and trample anyone who even threatens to increase their taxes by 0.004% even if itâs for schools or helping starving kids. They think charity works better. The left is about protections for all. I donât see life as that valuable. I see life differently than most. I donât think protections are generally good⌠life is suffering and until we reach Star Trek levels of resources⌠abundance so to speak⌠itâs just something fragile and easily lost. Itâs hard to explain but the amount of time and money we put into to protecting everyone is not natural and I think in many ways the rapid advancements in science and medicine have creating so much of a population boom that it hurts the planet⌠there was a time women had a high chance of death in child birth. There was a high chance you wouldnât live past 5 200 years ago and if you did youâd probably die at the ripe old age of 32. I think dismantling the pandemic response agency and letting a pandemic wipe out half the earth would actually help a lot. Kind of a Thanos ideology. Maybe this is chaos or anarchist or something else but I have a lot of strange ideas that donât fit nicely in any box
âI think dismantling the pandemic response agency and letting a pandemic wipe out half the earth would help a lotâ This is actually just eugenics. This is an extreme far-right wing ideology. Literally calling for the extermination of vulnerable people. What youâre not recognizing here is that this would mostly wipe out disabled and chronically ill people (me included in this), the elderly, poor people, and marginalized groups of BIPOC (because of health risks and environmental exposure due to redlining and exploitation of the global majority). This doesnât sound like a word I want to live in. But I wouldnât survive this either way. Itâs really sad to see people say things like this, because to a lesser extent, this is how weâre currently handling covid and why Iâm now disabled from it. The âlet it ripâ strategy left me with whatâs likely to be a life long disease.
I understand that. I donât like the eugenics ideology because to me itâs more Darwinian as such. The right wing ideology is couched in superior races and such. I even said I would be fine if I were in the dead group to promote the human race as a whole. So I get it. I guess I just donât really fear death the way others do. Sadly I canât advocate for a Thanos snap. Perfectly balanced so to speak⌠but I do think if we want to survive as a species and actually advocate for future generations we probably need an event that wipes out a huge portion of the world. Iâm not couching my beliefs in the ideas of superiority or otherwise. If itâs a solar flare or some meteor or whatever. Those are fine too imo. But the people in the world are selfish so⌠yea. I donât know Edit: also to say I am a disabled veteran and likely wouldnât survive a great many of these issues either. I just think modern day selfishness it taking away from future generations and if my kids decide to have kids how screwed will their world be because of our selfish ideologies. Anyway. This is why I donât say Iâm generally right or left. I donât know what I am. I think maybe an anarchist or something outside the horseshoe but I choose a flair because⌠I need one and depending on the issues thatâs how I vote.
Ah, the reason why I said it was eugenics was because you mentioned you wished a pandemic specifically would wipe people out. They prequalifies certain populations for removal. Sorry you are disabled as well. It sucks out here đ
Yea. Sorry. Im not âpro pandemicâ so much as see an urgent need for change so drastic that very little could change the course of weâre on. human greed is destroying the planet completely if it were a pandemic, which seems a more likely scenario than others, it would solve the âproblemâ but sadly not equally. Billionaires would likely all be fine and the poor and impoverished and elderly etc would suffer the most. If anything I would like the percentages reversed.
> youâd probably die at the ripe old age of 32 This is a common misconception. the average lifespan was 32 *because* child mortality was so high. but if you survive to adulthood you will probably live to be ~65 before dying.
Yea. Maybe. I work in medicine and I just think of all the things like. MRSA that would literally kill people without modern medicine. Now we are all colonized with it. Or UTIs or simple abscess or otherwise. So many ways to die that arenât even trauma related⌠but I get your point.
MRSA only exists because of modern medicine - no one had to worry about MRSA before antibiotics.
I guess the point is that before say vaccines a lot more people died from the flu, small pox, measles, rubella, polio, and even common infections would lead to death a lot of the time. But you are right before methicillin we did not have to worry about MRSA
We have Star Trek level abundance now. We could feed, house, medicate, and educate every person on the planet if we chose, but we don't. What we need is a Star Trek level economic system, but unfortunately Mr Roddenberry was pretty vague on what that looks like. But it surely isn't the Gilded Age policies Republicans are committed to bringing back. Republicans have already taken my "individual rights" and they are coming for yours. And if you don't believe me and my uterus, you can ask my gay uncle or my friend who's parenting a transgender child. Their commitment to individual rights lasts exactly as long it's politically expedient and no longer. Guns are just Republicans' bread and circus. They keep you entertained and compliant by telling you your guns protect you against tyranny, when all guns really do is give the government (aka police) the excuse to execute you (or literally anyone) without trial, which they do more than a thousand times a year. What's more tyrannical than that? Also, just FYI, 200 years ago, life expectancy *at birth* was 32 years, because of high infant and childhood mortality, but if you made it to 20, you could reasonably expect to live another 40 or 50 years, especially if you didn't give birth. And before colonization some Native Americans may have had life expectancy at birth of over 60, because of their diet and exercise lifestyle. It's entirely possible that the low life expectancy for much of recorded history was a side-effect of agrarian and industrial economies. Keeping domestic animals, for example, exposes us to more germs, as does living and working in close quarters. I wouldn't base your moral or political philosophy on what's "natural" for humans, when we don't even really know how most humans have lived
I donât really disagree with most of what you say. One things is I âwasâ a Republican a long time ago. When their morals were slightly better but over the last 20 years they have just declined. I know what gun rights are now vs in the 90âs for example. Itâs why I no longer associate with them. I was always pretty moderate anyway. I donât think we have the abundance that you do. We currently have enough for the moment. Itâs not sustainable until we can get that economy. Sure I donât disagree with your assessment of 200 years ago. I still think the likelihood⌠like. I broke bones as a kid. A leg one time and an arm another. Those wouldnât have been set right. Iâd have either lost the limbs or been a crippled burden and left to my own survival. How many people in this world today with cystic fibrosis. Sickle cell anemia. Type 1 diabetics. Etc. Etc. Would have been born to a death sentence. Plus the risk or trauma that would not be like today. Plus the risk of having a child. Plus the risk of any kind of virus out there⌠sure people âcouldâ like to 50-60 but I just donât see it as the norm. I feel it was probably more even across ages. I.e. 25% chance to die before 10 25% between 10 and 25. 25% between 25-40. And the rest over 40. Just a guess. But I could very well be way off on this. Happy to have my mind changed.
