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[Powder Miner]

It does indeed, mainiac, it annoys me but I am not going to contest it. The thing is, all these loud minorities still have votes, and sometimes they succeed in swaying things. The party's commitment to drug bans is far weaker (or at least moderately weaker) with the libertarians loudly shouting in it, and with their votes.

[Frumple]

Authoritarianism only exists if the people that believe in the authority are considered wrong by a majority The test is biased towards the christian baby boomer generation's of what constitutes a radical belief, of course. I don't even know anyone that cares about nudist colonies, gay marriage, divorce rates, and porn, but the 'right wing' is still magically against all of those things because that's the idea liberals have of their core.

Good for you? I'm surrounded by folks (of all ages!) that ostracize nudists to the extent they can get away with it (there's actually a family or two in the area that practice it around the house, so it does come up), would cheerfully break a gay man's legs if it wouldn't see them in jail (and occasionally even when it does), spend basically whole days of the week jawing on about divorce rates, infidelity, and so on, and will literally say that porn is of the devil -- those are words I have actually heard more than a few times in my life. The right wing is "magically" against all those things because huge chunks of the american conservative population are vocally against those things.

S'like, no, it's not some kind of invention of the american left, it's stuff you trip over if you're meandering through conservative areas, especially less urban ones. I've expressed the sentiment before that I'm glad some of you out there don't have to deal with this shit, and I'll express it again (I am sincerely and legitimately glad for you, because bloody hell it's unpleasant to live with and no one should have to.), but it definitely isn't some kind of invented bogeyman.

[mainiac]

The thing is, all these loud minorities still have votes, and sometimes they succeed in swaying things.

Yeah but at the end of the day the conservatives win everything.  It's like in the UK with the Tory/Liberal government.  It wasn't a combination of views, it was entirely Tory ideas.  Compare that to the democrats where for worse or for worse you can point out the compromises.  Obama had to give away the public option to make the Joe Lieberman vote for the bill and he had to give away the medicare (not medicaid) expansion to keep Ben Nelson on board.

[Eagleon]

Good for you? I'm surrounded by folks (of all ages!) that ostracize nudists to the extent they can get away with it (there's actually a family or two in the area that practice it around the house, so it does come up), would cheerfully break a gay man's legs if it wouldn't see them in jail (and occasionally even when it does), spend basically whole days of the week jawing on about divorce rates, infidelity, and so on, and will literally say that porn is of the devil -- those are words I have actually heard more than a few times in my life. The right wing is "magically" against all those things because huge chunks of the american conservative population are vocally against those things.

S'like, no, it's not some kind of invention of the american left, it's stuff you trip over if you're meandering through conservative areas, especially less urban ones. I've expressed the sentiment before that I'm glad some of you out there don't have to deal with this shit, and I'll express it again (I am sincerely and legitimately glad for you, because bloody hell it's unpleasant to live with and no one should have to.), but it definitely isn't some kind of invented bogeyman.

Yeah, I don't mean to minimize anything like this, I know it's still around. I live in Wisconsin, which gave you Scott Walker but also the Madison and Milwaukee democratic hives. But it is changing, I see more and more republicans disgusted with their party's social policy (I'm typing this in a bi furry republican's apartment, really interesting but very bitter guy), and you yourself living in this area, as difficult as it might be, is setting an example of how we godless heathens can be valid political animals as well.

I guess what I'm really saying that there would be room for myself in the republican ranks, if we could just get away from the pandering - I would abhor the idea of voting someone in to office that opposes gay rights, or cutting welfare without careful replacement to help the families with displaced income, at the same time knowing that there are otherwise good republicans that play the radical bits up for that vote. I have no idea who could lead a charge like that, but as much as I don't like her explicitly for the type of politics she plays, the charges on the left that Clinton is more a republican than democrat is very interesting.
Obligatory smug democrat bar graphs: http://www.gallup.com/poll/183386/social-ideology-left-catches-right.aspx

[mainiac]

the charges on the left that Clinton is more a republican than democrat is very interesting.

Others on the left would fiercely deny that.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

[Eagleon]

the charges on the left that Clinton is more a republican than democrat is very interesting.

