Chimpy Chompy on 3/9/2012 at 12:42
Quote Posted by faetal
Also, plenty of right-wingers are anti-guvmint, so fall as easily into the bracket if you want to speculate.
Well they're under-represented, not absent.
Also the right is less likely go challenging two other major powers, ie big business and religion.
I think a breakdown by career would be quite interesting. I mean we sterotypically expect social workers and teachers to be guardian-readers. Business owners will be more conservative. Of course, does the career choice follow the ideology, or the other way around.
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 12:58
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
Well they're under-represented, not absent.
Another assumption to add to the list without supporting information just makes it a less sound idea.
Quote:
Also the right is less likely go challenging two other major powers, ie big business and religion.
And more likely to challenge science, environmentalism, other religions. You'd think they'd be all over the media, given that a major right-wing gripe is how liberal the media is. You'd think they'd be trying to re-dress the balance. It still stands that the neatest answer is that the facts which journalists come into contact with, regardless of their leanings, tend to support left-wing ideologies more. It's hardly surprising - it's entirely likely that the facts wouldn't be distributed in the exact same pattern as our political persuasions, so it stands to reason that one end of the spectrum would be more supported than another. It's a fallacy that balanced journalism means sticking 50:50 to political angles rather than the balance of information.
Quote:
I think a breakdown by career would be quite interesting. I mean we sterotypically expect social workers and teachers to be guardian-readers. Business owners will be more conservative. Of course, does the career choice follow the ideology, or the other way around.
Well, there have been studies (e.g. (
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100224132655.htm) - there are more. Couldn't be bothered to link to the paper, but I'm sure you can find it if you want it) which show that intelligence, atheism and being liberal have a significant correlation, so it could be that jobs requiring smarts may attract more left-leaning than right-leaning people.
Papy on 3/9/2012 at 15:27
Quote Posted by damdifyno
Who says there is no left?
Democrats are a center-right party. So who's the left?
DDL on 3/9/2012 at 15:34
:rolleyes:
So, does anyone want to have a go at explaining "greater than/less than" to Papy?
Shug on 3/9/2012 at 15:36
Quote Posted by damdifyno
Who says there is no left? It is common knowledge that it exists as well as the right. They both exist.
The left consists of liberals, and the right consists of conservatives. Moderates are somewhere in between. MAny people are there.
He's talking about the REAL left, which does exist outside of the USA. In both of our countries, the major political parties all show up in the top right quadrant of the political spectrum. They're right of centre, it's just a question of how far.
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 15:40
Oooooh, I do (presuming I understand you correctly)!
There is always a left and a right, it is just relative to where you are.
Shug - if you are talking about definitive Left/Right, then name me one government which sits in the other quadrant.
Chimpy Chompy on 3/9/2012 at 15:52
Quote Posted by faetal
Another assumption to add to the list without supporting information just makes it a less sound idea.
ok look, I'm speculating, not playing Win Internet Arguments. yeah sure you win, people who share your biases are smarter and more right. Enjoy the warm fuzzy glow.
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 16:22
Why the spikes? I was trying to put my point across as free from individual attack as possible. Also, precisely the point I was trying to make was that without recourse to supporting material, reaching for anything other than the simplest explanation tends to come across as reaching. I wasn't trying to "win" anything, just talking :/
Why take it personally?
CCCToad on 3/9/2012 at 18:27
Quote Posted by Shug
He's talking about the REAL left, which does exist outside of the USA. In both of our countries, the major political parties all show up in the top right quadrant of the political spectrum. They're right of centre, it's just a question of how far.
Its even more complicated because since the election of Obama, the Democratic party has changed positions and is now in favor of interventionist foreign policy, indefinite detentions and domestic government surveillance, worked against regulation of the financial sector, and (
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/09/03/an-all-clear-for-bushs-torturers/) seen to it that Bush's "torturers" were shielded from accountability
Here's a fairly good timeline of the more "neocon" aspects of US policy under Bush and Obama
(
http://www.propublica.org/special/obama-vs-bush-on-national-security-timeline)
The only one that is incorrect is about CIA "black sites". A leak revealed that at least one active CIA black site still exists in Africa
LarryG on 3/9/2012 at 19:02
Quote Posted by Papy
Democrats are a center-right party. So who's the left?
There is a major problem with the whole left-right paradigm. It assumes that everything issue has either a "left" or "right" leaning position. Some positions are neither, or both! The real problem is that people are more complex than that. People can support gun control, be against restricting voting rights, be for a progressive tax policy, be against state funded abortions but pro-woman's right to choose, be in favor of school prayer, but against a state sponsored religion, be in favor of seat belts but against helmet laws, and so on. Everyone is liberal on some issues, conservative on others, libertarian on still others. People are complex. Boiling things down to left vs. right is simpler, sure, but also horribly inaccurate. It distorts reality more than it illuminates.