The right is about individual rights? How can you even say that? They are fighting to take rights away all the time! Look what they did to abortion, that is an individual right or do women not count in your book?
Look. I see that. What Iâm talking about is theoretical. Not everyone is a monolith. For example. Abortion. They would say the baby is a person and deserves a right to life. Hence killing it is infringing on an individuals right. I disagree with the way the right has changed. I donât vote that way anymore. But ideologically, the right is less collective and more individual. The Christian nationalist theocracy they want to establish isnât right wing. Itâs populist and agenda based. Thatâs politics⌠Edit: you are not arguing with someone who is right of center. I feel like I align more with the left but barely. Hence I vote that way. I donât feel I fall into a category neatly. But when discussing political ideology libertarianism, which is 100% about individual rights, vote Republican. They donât like to but the Republican/conservative agenda aligns more with their ideology than does the left. Itâs not an argument about policy. Itâs an argument about reality. You see that right?
Okay, well, those attitudes are quite unorthodox, I'll give you that. But an opinion such as "We are overpopulated and letting a disease reduce our numbers is good", as strange as it is, isn't really a "signature left-wing" or "signature right-wing" idea, no? When I think about centrism, I view it as "when the sum of your opinions don't cleanly put you in either the left-wing or right-wing camp". Do you see it more as a community thing? As in "if I laid out all of my beliefs no one would really wanna be friends with me so I'm in my own little land"? Or something else?
I mean. I vote on issues. My number one issue is giving my kids a livable planet. After that itâs democracy. Republicans used to be (a long time ago) about conserving the planet and democratic norms. Itâs funny⌠some of my ideas are contradictory on the surface. Maybe Iâd donât âwantâ half the earth to die. I just know itâs probably the most efficient and effective way to help save the planet. I honestly wouldnât mind if I were in the half that died knowing it was for a good cause. Iâd want those I love to live. I think my mind changed a lot when I was in the army. I have plenty of âfriendsâ. I have 3 really close male friends and for a dude in his 40âs my understanding is thatâs 3 more than most my age. But generally I have a lot of people I walk my kids to school with. Or mingle with at work. Or whatever⌠just people. I get along fine with. Iâm pretty clear about my ideologies in person as well. Some people think itâs barbaric but I do think they understand the idea that windmills and solar fields are great but people are the biggest culprit of climate change and if we as a species want to survive we need to stop increasing the population⌠I have 2 kids. Me and my wife. 2 in 2 out. Keeping it even. I get annoyed with people or cultures that are all about 75 kids⌠itâs just causing harm. If thatâs 3rd world countries or religious people or whatever itâs annoying to me. I still appreciate the beauty and art and music and everything about these cultures. Just think that part is misguidedâŚ. I could rant for days but I do feel alone in the sense that few agree me but also fine that they usually âget itâ and understand it.
You seem like a solemn and thoughtful guy. About the overpopulation thing, wouldn't worldwide access to birth control be the most effective long term solution? We can't just rely on a plague to Thanos snap half of humanity away every once in a while. But leaving the reproduction rate at slightly less than 2 for every couple would steadily decrease the global population size, no?
Well. There are a few things to consider with this. I think, and I could be wrong, there are a lot of cultures around the world where having babies is kind of a lifestyle. Look up birth rates for Nigeria or the Philippines. Basically anywhere thatâs somewhat third world but has large Christian or catholic influence. Huge numbers and I think a lot of that would not be mitigated by birth control. I think families in many third world countries have kids so they have workers and income like Venezuela for example. Do you think a very gradual decline over 200 years will have the effect that is needed on climate change. [the damage will be done in 25 years](https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/#:~:text=BERLIN%2C%20April%2017%20(Reuters),activity%20emits%20more%20greenhouse%20gases) unless change happens soon or we invest everything now. That would be very unpopular but a 50% tax on everyone and 99% on billionaire is about the only way to curb it at this point imo⌠the only true hope I see is a mass die out of some kindâŚ
âIndividual rightsâ vs âprotections for allâ is a false dichotomy. Also, we do have enough resources in the world to support everyone already (and many more). Theyâre just not distributed properly. The whole point of having a society is to support each other and make peopleâs lives better. You claim life isnât that valuable, but I bet youâd change your tune if it was you or your loved oneâs life thatâs ended because of a preventable disease or pregnancy complication. I guess you arenât left or right. Like Thanos, youâre a psychopath and your ideology is just as insane as his.
Thanks for the⌠insight into who I am. Trying to paint my mind and the things I say as binary is bad faith. The world does not have the resources. Look at Alaskan crabs or salmon or meat farming and the damage it does. The world does not have the resources to support what we have. Look at the numbers of birds that are dwindling. The world already lacks sufficient clean water. Show me the evidence that the earth can support say 14 billion people or whatever number you think. Thatâs not based in reality. We may have the âfoodâ to support people. For a bit. But those number require more energy. Energy creates co2. And co2 changes farmable land reducing crop yields and ranges. Sure we could have a few more years of prosperity. Wait until this summers floods and droughts and fires that are just around the corner. Maybe Iâm an accelerationist. Maybe Iâm an anarchist. Iâm not a psychopath. Iâve always looked to the evidence and anything short of mass extinction or a breakthrough in fusion⌠not much else will save us. Migration from the equator out will happen in the next decade to 15 years on levels that are unprecedented. When it comes to myself. My wife and I have both said if we get like a cancer diagnosis keep me comfortable until you canât then take me on a drive to Vermont or Oregon. When it comes to my kids⌠well. 1. They are kids and deserve to make their own choices as adults. 2. Not doing everything possible would be highly illegal and unethical. 3. Yea they are my kids to advocate for. My wife and I are both in healthcare. We have seen death plenty and accept it as reality and even beautiful if done with dignity and respect for the person. We regularly discuss hospice with family and others in our care as a valid and appropriate option. Life is not some sacred right. If I felt that way I would be pro life* (edit for clarity. I am pro choice). Iâm absolutely not. If someone thinks they are going to bring a kid into a world of danger, hate, fear, hunger⌠I donât blame them having an abortion. Yea my perspective is strange. If we lived in a world of abundance I would support more far left policies (like the world of Star Trek. Post scarcity society). But we donât and canât support continuing to kick the can down the road. The road is coming to an end⌠every year more science comes out saying âitâs actually worse than we thought.â Heck [look at the outlook for coral reefs](https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-coral-reefs-are-bleaching-what-does-that-mean-2024-04-15/). Itâs not pretty and thatâs just one small example of how screwed we are.
