Ever since I started on the internet (Ages and Ages ago. Eons. Dinosaurs are new to me. Ect.) I’ve had this not so sneaky idea that I’m one of the few conservative leaning people around. I mean, I’m not libertarian, or Democratic. I’m not Republican either. I don’t like GW’s ideas about dropping the case against Microsoft, among other things.
Am I the only one?
sometimes i lean to the left, about 15 degrees. just to get a better view.
to the right when someones head is in the way on the left.
but usually i’m just right there in the center where i belong.
i like the idea of dropping the case against MS myself, i think it’s ridiculous, why not just do the same to Bell again then, and Time Warner, and ConEdison…
I don’t particularly have any political favorites, i think of politics as big boys still playing games in the playground called washington.
if i like it i like it, if i don’t i don’t. i’ve been on both sides before. I tend to favor strenghthening our Armed Forces, yet modifying them to catch up to modern times. I want lower taxes like everyone else, but i want HUGE improvements in education. i couldn’t care any less about trade relations with other countries except for trading purposes only, i don’t like the idea of them being used as a weapon in a debate over other issues. Human rights is incredibly important to me, especially as a Falun Dafa practitioner, i believe China needs to let go of it’s more pronounced communist ideals, but i don’t believe the US can interfere by stopping trade, its a seperate issue. That’s like saying, hey, you don’t want to play with me? I’ll take all your toys away, and you have to play alone now, but then you still go and beat up other kids and play with them.
silly games.
so i have a bit of all of it in me i suppose.
which way do you lean?
Heavy lean to the right on most issues. I don’t wear it on my sleeve, even on these boards. But anyone who’s been paying attention could predict where I would come down on just about any given issue.
Hmmm…
Guess I’d call myself one of those “New Democrats.” I am left-leaning on most issues, but even I am appalled by the some of the excesses of the ultra-liberal wing of the party. Still, I can live with liberal wing-nuts better than I can stomach the far-right-wingers in the Republican Party. In most cases, we need to steer the middle course, between the two extremes.
I was worried. 
I read all things liberal and wonder “Dang, am I that far off?”. I prefer a logical, practical middle course. I prefer that the US not hand over the government to the Corporations like it does now, that indivduals have some rights to music (Think metallica owns that music? not under current copyright law!). That I should be able to say M$ bites. Argh…
This could get long.
any sample of people on the straightdope is not going to be representative of the internet or society. Also labels like conservative or liberal are largely meaningless in this time of “compassionate conservatives” or “third way clintonite liberals.” How about a list of current issues and we could respond to those.
affirmative action?
nafta/gatt?
social security?
abortion?
gun control?
national health insurance?
environmental issues?
etc…
michael
OK, labdude, I’ll bite:
affirmative action? Nay. It was necessary once, but I think we’re beyond that point.
nafta/gatt? Yea.
social security? Save it the way it is. Private investment accounts sound like a good idea when the market is going up, but it doesn’t always go up. What happens to people who invest poorly? Do we just let them starve in the streets?
abortion? Individual call.
gun control? Not a big fan. Some regulations OK, but when you cross the line from regulation to restriction, or to outright ban, I can’t go along with you.
national health insurance? Yea. Can’t be worse than the managed care most folks already have, plus with a national system, everyone would be covered. It’ll never happen because of the lobbying bucks spent by the insurance industry and by doctors’ groups to prevent it.
environmental issues? Save the environment. Stop logging the national forests. Stop spending my tax dollars to build logging roads, which essentially susidizes the lumber and pulpwood industries. Strengthen and enforce clean air and clean water regulations. We only get one planet, and we had better take care of it.
Wow, a lot of right-wingers. I am a proud, card-carrying, bleeding heart liberal, aka a Democrat, and will be till the day I die. Actually, if I believed it could work I would be a Socialist. But that’s a whole other story.
affirmative action? No. I believe that the government should strive for equality, but not this far. I don’t mind someone getting a hunk of my paycheck because I know that it is going somewhere (I mean welfare of course) and because for every thirty people who abuse the system, there is one who truly needs it. However, giving someone the benefit of the doubt before they actually prove themselves worthy just smacks of injustice. I mean, I will give away part of my paycheck gladly, but I would be pissed if I didn’t even get an opportunity to recieve one because the job I am applying for needs one more Asian-American to fulfill its quota.
