General Chat

Hmm, composers, hadn't paid attention to that either. I go out past Prokofiev and Bartok. Probably about where Fish Karma lies. ;)

Okay, I am stupid. I read through her posts and couldn't see that at all.

So she really is in the green quadrant, just not as far in as some of us. ;) And you too Fanny of course.

And Allan, a somewhat more respectable showing!

Nobody's admitting to being an authoritarian right-winger yet ...

Economic Left/Right -2.88

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -4.00

Just slightly below where Shonberg (sp) the Composer is sitting

Also almost where Australian Green Party is

Allan

The ruddy Edit button has gone AWOL.
But I was going to say I was not precise enough.
I have one foot in the each of the 6th and 7th squares from the left,so standing room is still there.

I qoute from AuntyS,s post.

Eight squares up from the bottom, seven squares in from the left hand side in the green quadrant . Slightly below the centre on the left.


Edit...
I was not quite exact,I have one foot in the each of the 6th and 7th squares from the left,so standing room is still available.

Okay, now i do just feel stupid. Did AuntyS say which box she was in that you Fanny have just joined her in? Or are we assuming "blue", i.e the Authoritarian Right, right up there with Maggie and Adolph??

Ha Ha AuntyS..
I have just squashed you in that square...

Now I ticked the make it legal box for the porn and no for the weed for the your own use box, My mum was in the civil service when she married do you know they didnt even have ladies loos in her buliding she used to go to John Lewis to pee and this was 1957 she too left when she married she thinks ts wonderful that my sister gets paid the same amount as my OH for the doing the same job, she was a trained nurse before that and went back part time when my sisters were babies Dad was a tool setter.

I have just been informed by PM that someone had done the quiz and is Gandhi.

Hmm. Would Gandhi have been quite that prideful?

;)

Oh look - case in point - sometimes you can get along just fine even with somebody whose values & views are obviously completely evil. ;)

Which box *are* you in? On the right of zero obviously -- but above or below zero on the other axis? Upper right, or lower right?

Did you look at the Aussie 2007 party graph?

http://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2007

Your Greens are very close to my New Democratic Party - slightly lefter than where the NDP is now (about where the NDP was in 2005 - hm, we've moved right?), equally libertarian for where the NDP is now (and the NDP is slightly more libertarian than we were in 2005).

And yup, your "Labor" is right up there in the right-wing / authoritarian quadrant with all other Australian parties except for Greens and Democrats. In fact the Aussie graph is almost identical to the UK one.

Barack Obama is in that blue quadrant too ... along with Sarah Palin and John McCain. At least my man Joe Biden is the least worst of the lot there. ;)

OK I'm at work and looking busy.

Where are the people who scored outside of the green box.

Come on, 'fess up. There just has to be someone out there who idealizes Kevin Rudd, Stephen Harper and Mr Brown. We can't all take to the forest, eat nuts and leaves, embrace our fellow humans and hug trees.

Where's the balance in all this political mumbo jumbo.

How many learned their political leanings at their mother's knee. Mum and Dad vote for Kermit and he is a good pollie so you probably need to vote for his party as well.

How did your political enthusiasm change once you grew up, married and started being swayed by spouse, friends etc.

I know mine certainly did. Brought up in a labour orientated family, and married someone from a country party (liberally connected) family. Then changed affiliation to liberals because the continuation of our food in the mouth and roof over the head, depended on liberal's support for our government department.

The question which prompted this thread was to do with "who does one vote for". The gulf between liberal and labour in Australia is now so narrow one could close the eyes, listen to a political argument and not know who was offering the argument.

So all of us in the green box have a whole lot more in common than it might appear at times.

I generally find it's useful and wise to establish at the outset the values that are shared, and then move on to discussing a particular issue.

Like --

Okay, we both agree that people should generally be 'free' to do what they want, with their bodies, in their homes, when no one else is harmed or interfered with.

Okay, we both agree that sometimes laws are needed to try to stop people from doing things that are really bad for them - because some people need protecting (and there are people who will try to make a profit by getting them to do things that harm themselves), and because it can be bad for society when people harm themselves.

So ... should drug possession be legal, or not??

Some drugs (marijuana but not heroin?) ... some people (adults but not children?) ... some places (homes but not cars?) ... only certain amounts (using but not selling?) ...?

Like that. ;)

Reasonable people of good will who have very closely shared values, even, can disagree on what should be done about many things, and the rightness and wrongness of many things.

Economic Left/Right: -5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.31

Been an extremely long day so will have to analyse what it means when I'm more awake. Just know that I'm near the middle of the green box.

Janey, I must admit I don't know much about the US or Canadian union history. I had sort of given up thinking about politics after being so disappointed with New Labour - I think I need to do some reading so the quiz site looks like a good start.

Then when the young people I know mention politics I can explain why it's still worth voting - I must know at least a dozen who have never bothered because "there's no point; they're all crooks".

Gotta go now; hope this thread keeps going.

Ah, okay, Teresa - I have to go back over them and click them again to reveal now that I've turned NoScript off for the page. Beats having to re-answer them.

29. Guessed wrong on that money one. ;)

Well I did say Muffy -- comparing 'scores' should give some insight into how and why some people will just never get along. ;)

When it comes to values, like on the up-down libertarian/authoritarian axis, it often isn't a matter of just disagreeing, it's more a matter of being truly appalled by the opposite end -- it's the values rather than the views, and it can be truly difficult to "discuss" something with someone whose values are completely different from one's own.

I can't imagine even wanting to be in the same room as someone who strongly agreed with "I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong" or "Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal" or "People with serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce" for instance -- and I'm sure the feeling would be mutual. ;)

Janey, there isn't one, you just count all the black answers...

Jen - you guys at least have experience of unions. Here in North America in the 50s, times were prosperous, completely different situation from the UK and Europe. It was all consume, consume, consume. Unions were standard issue here (and still are, far more than in the US), but not militant as in England. The real union organizing era in Canada was earlier, and even working class households in the 50s here had it pretty good.

Few people in North America have any idea how tough the post-war era was in the UK.

I think I must be the only potential Conservative voter on this site if this thread is anything to go by lol.

I love political theads on here.....when they're balanced and an exchange of view points like this one is... rather than belittling and condescending as I've seen some political debates here and elsewhere degenerate into.

VERY interesting thread Janey x

Well I'm screwed. Either Adblock or NoScript is preventing me from seeing the button for submitting my Ichonochasms answers! Got all 49 answered (I've done it before, don't remember any of the 'right' answers, just remember half of them aren't who you'd think) and can't do anything with them. Argh.


Hayley - mum was a secretary before marriage, got fired from government job when she married, worked for a lawyer until I came along; dad worked in a bakery, sold vacuum cleaners door to door, eventually was a travelling wholesale salesman, selling a brand-name product line to retail stores. So in the early 50s we were renters in a baddish part of town, then bought a tiny new house in a new development around 1960 where they stayed until the 80s, but that kept expenses down so my dad was able to spend his Christmas bonuses taking us to Florida to camp. ;)

So not proper blue-collar / trade-union working class, like some of our neighbours in the suburb where I grew up, but nowhere near like the kids I went to school with -- the sons of lawyers and daughters of doctors from the other side of town.

My mum's father was a printer and a union man who voted Tory all his life ... I think because his local MP was a Mason ... . But our Ontario Tories would have been in the green square themselves, probably. ;) My dad's father was ex-military and some sort of stock trader in trouble half the time, died when I was four. My dad's childhood was a tale of alcoholism and absence, and getting money and losing it, I think. Kinda lower than working class in some ways, even when there was money ...