What is your ideology?

j1smithy

Just looking at some of the threads in the top few pages of AH and there seems to be a running theme through out all the political/social ones. People hee seem to identify with the Left far more than the right. This strikes me as odd as the two main partys in the Dail are of the Centre/Centre Right. So I ask what is your ideology? How did you come to form it? And also do you think there is a liberal bias to AH?

L1011

Centre left with some individual extremely right wing policies

AlmightyCushion

Pretty much all politicians are feckless idiots, that's my ideology.

Captain-America

I'm left handed so I picked that one.

markok84

I sometimes use my left hand for a treat.


Edit..... wait what's this thread about?

Morlar

I thought it was 'right' or 'wrong'

I would probably be left on one or two issues. It is an arrogant thing to say (sue me) but I think experience tends to lean people away from the left and more to the right

Neamhshuntasach

left wing socialist communist jew

minidazzler

I have some things I am conservative about and some things I'm liberal about.

I don't fall into any particular group.

In fact very few Irish people do, Conservative and Liberal's, Left and Right. These black and white choices are very American.

In a country where we have several major Political parties it would be impossible to really characterise us.

PrivateEye

All very serious for After Hours, non?

Libertarian Socialist. Basically believe in pushing for direct democracy as opposed to people putting their faith in an unaccountable political class. I think turnout being as low as 32% in the U.K shows people think politicians (from the right to the left) are a useless shower and that they don't want to engage with them. I'd push for what I consider 'the revolution of everyday life' (great book!) whereby people take a great role in their own day to day lives and things are run on a democratic basis. Anarchist Catalonia in the 1930s is the perfect example.

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality"

As a younger lad, I was very much interested in left-republicanism and the idea of 'democratic socialism' but I've moved away from that I suppose. Connolly remains a personal hero though I'd suspect most Irish people would identify with the "centre left", in fact I even know people in Ógra FF who see themselves in that light.

seanybiker

Captain-America wrote: »

I'm left handed so I picked that one.

Me to. Must be twins

Senna

I swing both ways

OpenYourEyes

MYOB wrote: »

Centre left with some individual extremely right wing policies

This made me laugh, but on thinking about it it sums up my ideologies quite well too!

j1smithy

Morlar wrote: »

I thought it was 'right' or 'wrong'

I would probably be left on one or two issues. It is an arrogant thing to say (sue me) but I think experience tends to lean people away from the left and more to the right

I would have to agree, older people I know would generally be more conservative than myself. I thought this poll would be interesting as to how close the "AH Community" reflects the general population at large. I would have thought it would be a fairly broad and reflective sample of the attitudes of the population of Ireland where the split would be 60-40 to the right. However as I said earlier more left wing/liberal attitudes seem to be most popular than one would expect. Perhaps this can be explained by the age profile of contributors.. or maybe its just not cool to be openly to the right?

KnifeWRENCH

On social issues - left/liberal
On economic issues - centre/moderate

So I voted Centre-left

amacachi

I'd say centre-right, but to most people I'd seem fairly far to the right. Hitler - racism and killing as it were.

Morlar

j1smithy wrote: »

.. or maybe its just not cool to be openly to the right?

Cool schmool. Who cares ? Not sure age and experience are necessarily always inter-related.

There is always that cliche about how if you are not leftwing in your teens/20's you have no soul, but if you are still left wing in your 30's you have no brain.

I think the younger you are the more likely you are to think you know everything about everything and how to fix it when it is broke. The more life experience you have you tend to realise that things (politics in general) are not necessarily as simple as you once thought & feelgood answers are not always the best option. I suppose people on the left could make the counter argument that they just have not been beaten into cynicism by real life just yet

Anyone on the left or right who adheres to a strictly 'right' or 'left' ideology (without any degree of personal reflection) on any given issue are not really worth bothering about in my opinion.

Tyler MacDurden

The old Left-Right divide isn't really adequate, something like this

http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

is more helpful.

It incorporates social and economic factors and adds Authoritarian-Libertarian categories to the traditional Left-Right. The test only takes a few minutes to complete, definitely worth a look.

KnifeWRENCH

Oh yeah, I've done the political compass before.

My result

Morlar

Knife-WREEENCH wrote: »

Oh yeah, I've done the political compass before.