nafta/gatt? I’m pulling a Shrub here: I don’t know enough about the issue. But then, I’m not running for office.
social security? Of course.
abortion? It’s a woman’s right to choice. Also I recently read an interesting article about the basis for the RvsW decision: the Const. explicitly refers to “born” (ie natural-born) citizens as having rights. Just a thought.
gun control? I don’t think we should repeal the right to bear arms, but we need more control. Trigger locks, safety locks, background checks. How many children have to die before this becomes reality? I know that right-wingers say we need to chnage family values, but that will, realitically, not happen. Parents aren’t going to start loving their children and being attentive because the president asks them to. Parenting and the emotions involved is not tangible; guns are. Fix what can be fixed. Yes, society is on a downward spiral, but telling people to be better parents will not make a substantial difference.
national health insurance? It works for England! Seriously, I don’t think it will ever happen but it should. It would not be significantly different from HMOs/PPHs and everyone will be covered. Sounds good to me.
environmental issues? Makes sense to me - what spoke said.
Well, I’m off to the right a bit. IRL, I wear it on my sleeve, but I haven’t really disscussed it much here.
As for the issues…
affirmative action? I beleive like spoke, there was a time and a place, but that is not here or now.
nafta/gatt? I’m not informed enough to make a decision one way or another.
social security? I’m completely against it. People have a right to decide for themselves what to do with their own money. It is not Uncle Sam’s place to say.
Spoke said:
Well, I hate to sound like the steriotypical greedy republican, but these people should understand the pros and cons of the situation before making investments
abortion? I know, I know. It’s a woman’s body. But she knew having a child could result from her behavior. What about the child’s body, which is about to be fataly injured? As for rape victims and mothers who’s lives are in danger, they are a special scenario.
gun control? I’m not against it, but I don’t think trigger locks or registering guns is going to have the effect the anti-gun lobby is hoping for. If people want guns, they’ll get guns. If a kid wants to steal his grandpa’s gun to go on a rampage, don’t think a trigger lock is going to stop him. It might help in some instances, but if a person has a drastic enough mentality, they will find a way to get what they want.
national health insurance? Well, managed care is so messed up already, it might work better. Then again, it could just be the government trying to get involved in something it shouldn’t be involved in. I could go either way.
environmental issues? Sure, save the enviroment. Just don’t take money from the programs which are truly in need.
Very interesting topic, but more suited to the Great Debates forum. Congradulations, you’ve been promoted!
-slythe
I’ll bite too, although I’m guessing most people already know how I sit on these things 
affirmative action? We white men can start whining about equality once we actually are disadvantaged, as opposed to making up 95% of the positions of power.
nafta/gatt? NAFTA (and its demon offspring, FTAA) are not free trade agreements; they’re undemocratic decisions that corporations are to enjoy rights superior to those of nation-states and therefore to those of the results of the democratic process. If I were richer, I’d be in Windsor this weekend at the protests.
social security? While it is essential that people not starve in the streets, nor that this result be left to the chance and noblesse oblige popularly known as private charity, it is not the greatest idea for one branch of government to pay for social security while the other is actively pursuing policies that lead to poverty and unemployment.
abortion? As another man once said, I’m anti-abortion, but only for myself, which means that if I got pregnant I would keep the baby. For anyone other than myself, which includes the entire female population of the planet, I am strongly pro-choice, although I think that easy availability contraception in the first place is preferable to abortion.
gun control? Let’s see. Canada has one-tenth the population of the US, but one-one hundredth of the gun violence. Knives are actually more popular in Canada now as murder weapons than guns. What does that tell you?
national health insurance? I’m Canadian. What do you think I think about national health insurance?
environmental issues? THE big thing. It’s amazing the disconnection that governments have with this. Ho hum, yeah, environmental issues. If they don’t figure these things out pronto, and start taking action like they’re serious about it, there’s not gonna be a COUNTRY, let alone a government.
What Matt said.