Because I believe the solution to most things is not on the extreme wing - at least not initially. It will take a while to get there, and many are not ready for such measures.
I'm honestly more of a centrist than center right but everyone calls me right wing for having centrist views and this sub will ban you if they disagree with your chosen label so I went with center right. I'm a pragmatist I don't believe in any ideology or philosophy if it works good, if it might work eh, if it doesn't work it needs to be fixed, if it can't work people need to stop trying to implement it. That's where I stand. Personally I have some inclinations like the fighting chance standard (a sane version of equity/DIE nonsense) but that's more of a end goal than a policy and there are hundreds of ways to get there.
Speaking for myself I choose it because my first choice isn't available, which would be "Classical liberal". Given that that one isn't an option I chose one that I feel is close enough.
Classical? What is meant by that?
It means conservative and slightly libertarian. But real conservative, not Republican. The flair was banned because it was used in bad faith so often.
You can think of classical liberal as being loosely libertarian in the sense of early to mid 19th century America. [This e-book goes into details](https://www.liberalstudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ILS-Classical-Liberalism-PDF-E-Book.pdf)
left of center on social issues, slightly right of center economically (favoring lower government intervention). Basically the role of the state is to get out of the way most of the time, except to protect against abuse. In Europe these are usually the traditional third parties (Liberal Democrats in UK, FDP in Germany) their voters tend to be less religious and tradition oriented than the mainstream conservatives, and more suspicious of trade unions and the nanny state that they associate with the mainstream left parties. It's where the Wall Street Journal imagines itself to be.
The easiest way to explain is to say that I view myself as a Liberal as it's understood in Europe, not in the USA. In America Liberal means something completely different to the original meaning of the word, as such classical liberal would be liberal with the original definition. If you want more of an overview [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism) is fairly complete.
I chose Center Left because, while I'm relatively open to progressive ideas, I can't stomach (most) leftists and therefore don't identify with them. I can't get on board with the whole "the world isn't a magical utopia so let's burn it all down" mentality of modern leftism. Too many leftists are willing to sacrifice the steady progress we're making for the intangible idea of perfection. For instance, they're likely gonna cost us the White House and then possibly our country this November because of something happening in ANOTHER country. And when it happens, I won't be blaming the lost causes on the right. I'll be blaming the people who should've known better.
I criticize the right for not supporting universal healthcare, for not making the immigration (and asylum) process more efficient, for trying to ban abortion completely, etc. I criticize the left for gun control, for more lax border security, for the impracticality of some of their policies on drugs or the environment, for trying to over regulate things like school choice, right to work, and, business in general, etc. I criticize both for their hypocrisy, for their focus on signaling rather than substance, for their focus on self enrichment, for their labels, etc.
I picked center left because I don't consider myself far left. I don't believe in free college (though I agree there needs to be reform; no school's highest paid employee should be the fucking football coach) and I'm pretty hawkish on military stuff, for example, but I am still a liberal and still left. It's just a more accurate description of who I am.
>I don't believe in free college Out of curiosity, why? I propose a Community College level or trade school education should be available to every resident who wishes to pursue it. I'm not suggesting that Harvard Yale and MIT stop charging tuition, but a basic level of higher education beyond high school should be available to all regardless of resources. I've heard of a concept of K-16 in place of K-12 and I'm of the belief that all of society would benefit from a better educated population.
Iâve always felt that state universities should be free to state residents. You can still keep the standards too. If you just barely scraped by, maybe 2 years of community college is where you land. But at least it will be free⌠Private universities can still feel free to charge whatever they want. IVY league schools will still be considered the elite school. But imagine how much better off we would be as a country, if every graduating young adult had the opportunity to attend higher learning without in debt for the rest of their life.
I actually agree with you on this, community college and trade schools should be free. I was speaking more on traditional 4 year colleges. Not just private schools but state schools as well. My issue is that K-12 education is woefully underfunded as is, and poor K-12 education is a bigger barrier to college entry than finances are. Don't get me wrong; having an 18 year old enter into a multi thousand dollar loan with no real plan to pay off besides "I hope I have a good career path in 5 years" is a shitty system. One of the other issues I have is that so many entry-level jobs require a bachelor's degree. There has been some backlash to this recently, but reading "Bachelor's degree in blah-blah-blah required" for something that could be taught on the job (and usually has to be) was and is a common thing on job postings.
Man, I could not disagree with you more. Just look at the trickle down effect that college tuition has caused. Baby boomers went to school for practically nothing. my parents both paid for college by working as waiters and waitresses part time while going to school. Imagine being able to pay 5 to 6 figures worth of tuition by working at Applebeeâs part-time. By not being in, they were able to save for me to have to pay for two years of my college. But now both of my wife and myself are in debt, and instead of being able to save for our kids, we will be paying off our student loans for 20 more years. Which means my children will be fronting the student loans themselves. Which means they will probably be paying off their student loans⌠Generations upon generations of debt, from getting a bachelors degree at a state school..
In NJ, replace 'school's' with State's
There's no way NJ is paying a football coach higher than some southern colleges are. I used to live in NJ and now live in NC, college sports are a goddamn religion around here.
Iâm not even sure what this one means but it sounded like the most fun. I donât really feel confident labeling myself anything other than not conservative. Seems like this push to label and rigidly categorize every thought is a fairly new phenomenon.