My result

I needed a multi monitor setup for mine. hehe.

minidazzler

Tyler MacDurden wrote: »

The old Left-Right divide isn't really adequate, something like this

http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

is more helpful.

It incorporates social and economic factors and adds Authoritarian-Libertarian categories to the traditional Left-Right. The test only takes a few minutes to complete, definitely worth a look.

According to that, I am Slightly right of Ghandi!

Which is strange considering I am sure he was anti Death penalty???

Tyler MacDurden

Knife-WREEENCH wrote: »

Oh yeah, I've done the political compass before.

My result

Pretty much on the same pixel as myself! So comrade, shall we draw up our founding charter then?

markok84

another gandhi here, my feet are fairly filthy though, and I don't wear socks so I think they may be contributing factors.

Gummy Panda

Pandalogy tbh

nitrogen

Take the world's smallest political quizz to find out.

Wibbs

I would be centre right economically. Even a bit more right than that. Socially I would be more centre left. I reckon that society and the weakest in that society need protection, but I think economically we need to earn the money to pay for that in the first place. Which is where much of socialism goes wrong IMHO.

Rented Mule

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.62&soc=-3.90

Somewhere between Ghandi and the Dalai Lama.

thelordofcheese

According to some, i'm a pinko-hippy-homoloving-liberal-do gooing-bleeding heart-politically correct-crusty-leftist-baby murdering troll.

I just think i'm awesome.

TPD

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-3.00&soc=-3.18

lucylu

I'm left-handed too.. the best people are

OldGoat

Morlar wrote: »

I thought it was 'right' or 'wrong'

I would probably be left on one or two issues. It is an arrogant thing to say (sue me) but I think experience tends to lean people away from the left and more to the right

When younger I was very left & liberal but now, post kids especially, I seem to have developed my fathers waggley finger of Rightousness.:(

tallaght01

I get a bit confused sometimes about how some views become "left" or "right".

Anyone close to me will tell you I'm obviously left wing, both socially and economically.

But I'm very much against abortion, which I'm not supposed to be, as a leftie. But I don't know why the protection of the fetus is supposed to be a right-wing. Like, I'm against smacking kids and I'm against the death penalty. To me, they're easier to reconcile with my anti-abortion views than a pro-life stance.

So, if I tell people people my views on abortion, they often think I'm a right-winger. When I tell them I'm against the idea of prison for people who aren't actively a danger to society, then both sides think I'm just a headcase.

Interestingly, I was pretty much right wing when I was younger. But I think working in health in deprived populations has made me see things in a much more realistic way. A lot of my friends have become much more left as we've gotten older, which is the opposite of what's supposed to happen.

Earthhorse

j1smithy wrote: »

People hee seem to identify with the Left far more than the right. This strikes me as odd as the two main partys in the Dail are of the Centre/Centre Right.

Voting is just too practical for them.

And I'm very anti that political compass thing. I wish people would stop posting it.

Smart Bug

Rented Mule wrote: »

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.62&soc=-3.90

Somewhere between Ghandi and the Dalai Lama.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-4.75&soc=-5.23

Near exact same...

netwhizkid

I am ultra conservative rightwing and am opposed to immigration and high taxes, I favour state ownership of essential industries and key national infrastructure. I hold personal liberty as vital and the preservation of Irish white culture as a very important issue.

I reject Multiculturalism and Political Correctness and am against Gay marriage but in favour of gay tolerance and taxation equality giving Gay couples the same tax breaks as Hetro-married. I favour increased Gun proliferation and social welfare decreases.

I favour Stem-Cell research as it may one day cure a disease I suffer from, and in favour keeping the status quo in relation to abortion. We are a christian nation and we must preserve our heritage and am 100% against Islam and its discrimination against women.

I favour the secularisation of our Public schools and privatisation of Christian schools with the introduction of education vouchers so that the state will pay a certain percentage of private education, allowing parents who wish to send their children to private Christian schools to do so without they being brainwashed by the liberal agenda and forced to integrate with dozens of children from different nationalities most who cannot speak English unlike the black hole of Calcutta that is the PC multicultural public school which spawns juvenile delinquents and dole drawing generations.