I’m a progressive populist, with strong egalitarian tendencies. I believe that it’s possible to achieve Ben Barber’s vision of “an aristocracy of everyone.” I think the advent of consumerism precipitated the decline of civics. I admire muckrakers like I. F. Stone and George Seldes, who chronicled the institutional interests vested in the status quo. I think we should have a voting system of proportional representation. I think political candidates should know their history, their political theory, and their current events. I think Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt are the shining stars of their respective parties. I believe American politics has been bought and paid for by corporations. I think that what most people mistake for a liberal media is actually centrist and secular. I share the ideals of La Follette and Wellstone, Holmes and Brandeis, Brennan and Marshall. I don’t think we’ve got anything close to a level playing field. I favor John Maynard Keynes over Milton Friedman, and Friedrich List over Adam Smith…but I don’t think any of them have got it right quite yet. I think the IMF is a good idea that got hijacked by liberal developmentalist excesses, and that the WTO threatens national sovereignty in the name of free markets. I’d institute a system of black box campaign finance reform, where all donations are made anonymously. I know Buckley never unilaterally equated campaign dollars with speech, and I don’t think it anticipated the proliferation of soft money. I read Jim Hightower and Lewis Lapham in equal doses. I don’t think we should abandon public schools or the inner city. I think the War on Drugs is a waste of time, and that mandatory minimums are implicitly racist. I think low voter turnout is a boon to entrenched interests. I believe in the social contract. I think the three keys to government and corporate integrity are responsiblity, accountability, and long-term vision. I think The Onion is far more incisive than most news organizations. I wish Jefferson had kept the original draft of the Constitution. I think Al Gore’s falling far short of his father footsteps. I believe in open sourcing. Gated communities make me fear for the future of America. I think the right to private gun ownership is stipulated in the Constitution, but not explicitly enumerated. I want to thank George Bush for putting David Souter on the bench, because he’s the only liberal left. I don’t believe we should execute anyone until we’re sure that capital punishment is infallible. I think Clarence Thomas is one of the most unqualified human beings ever to hold a position of authority. I think injustice is one of the worst things in the world. I’m wary of extremists of every ideological stripe. I don’t think anything is ever as simple as people make it out to be. I think there’s more than two sides to every issue. I believe understanding history is the key to shaping a better future. I think Thomas Friedman and Francis Fukuyama are out of touch with the real world. I don’t believe that James Earl Ray, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Sirhan Sirhan acted alone–but I’m willing to be convinced. I approach everything, in fact, with an open mind. That’s just the kind of guy I am.
Off to watch Bull Durham now, for some strange reason.
I’m an anarchist.
Time and time again I’ve heard it said that the American government, with its flexibility and its representative democracy and increasingly expanded involvement of all citizens in the political process, is the pinnacle of democracy, the best that has been both temporally and geographically.
The really scary thing is, they might even be right.
The ideal is a pure communications solution that disenfranchises no one (certainly not for 4 years while some elected idiot who was somewhat better than the competing idiot makes my decisions without being required to consult me). The ideal, a functioning anarchy, is a system for which we do not currently have a blueprint.
But that’s no excuse for not funding experiments on various scales to see what might work more efficiently!
I said this:
And, of course, I meant this: I wish Jefferson had kept his original draft of the Declaration.
Sorry; I’ve had Constitution on the brain.
I have come to the conclusion that I am a fascist socialist. Anyone who really knows me understands that this makes absolute sense in relation to me.
I’m philisophically predisposed to lean w-a-a-a-y to the right, apparently a minority position around here. Nonetheless, I am not prepared to defend the self serving corruption of the Republican party and more than I am about to engage the self serving hypocrisy of the Democrat party.
I lean a bit to the left, but I’m not a Democrat & don’t like the Democratic Party.
To digress a little bit, the OP seemed to be concerned that he’s the only one on the net with views similar to his own. I’ve run into this before, where people who are Democrats, or Republicans, libertarians, greens, anarchists, socialists… people in all of these groups seem to think they’re vastly outnumbered on the net. Why is this? Can it be true that everybody’s in the minority? Is it because on the net they meet the most opposition to their political statements and in RL people tend not to discuss politics?
A Libertarian would say that the liberal-conservative left-right spectrum is deceptively one-dimensional, and that on a TWO-dimensional graph with “personal freedoms” running up the Y axis and “economic freedoms” running along the X axis, the liberal-conservative left-right spectrum appears as a diagonal line going from the upper left to the lower right.
Libertarians, of course, place their ideology at the upper right (lots of personal freedoms AND economic freedoms), which they would of course call the “pinnacle” of the graph.
