I’m about as left-wing as you can get. But I’m starting to think I’m kind of a dinosaur, in that my idea of what constitutes “left-wing” politics is pretty old-fashioned.
Meaning that I’m far more focused on economic issues, including labor rights, unionization, redistribution and progressive taxation (including wealth taxes) than I am on cultural issues.
And I’m (for a variety of reasons outside the scope of this thread) not entirely comfortable with an absolute right to abortion at any time up until delivery.
Also, WTH is a “quango”? Sounds like some weird Australian animal.
With one being extremely conservative and 10 being extremely liberal, I classify myself as, probably, a 7 or 8. One of my most “right” views, judging from the reaction I got, is the belief that people need to work and make their own way as long as health permits and only receive assistance when necessary. That sounds reasonable, but I was castigated for expressing that view.
To the extent that opposing nuclear power is a liberal position, I take the opposite view. Properly regulated, nuclear power is quite earth-friendly.
I favor affirmative action in principle but I think economic status should also come into play. I don’t think a child of Oprah Winfrey should get an advantage in college admission over a child of a coal miner for example.
I think Defund Police is the most politically stupid, tone deaf slogan in US history. I favor policies where we don’t have chokeholds or target minorities or shoot to kill. Seriously, we’ve had 4 presidential assassinations and in 3 of them the assassin was taken alive. But we let a cop off the hook for shooting a kid playing with a toy gun within 5 seconds of arriving at the scene. More restrictions, better training, more use of social workers to defuse situations - I’m all in. But defunding police is moronic.
Sure. “Defunding” police departments, as an absolute, is indeed moronic. And it comes across as “abolish police.” That’s the trouble with slogans.
On the other hand, if it means transferring money from police department budgets to other agencies better equipped to handle issues that really shouldn’t be addressed by the criminal justice system, I’m absolutely on board.
But catchy slogans don’t help anyone, and just give the opposition something to rant about.
The intent of the second amendment is pretty clear. Gun control laws may be necessary (what do you mean I can’t own a tactical nuke and keep it in my basement?) but should be implemented with caution and the 2nd amendment in mind.
A nation has the right to control their borders including immigration.
These 2 get me in the most trouble with left winger friends.
Left of center. Wife has Masters in Education, mother was a public school teacher.
Acknowledging that some kids are smarter than others, and the corollary that some kids are dumber than others, is not bigotry. There is nothing wrong with having tracked English and math classes, as long as one can move between tracks as performance dictates. No more of this one-size-fits-all you-can-do-it-if-you-try-hard-enough crap. Some kids are just dumb, and not everybody is college material. Trade school is perfectly respectable and needed.
Yes, it’s called all anyone talks about is the bad slogans that some people shouted out because they were tired of being terrorized by the police, and refuses to hear anything else that everyone else has to say.
If some right wingers went around screaming “Hang Mike Pence” as they broke into the Capitol, we wouldn’t assume that that was the actual political philosophy of all republicans, but for some reason “Defund the Police” gets broad brushed onto all liberals.
I consider myself a moderate, but I’m far to the left of the US’s Republican party. Still, like @Exapno_Mapcase, I am in favor of the death penalty and think that it should be used more often. I’m also no fan of left-wing politicians who think Palestinians can do no wrong and are poor innocent angels. I’d be in favor of stripping AOC and similar politicians of their committee assignments, just like what happened to that redneck congresswoman from Georgia.
My conservative leanings are mainly what the individual must do, not what society must do. Practice fiscal responsibility. Be accountable for everything you do and stop shifting blame. Don’t be a burden. Don’t live beyond your means. Take advantage of whatever government assistance offers when you need it, but don’t rely on it. Basically, everything conservatives pretended to stand for in the 80’s and completely abandoned in the present day.
For what? There is simply no comparison between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I’d bet that there are some lefties here at SDMB who aren’t huge fans of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. But I’d also bet that the most moderate of the lefties here wouldn’t say that she should be stripped of her committee assignments.
And I’m also pretty sure that the most conservative posters here don’t have much to say in defense of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Maybe that’s their most left view. Who knows.
But no doubt someone will come along and prove me wrong in a minute or two.
Originally, the separatist Parti Quebecois was definitely socialist (really social democratic) oriented and this was resisted by the other parties, so you could consider it left wing, although the national leftist New Democrats certainly never supported separation (it would have destroyed any national party to have done so). Eventually the PQ shifted to a fairly conservative position. I know that one neighbor quit the party at that point.
Incidentally, I don’t agree that the parties are nearly indistinguishable. When the Conservatives were last in power, their Minister of Science was a creationist chiropracter and science suffered badly under his regime.
My most right wing belief is that I would like to see actual free markets. This obviously means rigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws, banning of nearly all mergers and even limits to how large corporations can be. Of course, no right winger would agree to this. They all pay lip service to free markets, but resist competition at every turn.
I would also like to see all the left wing woo, opposition to GMO, nuclear power, etc., go away. I would like to see traveling wave reactors built. Not only are they at least ten times as efficient in using the nuclear fuel, they can burn all the nuclear waste too, producing waste with half-lives measured in tens not millions of years.