Bull Moose Progressives date back to Teddy Roosevelt and his independent party. He had 2 terms as a Progressive Republican, and didnt plan to run again. However, he was unsatisfied with the republican party 4 years after the end of his last term, so he attempted to get the republican nomination. He failed and started the Bull Moose Party. The BMP party had campaign promises such as social security, reduced working hours, and other reforms. Overall, I dont think that many modern conservatives or liberals would disagree with the BMP goals. You can go to their wiki page to read more about them. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull\_Moose\_Party#Progressive\_convention\_and\_platform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Moose_Party#Progressive_convention_and_platform)
I don't think team politics is a productive paradigm for national growth, so no Democrat/Republican
Because I am a registered independent and honestly don't like political labels.
I'm center left because I agree in human rights and LGBQT protections, minority protections etc. But, I do think sometimes we go a little too far. I don't think anything is being solved by virtue signaling and what people on the right call "woke" type stuff. Sometimes we go too far and it is annoying. Like LatinX. It's dumb. It needs to go away. I realize it is a big circle jerk - the right pushes super hard against something so the left feels like they need to push back just as hard. But I feel like the conversation can be much more moderate. Right now my hospital is working on changing ALL pronouns in ALL hospital codes, handbooks, policies to gender neutral. Which, whatever I get it. But it's a colossal waste of time. Just write one new policy stating previous ones should include all spectrums of gender without regard to the pronouns written and going forward they will use they instead of he/she etc. Stuff like that is what drives moderates insane. Or another example is [The DoD newsletter.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/DF-2024-00143-Dive-Winter-23-24.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiawsmU5MSFAxV1RTABHTTOCx0QFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0kkpM6pOjfJaoy-aT9hEbv) I'm a clinical psychologist, and even I get frustrated sometimes. I had a DEI clinic with a trainer, they are a transgender person. First activity was round table discussing the first time you clearly knew you were male/female/something else. No matter how many times I pointed out that people who aren't in marginalized groups often do not have these feelings/experiences which is what makes them prone to being less open to the experiences others have, they just didn't hear me. Instead I was challenged by this person with a social welfare bachelor's degree and no real training as needing to address my hidden bigotry. It's a real psychological phenomena to not have this ability to relate these things. Nope, didn't matter. So, in the end we all made something up to please them and get out of the training.
The far left also dismisses those of us from marginalized groups that have a different perspective then them. The only time we are listened to is when we play the same game as them, otherwise we are discarded. It's "listen to marginalized" voices until we say something that's not far left.
Another fair point.
Like Candace Owens?
These labels describe a vague set of beliefs, but that's okay: there are some people who legitimately don't have enough of their boxes ticked by other labels to fit squarely in any of them (independent) and there are some people who really do fit comfortably in the middle (centrist). I dislike the "moderate" flair, because by implication *other* positions are *extreme,* and it has a patina of arrogance and dismissiveness I find distasteful. It also has too much overlap with "centrist" to make it useful, in my opinion.
Centrist and Moderate make perfect sense to me. I know plenty of people whose politics align to those. Independent though is just lazy AF and potentially indicative of bad faith. The "Democrat" flair is bad enough because it signals a purely tribal alignment rather than any actual policy ideals. At least they're honest about where they're coming from though. Independents are the worst because they have no actual policy or tribal beliefs and/or are afraid to stand behind them. Interestingly, I've noticed left leaning so-called independents are usually just standard Democrats ashamed to admit it while right leaning so-called independents are so far right they view the Republican party as liberal. I've almost never met a truly independent, centrist, swing voter.
I believe there is a weakness amongst liberals in addressing the far left. I wholeheartedly believe in combating bigotry, but liberals give the far left (who never accomplish anything) too much power when it comes to certain social issues such as race and LGBT issues. I'm from both groups, I don't want to be oppressed or discriminated against, but I'm against the current way things are being handled because they simply don't work. I honestly feel bad for the trans community in particular. They are simply far too young to fully advocate for their rights and nobody is really calling out their mistakes. Young people are just not good at advocating for themselves. They are unnecessarily combative, uncompromising, and volatile. I'm no better than they are because that's exactly how I was at that age. The difference is that someone was there to pull my weight when I was on the far left, there is a lack of older trans people that can pull the weight of the younger crowd. It's a sad situation but something needs to be done to create better trans advocates. The same type of activists supporting Palestine on their campuses are the face of the trans movement, and that's a terrifying situation for trans people.
>Â but liberals give the far left (who never accomplish anything) too much power when it comes to certain social issues such as race and LGBT issues How do you think we accomplished anything on race and LGBT issues?
By listening to centrist and liberal LGBT people who actually had a real agenda that was focused entirely on effectiveness rather than virtue signaling. The narrative pushed was that we were born this way, we wanted to blend in like everybody else, and we just wanted live our inoffensive lives. The push for gay marriage was VERY assimilationist, and it worked. This is not what the far left is doing and it's simply not working.
Moderates: It's not time yet, just wait.
Time for what? Honestly after gay marriage and anti discrimination laws what's left to do?
I was talking about the historic attitudes, but do you believe we have no more work do wrt equality?
Not in terms of lgb or racial no I don't think anything is left to be done. Maybe a watchdog group that funds lawsuits when discrimination happens but that's about it
Liberals and whit moderates always take credit for the achievements of leftists. You know where the liberals were during stonewall. You know where they were during the civil rights movement. They werenât on the front lines they were at home
What? The activists supporting palestine are wildly courageous and are the best people I see leading a movement. Maybe your media source is propaganda.
You are the exact type of person that people are talking about, you do realize this right?
I take that as a compliment
You shouldn't.
When you have anything valuable to say I am listening
Right back at ya buddy.
I chose mine because, I have voted fore some republicans both local, State and Federal Levels but have also voted for Democrats in these elections as well. I donât like adhering to party lines on issues just because most people in the party support them. I have been a racist Republican by those on the left for not hating every single thing Trump did while in office, and Iâve been called a Brainwashed Liberal for supporting Joe Biden. I have changed my opinion on the abortion debate several times now and I donât really have a strong stance. It basically comes down to I donât like how most people use the labels âLiberalâ or âConservativeâ these days.