I lean to the left quite a bit. So much, in fact, that I’m leaning so far that I might fall over. Either Green Party or Socialist.
I’m right of center. I’m right of Reagan. I’m even right of Rush.
But I voluntarily, and with open eyes, moved this way because the center is non-existant. People speak of being “centrist” or “middle of the road” when what they really mean is they have approximately equal leaning left and right, depending upon the subject.
If it were possible for the Libertarian ideals to succeed in this country (USA) I’d lead the parade. I’m opposed to the government overstepping their charter. But since governments are predisposed to increase their own power to the detriment of everyone they affect I find that I must come down on the right. The far right.
People are self-serving. We go to work everyday to make a living to support ourselves and our families. For a person to be successful means nothing on a macro level. Only that one small sector of one small area of one small region is in a state of bliss. The measurement of this success is subjective. And the individual is powerless to affect the whole.
Corporations are also self-serving. But their success implies success for others. Look at the stock market. Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, WalMart, et al, are all successful corporations. But for them to succeed, they directly support many thousands (collectively millions) of people in the form of employment, and indirectly as investors. The corporation succeeds and people succeed. And the corporation succeeds because people succeed.
The era of the 1800s is over. No longer can a person stake out 50 acres, plant a garden, raise a few head of livestock, and live largely in his own little world. We are part of the larger whole. And we can condense power with the corporations or with the government.
When corporations fail people go to work for other corporations. (No one on the left seems saddened by all the companies that WalMart and MicroSoft have put out of business, but that’s another thread.) When governments fail they tend to do really stupid things. Wars, persecutions, cleansings, economic collapse, black market nukes, etc are all gifts of governments, not corporations.
Go back and study the writings that founded this country. The constitution was written to uphold the rights of property owners – not the individual!
On the list that seems the bellweather of the thread:
affirmative action? Absolutely not. To those that claim that I enjoy the benefits and advantages of being a white male I reply that my grandparents came to this country in 1906. They spoke not a single word of English yet managed to utilize the business climate in this country and their own entrepreneurial spirit to succeed. My family gained nothing from its color and I resent having to pay for those that feel that my whiteness owes them something.
nafta/gatt? It has to come. This is the wrong model at the wrong time. Maybe the next iteration will be better.
social security? No way – not in this form. You want to be supported by someone else and interfere with HIS ability to support his family? Move to a socialist country – SS in it’s current form is the model of socialism.
abortion? Absolutely 100% against. For any reason. The reasons are for another thread, but my favorite discussion has to do with the pro-abortion (I refuse the PC statement “pro-choice”) bumper sticker “If you can’t trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a baby?”. Which is my point exactly. You’ve demonstrated that you aren’t cabable of making a choice.
gun control? Gun control is just a smoke screen for society’s failing to control it’s undesireable element. Control the bad guy and there’s no need for gun control. Castro puts people in jail for speech that he deems offensive, yet we in this country can’t keep murderers in jail.
national health insurance? Not if I have any say in the matter. We already have (arguably) the greatest health care system in the world. Treatment is universally available for life threatening injury or illness regardless of the victim’s financial status. Nationalize it and the cost will inevitably go up. (Don’t even try to argue against that.) It must be paid for by someone and that someone is taxes. Since 71% of federal revenue comes directly from the working man’s paycheck and it is the EASIEST of all taxes to raise it seems quite clear where the money will come from. The working man will again have to foot the bill for others BEFORE he’s allowed to choose how to spend his wages on his own family.
environmental issues? Absolutely. (Fooled you, huh?) Noone in their right mind wants contaminated water or to clear-cut Utah. But as long as there are 6 billion people on this earth, each wanting food, water, medicine, clothing, shelter, etc there must be a compromise. Our mantra should be: We cut down a tree, we plant a tree. We continue to build less polluting engines and factories. We use less intrusive pesticides. And key to this is we insist that other countries play by the same rules. Non-negotiable.
Before I go, a poser for the left: America is unique in the world. So many are willing to die for the opportunity to be here. Why does the left insist that the USA be more like the places others are desperate to leave? Would those that want a more leftist USA be better served by moving to a country that already offers what they claim to want? Or is it that they don’t really want what they claim to want?
Sorry for the soapbox. I try to listen and learn. But it’s hard to take seriously anthing championed by Eleanor Clift.
I Am SouthernStyle