Irish citizenship should only be given to children of two Irish Citizens. All non-nationals can come under Permanent Resident Alien status but no passport. Only Irish & British to have a vote in our elections.

I am right wing and proud, I have rejected the socially liberal positions of the left and have woke up to their lies. I am also against the Lisbon Treaty but pro-Europe.

cornbb

j1smithy wrote: »

People hee seem to identify with the Left far more than the right.

You're 'avin a laarrf!

tallaght01

netwhizkid wrote: »

and am 100% against Islam and its discrimination against women.

There's another one that's interestingly "right wing". Many many cultures discriminate against women. Not just Islamic cultures. It's probably fair to say that gender inequality is one of the biggest issues facing global health, HIV in particular.

I'm really against this. A lot of my very left wing mates are disgusted when I tell them that Islam needs to cop on and start treating their women better. I think the defence of women should be a noble left wing notion.

I guess its how you approach it, though. Engaging cultures that discriminate against women is probably the right approach. Castigating them is the right wing approach, and is usually counter productive.

Smart Bug

netwhizkid wrote: »

I am ultra conservative rightwing and am opposed to immigration...

bloody genius.

Smart Bug

tallaght01 wrote: »

There's another one...

I took it netwhizkid was being sarcastic, considering his entire post is a studied exercise in self-contradiction, no?

Earthhorse

Smart Bug wrote: »

bloody genius.

Smart Bug wrote: »

I took it netwhizkid was being sarcastic, considering his entire post is a studied exercise in self-contradiction, no?

I reger to be the one to tell you that, no, he is not. Though this should really only enchance your enjoyment of his post.

tallaght01

Smart Bug wrote: »

I took it netwhizkid was being sarcastic, considering his entire post is a studied exercise in self-contradiction, no?

I only glanced at it, tbh. But the point stands. Right wingers tend to go on about the practices of Islam a lot. But us lefties tend to be scared to say anything about it, and of the discrimination against women by huge swathes of society in a lot of countries.

My name is URL

Probably Center-Left

I hate the Americanisation of political belief systems though.

My ideology is that any party will do as long as they look after the people that they rule over

phantom_lord

damn lefties.

Earthhorse

Everyone should read George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" if only to confirm what they already know; that the terms left and right are completely meaningless.

From the essay:

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

netwhizkid

Smart Bug wrote: »

I took it netwhizkid was being sarcastic, considering his entire post is a studied exercise in self-contradiction, no?

I was waiting for someone to ask me was I Nick Griffin?

Dragan

netwhizkid wrote: »

We are a christian nation and we must preserve our heritage and am 100% against Islam and its discrimination against women.

Labraid,Luchta and a host of other old Irish Deities might disagree with you there.

Our current Christian status was something that came far later.

Black Swan

j1smithy wrote: »

People hee seem to identify with the Left far more than the right.

I don't like dichotomies (e.g., left-right), in that they are oversimplistic distortions of complex human behaviours, and Nature in general; therefore, I cannot take your poll.

Ideology? If I have one, it's eclectic in that I cherry pick from this and that, given the context, not identifying with any in particular. I do tend to lean at times in the direction of post-modern Derridean deconstruction, but that really is a method and not an ideology per se.

Dragan

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

I don't like dichotomies (e.g., left-right)

Yeah, i hate the fact that you always end up in cataogry with a load of ****.

You can't paint such pictures with broad strokes like that.

Fozzie Bear

I'm a leftie!
Would have always classed myself as centre or centre right. (Been classed as a right wing facist Nazi by one fellow poster on boards) But according to the test I'm almost on a par with Gandhi!

Dragan

Fozzie Bear wrote: »

But according to the test I'm almost on a par with Gandhi!

Gandhi was a racist.

Smart Bug

Dragan wrote: »

Fozzie Bear wrote: »

I'm a leftie!
Would have always classed myself as centre or centre right. (Been classed as a right wing facist Nazi by one fellow poster on boards) But according to the test I'm almost on a par with Gandhi!

Gandhi was a racist.

And also a fascist Nazi.

Earthhorse

Fozzie Bear wrote: »

But according to the test I'm almost on a par with Gandhi!

You can't truly aspire to be like Gandhi unless you quote him in your sig.