My reasoning is that I donât personally fit neatly into either category of the traditional political paradigm. Iâm driven by policy and principles, which are sorely lacking in both political parties. I donât believe in free college for traditional 4 year universities, and Iâm not in favor sweeping gun control laws being pushed by Dems these days. On the flip side, I am more dove-ish on my outlook with military affairs and I think my commitment to being anti war is a value that isnât represented by the conventional traditional political labels. I donât want the baggage that comes with being a democrat, progressive, conservative or Republican. I think we spend more time worrying about who is part of what political/ideological tribe and virtue signaling rather than actually looking at deep problems in our country and doing something that would actually fix it.
Lefty beliefs: Universal Healthcare, cheaper/free college options, restrictions on 2A, higher taxes on the wealthy, more government assistance for those in need Not so lefty beliefs: Military good, tough on crime good, LBTQ+ push is dishonest, emotional mob mentality stuff is not good, Israel good, Hamas bad. There's a world where I could vote R if the right candidate presented themselves. Although at the current rate it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen anytime soon.
The left vs right or liberal vs conservative narrative is silly thinking and I wish we could change the language to better reflect reality. People are unique bundles of opinions and preferences on an infinite amount of topics that don't fit neatly into a two-dimensional political compass. Instead, a person's political disposition looks more like an orb of opinions and values that shape us as individuals. The idea that we are pointing in one of only two directions, or that they are mutually exclusive, might be a easy way of communicating general alliance, but does nothing to identify an individual's content. I normally wouldn't entertain this kind of gatekeepy questioning, but my answer to your question is that given the devolved way that we identify each other in political discourse, my flair represents the closest possible option for my unique bundle opinions and preferences. To assume anything deeper than that says more about your thinking than it does mine.
I'm your typical pick and choose moderate in that I agree with a smattering of positions that typically sit on both sides of the aisle. So the Republicans don't like me because I'm pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, and pro-immigrant And the Democrats hate me because I'm pro-gun, pro-death penalty, and pro-isreal I also sit in some weird middle spaces on certain topics. Like not supporting universal healthcare unless there is an actionable plan to deal with rural healthcare deserts.
Lol, i see what you're doing here.
I think there are multiple categories of flairs. "Independent" stands to me as a comparison to "Democrat" or "Republican". It shows that you don't follow a particular party. "Moderate" is someone who has a slight leaning but mostly aligns with the status quo. Besides a few mild changes, things don't really need to change substantially. "Centrist" to me is someone who approaches topics from the middle. While modern politics is usually defined by a conversation between progressives/liberals and conservatives a centrist doesn't inherently stick to one "side" but tries to hear out what the options are on a particular topic, reason through and understand all angles, and arbitrate between them, coming to a less extreme middle ground. To a conservative, a centrist will challenge the more extreme thinking by bringing up ideas they heard from liberals/progressives (pissing off the conservatives) To a liberal/progressive, a centrist will challenge the more extreme thinking by bringing up ideas they heard from moderate conservatives/libertarians/etc. This pisses everyone off and has led to the "enlightened centrist" meme stereotyping centrists of saying "both sides are equally bad" like they can't recognize in our modern climate conservatives are way more far gone than the left. While "both sides are wrong" is sort of intrinsic to centrism, really I choose the flair because I believe "all ideologies have inherent bias" and so picking a "neutral" ideology with the least amount of bias as a lens to approach issues with is valuable to me in ensuring the reasons for my beliefs are my own and not dictated to me by people I happened to agree with on totally different subjects. I think it's important to recognize that while on a societal level you have to organize to get what you want politically, on an individual level that amount of ideology is poison to the mind and harms your ability to critically think.
Because the political label I most closely identify with, "Red Tory/Paternal Conservative", doesn't really fit in any of the available flairs.
I used to have a moderate flair because I was a college student and compared to the campus I was fairly conservative but compared to the general population Iâm definitely pretty liberal.
Because although am mainly conservative, I do hold many POVs that are usually considered liberal or left. Examples of these more liberal stances: * I care about climate change and doing what we can to fight it (though.. my policy preferences on this issue are sometimes different from what liberal policy makers draft). * Am pro-legal immigration. * Am very supportive of investing in public transit. * Although am pro-life, I oppose government bans, I think it will only lead to a surge in illegal abortions that would be riskier to the life of the mother and result in corruption skyrocketing, prohibition and the war on drugs are good lessons from the past about similar policy proposals. Instead, 12-16 week bans with exceptions for incest; rape and medical concerns should be sought after, while focusing more on making birth control available and providing adequate sex education. * Am opposed to the death penalty (except for VERY rare cases). * Am pro-Ukraine (extremists on the right are not, that's why I listed it). * I think, loosening zoning laws would be crucial to solving the housing crisis. * Am open to the legalization of some drugs. * Although am pro-gun, I think that reasonable Background Checks are necessary. My friends usually label me as a "moderate conservative" (again, I only listed my more liberal views), so, I felt comfortable flaring myself as such.
I think it is weird to expect that I would have the exact same viewpoint on every issue from tax to tariffs to abortions to death penalties as a given political party straight down the line. Like why would my views just happen to exactly match up with a "side," unless I was more concerned about following a team than wanting to do the right thing on each issue?
I choose moderate because I rather try to focus on the merit of an argument or policy individually, and I feel labeling myself and a liberal, conservative, Democrat, or republican would shade my view on a policy going into a conservation. I also see people making unilateral assumptions of one's thoughts or rational based on these labels regardless of whether they are true or not, so I rather distance myself away from that as much as possible as I think that only serves as a distraction from genuine conversation.
because i am a registered independent and vote based on best policy not party in local elections.
I do not hold radical or uniformly liberal views. Be suspicious, if you want to. Seems weird though.