Others on the left would fiercely deny that.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

And they're both cherry picking certain issues as more important than others while setting her on a completely arbitrary number line defined however they feel like it at the time. For instance, the Iraq war, which everyone in favor of Clinton forgives her for supporting because it was the cool thing to do or something. Any political inevitabilities she makes are seen as mistakes rather than scheming compromises, any scheming compromise she makes is seen as artful politics in the service of the cause, and any mistakes she makes, well, everyone makes mistakes (to be clear, I don't think many supporters of other politicians treat them any differently - we all have zealots) Hillary Clinton isn't left or right, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, just like any politician is that politician and not some pie divvied up for a populist buffet.

[Descan]

Many people seem to want an authoritarian and it drives me crazy.

That's what I was saying a while ago about the RWA (right wing authoritarian) psych test. Note here, that loyal Soviet citizens scored highly on the RWA tests. So the "R" here is about adherence to a strong social conservative government (enforced law and order, enforced morality: the old French meaning of "Right"), regardless of the rhetoric of the dominant ideology. So why no matching LWA scale for the left? Psychologists have tried to make one and failed, because Authoritarianism invariably has a right-wing bias (except for in ex-Soviet countries where it sort of works) no matter how they phrase it.

The RWA tests sound like Poe's law in action, but the sad fact is quite a large number of people in every country do literally tick yes to most of the RWA test questions. The test questions are extremely specific in the belief they're asking about. Some people on the forum thought that they were too specific and that this was a weakness. But I'd cite it as a strength of the test. Why? because we can gauge how many people actually think like that (a lot) and then do other tests to see how these beliefs affect them in other contexts.

There's another test call SDO (Social dominance orientation) and the interplay of this with the RWA test is interesting. In some multiplayer team wargame simulations, those who scored highly on RWA but not SDO always fell into line behind the high-SDO players, who invariably muscled their way into positions of power (either the leader, or the leader's chief henchman/head-kicker), then aggressively competed with other high-SDO players, usually ending in nuclear Armageddon. But when games were just RWAs (with high-SDO players deliberately excluded), there was massive military build up, but few wars. They recreated the Cold War basically. There was massive mistrust, isolationism and militarism, but low risk taking and aggression.

This fits with the idea that the RWA tests measure the "follow the glorious leader" trait, and mob psychology, but not necessarily the drive to take charge of a situation. Conversely, when the only players in the games were low-RWAs, it ended with free trade, international treaties and widespread humanitarian aid. Liberal globalism and the UN basically.

Do you have any links? This sounds fascinating.

[mainiac]

And they're both cherry picking

Or, and here is the radical idea, they aren't and your opinion is wrong.

If only there were some objective thing like a score of ideology...

[Eagleon]

And they're both cherry picking

Or, and here is the radical idea, they aren't and your opinion is wrong.

If only there were some objective thing like a score of ideology...

If only the definition of 'left' and 'right wing' stayed strictly within ideology and never got any real world decisions mixed up to make the problem of typifying politicians as less than black and white.

[mainiac]

So it's not really cherry picking you care about then.

[Powder Miner]

>score of ideology
>>objective
there is nothing objective of the sort
every test or score has its own bias, intentional or not

[PTTG??]

>score of ideology
>>objective
there is nothing objective of the sort
every test or score has its own bias, intentional or not

Yeah, the fairest thing you can say about the test is that people who score similarly are likely similar, but not necessarily.

[mainiac]

every test or score has its own bias, intentional or not

I would perhaps be inclined to have a shred of sympathy to this argument if people didn't only apply it to tests that dont show what they want.  Sure tests have biases.  But tests like the DW-nominate score which show that Clinton was the 11th most liberal senator are a fuckload less biased then the idiots saying she was a conservative.

[sluissa]

the charges on the left that Clinton is more a republican than democrat is very interesting.

Others on the left would fiercely deny that.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

And they're both cherry picking

Or, and here is the radical idea, they aren't and your opinion is wrong.

If only there were some objective thing like a score of ideology...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

[Shadowlord]

Is that the site which tells everyone that they are a libertarian even if they are actually socialists?