Re: Understanding The Government Shutdown
On Liberal/conservative, well I'm not sure how it is in America, but in Britain both parties are far! from actually representing those views, and especially the Labour party, who began! as an attempt to represent left wing principles are now more right than the conservatives, (it was labour who privatised half of Britain's services and we all know about our last Labour prime minister's spending on wars).
Myself , I don't actually feel the left/right divide even applies anymore.
Also, bare in mind where a person stands on centralisation vs free markit is nothing to do with stance on things like government interference, the death penalty, homosexuality and various other matters. I'm definitely left wing, but I'm also a libertarian, indeed it always shocks me how many people (particularly Americans I might say), happen to believe that if your a comunist you must! automatically want a totalitarian system. That was! what Stalen believed but n ot all lefties agree with Stalen, indeed not all Lefties want a completely centralised system anyway, just more government control of utterly ridiculous prophiteering and for the government to actually do it's job by providing services for people.
Then again, modern politics has got so overwhelmed by huge corporations out for their own prophit and nothing else, that you can't really have! any principles aside from those on matters of centralisation or corporate control.
getting away from production or corporate control, In it's social sense, Liberal/conservative seems to mean even less, since it often dictates a person's stand on a number of wildly different issues. For example, John Stewart Mill, founder of modern liberalism and author of "on liberty" was actually in favour of the death penalty because he believed it was a kinder and more efficient way to deal with criminals than removing their liberty perminantly, (and given the state of British Prisons in the mid 19th century it's pretty easy to see why he thought as much).
I've also read a peace by Baroness Warnock, a Conservative peer no less, in favour of abortion.
It seems however unless someone is a rabid anti everything nihilistic liberal lunatic, or a completely up tight religious nut case, trying to actually polarise people's views into specific camps just seems damnably difficult, ---- and that's even before! we get into party politics with all the wheeling and dealing and other shady practices that go on.
I have noticed a lot of humans have a tendency, which seems dare I say it especially prevailent in the states, (although there is plenty of it over here too), to want to catagorise people into neetly quantifyable groups. MAsculine and feminin, liberal or conservative, middle, upper or lower class, jocks and nerds, gay or straight, etc etc. All with their own accompanying set of beliefs, clothing and appearence.
In truth though most people just don't seem to work like that, and treating people as if they do just seems to lead to problems. this indeed is why I describe myself as a liberal, in it's literal sense, as a libertarian, since I follow Mill's basic tennit which can be roughly summarised as do what the heck you like as long as you don't harm anyone else doing it!
URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=151427#p151427
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