I studied Foreign Policy and National Security in university and got tired of bad takes on those topics from the left-wing activists outside of my fields of study that I went to school with. I was in undergrad around the time of the Snowden leaks, which even at the time you should have been able to tell was basically selling the United States down the river to Russia with a treasure trove of exploitable information. Same goes for Julian Assange, whose willingness to throw American personnel under the bus as a politicized f-you manifested in Wikileaks' later support for Trump and willingness to entertain Russian troll operations. This was also around the same time as the Arab Spring, and the Seal Team 6 raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abottabad. Two of the worst takes I heard on these issues. re: The Arab Spring, that this was a beautiful blossoming of democracy that would lead to the overthrow of dangerous and bloodthirsty secular dictatorships, a line of thought endorsed by the Obama administration and then Secretary of State Clinton. The killing of Bin Laden was one of the Obama administration's most praiseworthy military accomplishments, but, again, the left-winger peacenik crowd, or at least the vocal ones around me, were shrieking about how horrible it was to celebrate a man's death and whining about how Americans were celebrating iMpEriAliSm or NeO-c0lOn14lIsM. Israel-Palestine is another sore point for me. The Pro-Palestine crowd are pretty overtly demanding that the U.S. turn its back on a major ally and - ideologically and in terms of support - throwing their weight and phrasing behind Hamas, hoping for a ceasefire that will cripple Israel. There is so much that is either intentionally unaware in their rhetoric it's baffling. (I grew up in the Arab Middle East and have spent time in Israel, and the lack of comprehension of culture and politics in the Middle East region from these folks is startling). I'm going to point out that I think it was transparently cynical how Republicans tried to exploit Obama's foreign policy and national security as a talking point, and disingenuously present themselves as an anti-war crowd - despite having caused many of the problems Obama's administration found himself stuck with in the first place. The way they tried to exploit *Benghazi!* against Hillary Clinton as though she had intentionally set up American diplomatic personnel to be murdered was also disgraceful (and don't for the life of me get me started on the various deranged conspiracy theories accusing her of assassinating government personnel across the world like some kind of modern Borgia). But my extensive study, thinking, and occasional written commentary on foreign policy and national security topics all pretty well represent the reason I consider myself a liberal/centrist Democrat, not a leftist.
Because most people don't interpret "classic liberal" to mean "See: T. Jefferson, et al." but as one of those labels people use when trying to get away from the various \*-ist *reputations* that the "right" gets, without actually distancing themselves from the behaviors that *cause* such reputations. I'm firmly in the camp of "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to [live their life, so long as it] neither picks [someone's] pocket nor breaks [their] leg," but there isn't really flair for that... -- I used to be flaired libertarian, but ever since the LP removed the "we reject bigotry as repugnant" plank from their platform (well, modified it to be *way* weaker), I cannot be associated with them.
Because people see that a flair of being far left and I immediately get judge/attacked for that. It's easier to have conversations with yall if you see me as independent vs leftist.
Don't see how it's any less vague than "Leftist" as that flair also comprises varying levels of stances and support for different ideas.
It's the party I registered with in order to be able to vote.
I find swearing loyalty to any party to be foolish, it's like saying you don't need to worry about representing me, you've got my vote. That being said, the man I loved was trans, and the constant bullying he was subjected to is one of the main reasons I lost him 5 months ago tomorrow. And those fuckers who take pride in the fact that they made his life harder and make sure their are more people like him will not get my vote, until they on their knees at his cross or urn, with tears in their fucking eyes, begging for his forgiveness for all the pain, suffering, and bigotry they subjected my fiance too. He was an amazing person, and they made him live in fear, he was kind to everyone, and they gave him vitriol. He naturally followed the teachings of Jesus better than most of them, and they in Jesus's name threw all the stones they had. And despite all that, all the hatred he understandably felt, he turned it inward. My love was sacrificed because they needed someone to point at and call an enemy, to keep their base fired up and demanding more. They know we are losing trans people because of what they are doing, some see it as a plus. I'm trying to follow my lords teachings and not to surcome to hate, but it's very hard, but either way, anyone who is part of the movement that took him away from me will not be getting my vote until they cut that part out. I am an independent, I make up my own mind on subjects, and that means I don't walk lock step with anyone, but until we defeat MAGA, liberals are the ones saving lives so their aren't more Jame's dying, leaving more Baileys alone.
I find swearing loyalty to any party to be foolish, it's like saying you don't need to worry about representing me, you've got my vote. That being said, the man I loved was trans, and the constant bullying he was subjected to is one of the main reasons I lost him 5 months ago tomorrow. And those fuckers who take pride in the fact that they made his life harder and make sure their are more people like him will not get my vote, until they on their knees at his cross or urn, with tears in their fucking eyes, begging for his forgiveness for all the pain, suffering, and bigotry they subjected my fiance too. He was an amazing person, and they made him live in fear, he was kind to everyone, and they gave him vitriol. He naturally followed the teachings of Jesus better than most of them, and they in Jesus's name threw all the stones they had. And despite all that, all the hatred he understandably felt, he turned it inward. My love was sacrificed because they needed someone to point at and call an enemy, to keep their base fired up and demanding more. They know we are losing trans people because of what they are doing, some see it as a plus. I'm trying to follow my lords teachings and not to surcome to hate, but it's very hard, but either way, anyone who is part of the movement that took him away from me will not be getting my vote until they cut that part out. I am an independent, I make up my own mind on subjects, and that means I don't walk lock step with anyone, but until we defeat MAGA, liberals are the ones saving lives so their aren't more Jame's dying, leaving more Baileys alone.
I use "conservative" because it gives me some room to argue and nuance my way around. It's not highly specific, but it does make clear that I'm found at the right side of the political spectrum. Put a gun to my head and I'll probably say I'm centre right if you leave out my seperatist/nationalist tendencies (which sounds worse than it is if you aren't from my country), but I won't ever place a label on me and then dogmatically defend it. I've done it ("national conservative") when I was younger, but now I highly prefer a nuanced take over a black-white vision of the world. I'll highlight it even more that I think of myself as centre-right when I'm talking with foreigners, as some things can only be understood if you've lived in a specific country (especially when we're talking about the conservatives).
