General Chat

Nice one, Janey.

I am in the green zone with -5.5 & -5.95, like others close to UK Lab in 72.

I picked the name Jen Red as a lefty nod anyway.

I seem to have grown up with that attitude; possibly because my mum was a teacher so I heard about the NUT and what it meant, and my dad was briefly a shop steward "because someone has to talk t'gaffers or they'll treat us as bad as they can".

And my ancestor was one of the first ever working class British MPs (not a very notable one but still!).

And I hung out with a lot of folky hippy types in my youth. :-)

Very good point Sheila LOL

I didn't get that one right, can't remember who actually said it. It wasnt' Thatcher LOL

Janey I got that one right ;)

Very wise Janey...you see I know wondering what lower middle/upper working class is? As I am sure I am upper to highest of them all .....working or snob lol , I dont want to think of my past years where I once was, its a very grey area or my maybe it was my mums potical rantings,snarling at the TV and loathing for Maggie that I found depressing, or it could be the fact I was stepping in to the big real world realised I wasnt Lucy Ewingout of Dallas and this wasnt going to be as easy as I thought....ohhhh well....off to help Itsmytelly lay the kitchen floor..

Teresa - perhaps if Mrs T had read some history, she might have realised that the poll tax wouldn't work (again!).

Economic Left/Right: -6.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.95

Somewhat to the left of the Dalai Lama and more libertarian than Mandela.

I can live with that.

Gwynne

So Teresa:

25. Who said The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did. ?
Margaret Thatcher
Milton Friedman
Ludwig von Mises
Friedrich Hayek


Hahaha. I'm still deciding which to guess. I know who they all are and despise them all equally ... just don't know which one was fixated on "quantity of money". ;)

eeny meeny ...

Can I make a small point here, referring to something Hayley said on the other thread, without dragging it up again.

Hayley you said I am looking to the past a lot, but you wanted to know which party I thought could take us forward in the future.

I thought about that today, and in my view, you can't think about the future without taking into account the experiences and lessons learned from the past, ensuring that which was done right, is done again, and the mistakes made are not repeated.

On neither-agree-nor-disagree -- I just have to look at it as: would I want to live in a society where porn was illegal? for instance. Actually, it would be fine with me. ;) But no, those are slippery slopes, and I don't. So I agree that it should be legal, I just don't really care enough to say "strongly".


There used to be other questions that have been dropped. One was about national service. I got all authoritarian there -- if I had lived during WWII, I would have supported conscription I think, and not apologized for it. As a general rule, other than in such extreme situations, no. So they may have found it wasn't giving a true measure.

There was also once a question about guns. That probably also skewed the results. A "libertarian" should think people who want guns should be able to have them, eh?

That's where the quiz falls down, in my estimation. There is actually a third dimension to things. The one where we think about the whole, the collective. How much of our personal liberty are we prepared to sacrifice (and take from someone else) for the benefit of others?

I'll sacrifice my liberty to own guns, to have a society where the public is safer and fewer women and children live in fear of violent/menacing partners and parents.

And I'll sacrifice my liberty to drive gas-guzzling cars and put my recyclables in the trash, to have a less polluted world for future generations, any time somebody wants to make laws like that.

Is that "authoritarian", or is it seeing the big picture?

Hmmmm just done the ichonoclasms....21 out of 49 correct. Not bad I suppose. LOLOL

Hayley - I didn't follow that chat all the way through - but I think you would only be wanting to vote "blue" if you decided you cared only about yourself and not about others who are still in the circumstances you once were. ;)

My family was lower-middle / upper-working class when I was a kid. University was paid by student grants and loans and part-time jobs, and even a couple of weeks on welfare when there were no summer jobs, not a trust fund. It paid off, and I don't need government money these days. I got it when I did need it, though. And I should contribute now.

Not everybody votes out of naked (and short-sighted) self-interest!

If I did, I'd vote for the party that offered me the lowest taxes, and promised to abolish welfare programs and subsidized housing, and institute school fees for public education, and privatize all public transit, and do away with public health ensurance, and cancel all funding for the opera and ballet -- since I don't use some of those services, and I can afford to pay for the ones I want.

But I know I wouldn't want to live in a society that did those things. I might not live long enough to see all the consequences, but even for myself there would be unpleasant ones soon enough if other people could not afford schools or medical care or housing.

Think about how our ancestors lived, and how they would envy us.

Of course, my gr-grmother's gr-grmother's brother's grandson, the Labour Lord Chancellor, was a "class traitor", to the Conservatives, so I come by it honestly. ;)

Oh strewth. I have just had a closer look at the iconochasms. I do not think It is a case of you feeling stupid because i doubt I could get one of those correct.

Then again we could always google the questions and gain 100%.

I think there is the typical pattern of the multiple choice philosophy. One correct, a couple close and a couple very wrong. If you use that gauge you should be able to guess some of the answers correctly.

Me I have to go get ready for work. Hopefully if I am really quick I can come back and play some more.

By the way where are the other two Canadian scribes?? Probably watching the Winter Olympics.

I'm just to the left on the Economic (-1.62) and -5.59 on the Social. Sounds about right, I've always felt 'centre' from a political standpoint. Like Rose, I would have answered 'neither agree nor disagree' on some of the questions, but perhaps that's just a cop out, lol!

Never ever would I class my self as a tree hugger....lol

Rambling Rose. I agree with the neutral option. I often found myself wavering between the lesser of the two evils.

Goes with the "can't make a decision" syndrome, don't it!!

Hey Janey. This is very unfair first thing in the morning. Not good to be woken up to discover one needs to discuss deep and meaningful philosophies on which even those who govern us can't agree.

I come out of it as a bit of a floating voter...how odd !!! LOL xx

Hmmm, Economic Left/Right: -3.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.26

In the same square as Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and The Dalai Lama :-))

Now I've always considered myself as a Green liberal....caught somewhere in the middle of everything....

I have no idea about my numbers....after posting my thread yesterday and was alarmed that I swaying towards blue does this mean I am turning into a greedy snob? Or a hard working greedy snob , or just someone who thinks she should be the one who enjoys the fruits of her labour....

This also came about today with a couple of young ens who felt it must of been great in the 1980's I said actually it was pretty depressing time if you was froma working class family such as I...I didnt like Thatcher then so I am not going to start to idealise her now 27 years later,

Heh.

I thought the Ichonochasms was just there to make me feel stupid. ;)