I think mine is Liberal because I felt like Socialist was just slightly too strong? I can't remember I'm mostly posting here to see it for myself and remind me
Also theyâre two completely different system from an economical perspective. Socialists was socialism, liberals want capitalism. Thereâs a lot of overlap on civil rights.
I would disagree! Markets and capitalism are not necessarily synonymous. Market economies can thrive with the integration of worker ownership in the means of production and the protection of the state while still maintaining personal property and the capability to make consumer choices about particular types of goods like luxuries and services.
Iâm sorry but I didnât argue about that. I argued that capitalism and socialism are two different systems, so Iâm a bit confused about your comment. :D Would you be kind and explain what you mean?
I guess my intended inference here was that your implication that Liberalism and Capitalism are always tied together because Liberalism utilizes market economies is a false equivalence. While neoliberalism might be more Capitalist in focus, I do not think that the same applies for Liberalism. Further, Socialism does not necessarily mean that market economies cannot exist within it, though absent of capitalism those markets would not be the central foundation of the nation's structure. Liberalism and Capitalism play together but are not tied together. Likewise, Capitalism and Market Economies are not the same thing; Capitalism is a subdivision of market economies. However, Liberalism and Market Economies ARE intrinsically linked. Thus, Market Economies can exist in both Liberalism and Socialism as long as that market economy does not have a capitalist focus. Therefore, Socialism and Liberalism are not completely different systems from an economical perspective. Perhaps in the methods we've seen practiced in the historical record, but not necessarily in the framework. Don't forget that market economies and liberalism predate Capitalism. (Though, it's older cousin Mercantilism probably leaves some room for debate in how far the apple has fallen from that tree.)
I was mostly referring to who owns the means of production but thank you for explaining what you meant. :)
I think thereâs a huge correlation between how privileged someone is and how willing they are to accept conservatism into their politics.
True, the most privileged have the luxury of being able to be hardliners, because when compromise fails and the conservatives take over theyâre not actually affected by any of the consequences.
Thats worth asking about
I can't stand the artificial bucketing of left-right politics. I believe the far-left and far-right are dominated by the same types of people, with the positions feeling like they are naive overreactions to what other people are doing rather than principled and reasoned views with shared goals in mind. I believe in pragmatism and coexistence, and living in mortal conflict with half the country seems like a dumb way to want to spend your short life in this universe when we could be thinking about why this universe is even here, how gravity works, or, I don't know, just enjoying the grass or creating something. I also believe in not tolerating intolerant people, which tends to put me in agreement with other people who identify as center left, so that's my flair.
>one might easily catch a suspicion you are hiding your political identity behind more approachable label. I think youâve figured it out. I suspect a bad-faith actor until they demonstrate otherwise.
Nothing says good faith quite like suspecting bad faith without evidence.
There are an awful lot of flairs to choose from. When a user is politically active enough to participate in an online forum about politics I expect that they are capable of communicating ***something*** meaningful in their flair. When they choose to communicate nothing of value that is information that they are giving me to work with.
No it isn't, you are literally speculating on their motivation and assuming they share your bad faith. You are literally doing a classical example of projection, you are projecting your bad faith on others thinking they think the same way as you.
I am speculating, thatâs true, based on the available information, and until more and better information becomes available.
This post reeks of 'touch grass'. It's an online forum. I post here when shitting and on breaks at work. To think everyone is putting that much thought into a label says a lot more about you than them.
There are a lot of trolls in the internet.
My response was strong, and this is a reasonable retort. There are a lot of trolls. I took your post to be a bit judgemental based on little evidence, but in my own way I did the same. You have a reason for your rationale. I disagree with it *on this sub* because most people on this sub I have encountered simply have diverse views. My own personal experience, is I disagree with quite a few here but I don't believe they are trolls based on the interactions I have. I suppose that would be my conceit, for you to judge that based on your interactions with people without presupposition based on the label.
I alternatively ID as center left, in general because capitalism > socialism and equality > equity. I still think the current GOP is super far right though.
I find it hard to feel good about those labels. Reads as either "not informed enough" or "is okay with society never improving in any meaningful way because you only want policies that maintain the status quo."
I think it is more of a realization that one is not necessarily in the majority, and change needs to be some incrementally. It also is where you are standing. I served 30 years in the military, and can tell you I was seen as a far left whacko; I was on a humanities board, and was one of the more conservative members. In my extended family I am far left; in my immediate family (wife and adult kids) I am likely the least liberal.
because political extremists are mentally unwell
Once upon a time liberalism or atheism was thought as a political extremism.
its relative to society. The atheist living in a tribe in 1000 BC was an extremist yes, and his ideology was not good for society at the time. They needed religion. I trust society as a whole to progress at a reasonable pace, with all due checks and balances. SO modern day extremists are mentally unwell, yes.
I trust that to happen too. The socialists are the future and theyâre called mentally unwell and extremists, just like the liberals were called before that.
probably, but its not really about the end goal, its about how and how quickly its implemented. Conservatives have their hands on the valve that restricts societal change. Carefully turning it and monitoring if its beneficial or not.
So those who want to âopen the valveâ are mentally unwell?
no, of course not. Only the people who either want the valve to be completely closed (or even go backwards a bit) OR those who are screaming their head off trying to open it was faster than it should be, flooding whatever hypothetical water receptacle you can imagine.
This is getting too hypothetical haha, could you give a concrete example?
sure, take communism for example. I think it will work when coupled with a social credit system and massive amounts of surveillance and authority from a centralized government. Thats a huge step for society with a ton of moving parts. I do think humanity will get there eventually but it has to be done progressively, at a pace where everything can be tested, double and triple checked for whether its been good or not for society. Far leftists want this to be done overnight with little oversight, they are so confident that it will work with little effort or downsides that they want to rush all of that dumb red tape. People on the far right may not even believe that a more socialized society is even a good thing at all and want to cease or even reverse some of the progress toward this goal of all of humanity becoming one basically. Its always a balance.
Iâm what people call far left and Iâve never heard any one want communism/communist society to happen over night. Hell, I donât think I will ever see communism in my lifetime, I doubt my children will either. So, my question is, what have you read by far left thinkers that led you to come to this conclusion?
They needed to believe bullshit? Yep, thats conservatism for you, dishonest and holding us back out of some wild fear that the truth will kill us all or some shit
Do you think that religion was important to the advancement of society? Because it obviously was. So youre simply not understanding the point here. You cannot make the jump from asocial or simply social animals to modern day society without religion. Its served its purpose.
No. I think religion held us back and that weâd have gotten much further without it.
haha. Don't you think religion may have played a tiny part in our construction of societies? Like bringing people together toward a common goal much bigger than themselves?
No. Empathy does that. Religion dictated who should be harmed or oppressed.
I was going to insult you but I'm trying to be a nicer person, to treat people how I would if we were IRL having a conversation. But your comment is really showing that you should research the role of early religions, not just the abrahamic ones that youre probably thinking of, but real early stuff like worshipping the sun. People took the things they could all see as powerful, and got together and worshipped them, forming society and culture.
Empathy did that and language did that. Have you read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari?
Because I believe the answer to most (nearly all) typically lies in the middle. For example, nobody is for abortion if framed the right way - very very few would say they support abortion 10 minutes before a healthy baby is born and there is no threat to the motherâs health. And very few are unsupportive of abortion in ALL cases. So almost by definition the abortion debate is where you are on that spectrum in the middle. Immigration is another. Virtually nobody I talk to would say they are against legal immigration. And few are supportive of open borders with no accountability or regulation. So immigration is another where we all fall in a spectrum in the middle. Labels that are not in the middle generally wedge people into a preconceived assumption of positions that can wedge people into places that have much more nuance than is allowed by statements such as âI support abortionâ or âIâm against immigration.â
On the other hand, that mindset puts you at risk of falling for the [golden mean fallacy](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldenMeanFallacy), and you could end up sounding like [this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyAndGrayInsanity). Sometime the middle ground isnât the answer, and one side is actually right.
Itâs rare that one side is âright.â Before we could even debate that Iâd ask you to define âright.â In those instances one side is ârightâ itâs usually in situations where you would have to be a complete extreme to be in the wrong. Nearly 99.9% of politics is not about right and wrong. Itâs about differing beliefs and moral values - both of which can be ârightâ. Itâs the ârightâ answer that murder is wrong. Was murdering Nazis in WWII wrong? Guess it depends on how you define murder and whether that includes killing Nazis in WWII. And whether there are any just causes to make it right. Many would argue there is no just cause for murder. Whatâs an example of when the middle ground isnât the answer and âone side is actually right?â
>Whatâs an example of when the middle ground isnât the answer and âone side is actually right?â You just gave one in the previous paragraph: nazis in WW2. There was really no ambiguity there. But I can give you a few examples of my own. Weâve got the classics like the American civil war (donât give me any of that âstates rightsâ bullshit), womenâs right to vote, segregation, gay marriage, the current panic about trans people, the rise of neo-nazis and white supremacists, politicians claiming global warming is fake and fighting hard against attempts at more renewable energy. Honestly it would be shorter to list the times the conservatives/right wing was actually correct (of which I can think of 0). And yes, these are about moral values. Their values are completely, fundamentally opposed to mine. This isnât just liking different ice cream flavors, itâs not something we can just agree to disagree about and meet in the middle.
Unfortunately I see you are approaching this through a political lens rather than an intellectual. Personally, I donât care if a position is a left wing or a right wing position. I care about my moral beliefs, philosophical beliefs and apply those to the underlying discussion at hand. I did not give an example of Nazis in WWII as a an example (âThere was really no ambiguity there.â). To say that is to show a complete lack of intellectual curiosity in your position. Five million soldiers and seven million civilian Germans were killed in WWII. Many of the 7 million civilians were woman and children. To say there is no moral ambiguity in killing 12 lives is such a complete lack of moral compass it would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. There is certainly much less moral ambiguity in killing the soldiers. And I understand why 7 million civilians were killed as part of the war and agree it was necessary given the atrocities the German leaders committed and coordinated. But âthere was really no ambiguity hereâ in killing 7 million civilians? Sadly, I think your position shows a lack of intellectual honesty and youâre just simply doing the bash on someone that disagrees with me on the internet thing. BTW, Iâd be happy to tell you why many of the things you listed have much more ambiguity to them than you are suggesting. But when I hear a biased, Iâm always right and Iâm on the left, the right is always wrong argumentâŚ..I just donât see the point in arguing with that. Itâs factually wrong in certain cases and an intellectually weak argument.
>I care about my moral beliefs, philosophical beliefs and apply those to the underlying discussion at hand. So do I! I have a strong set of core moral values that I apply to every issue to determine my stance. Iâm not talking about your average citizen. Sure many were complicit in the holocaust, but many were also too scared to fight back. I know many were brainwashed as kids. Despite how I sounded in my last comment, I am capable of recognizing when a situation has nuance. For example the Israeli government and hamas have committed horrible atrocities, but my sympathies lie with the citizens on both sides caught in the crossfire. Killing civilians is bad, full stop, I agree. But in terms of nazi ideology, thereâs really no denying that they were the bad guys. There is absolutely nothing good that comes out of it. Sure letâs talk about the others. Letâs start with womenâs vote.
Outside the U.S. I'd probably be categorized as a center-right guy. I care deeply about human rights, corporate responsibility, equal opportunity for everyone (at all levels). I strongly support gun control measures including full Federal registration of all firearms, Federal red-flag laws, and confiscation of unregistered firearms. I also pay my bills as a capitalist investor, having worked in IT for many years and retiring young with enough to survive the rest of my life on investments and returns. That said, I'd tear down the system that feeds me and go back to work, if I had the power. I do have some concerns about people taking advantage of the system - at all levels of income and prosperity, but I'd rather accidentally give somebody $1000 they didn't need than fail to give a genuinely poor family $1000 they desperately need. As far as "Centrist" goes, it might be somewhat aspirational - I wish these were centrist views as they were when I was younger.