Robert Taylor and idleidolidyll's political debating thread

[Finn]

So which country would you say has the closest working model to your ideal?

There isn't one. This sort of ideoligy is breed by people who have given up on mankind and through their own failures in life strongly beleive that prosperity is the root of all evil.

[idleidolidyll]

So which country would you say has the closest working model to your ideal?

no one country but a mixture of them including our own.

the annual index for quality of life, for honest in the media, for freedom etc give a pretty clear picture of what works and what doesn't.

you've quizzed me on what I would do, must be time for you to front up now

[idleidolidyll]

One terrorist dictator slamming another would be dictator ("the Constitution is just a goddam piece of paper") over something both are guilty of!

Mugabe Slams Bush Over Human Rights (September 27, 2007)
During a speech in the UN General Assembly, Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe told US President George Bush that it was hypocritical to accuse countries like Iran, Syria, Belarus, North Korea and Zimbabwe of being 'brutal regimes'. He said, "He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be our master on human rights?" Robert Mugabe's regime itself has a history of human rights violations; however Mugabe points out, the US can hardly point a finger at other countries, as long as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib exist. (Reuters)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/un/2007/0927mugabe.htm

[idleidolidyll]

The Diagnosis of a Dying Republic (September 25, 2007)
This libertarian LewRockwell article discusses Chalmer Johnson's new book "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," which dissects the US "empire" and the essence of its "warfare state." The article argues that an empire often promotes the economic interests of a very small elite, while ignoring the interests of the general public. This makes empires unsustainable in the long run. By comparing the US with the Roman and the British empires, the article concludes that the US must either give up the empire and restore the original republic or see it vanish, as did the Roman counterpart.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2007/0925diagnosis.htm

[Robert Taylor]

The problem is that democracy as they say is often two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner.

Socialists would have you believe that capitalism is inherently evil, and designed to take us all back to slavery or serfdom.

And it's quite capable of doing that !

But, socialisim actually does do it.

We all know that if you work, and get no reward, it is taken by your master (The one who sets the rules) that you are a slave.

At exactly what point do you stop being a slave ?

If master gives you food and board?
When you keep 10 % of your income ?
50% of income ?

If socialists really believed that income tax is anything other that being fined for being productive, then would make income tax voluntary.

That would be real democracy ! Not only do you vote for an outcome, you vote with your money !

Perfect sense, socialism actually slowly and incessantly destroys the will to work and MMP ( mickey mouse politics ) has just given us a whole load more dregs in Parliament feeding off us. How many shonky recent decisions have been a pay off to minorites?

Perhaps we should all vote Green ( red on the inside ) at the next election. Compulsory marijuana abuse, we would all have to smoke it and pretend that everything is allllright..............

No more posts from me today. Im now going to further engage in being a nasty capitalist for the rest of the day, delirious in the knowledge that a proportion of the tax dollars that are raped off me will be subsidising the ''Governments'' election bribery fund.

[The Stranger:Me]

no one country but a mixture of them including our own.

the annual index for quality of life, for honest in the media, for freedom etc give a pretty clear picture of what works and what doesn't.

you've quizzed me on what I would do, must be time for you to front up now

I tend to favour personal responsibility and personal freedoms. I believe that if you remove a persons responsibility they (by and large) act irresponsibly.
Certainly in that regard I favour the policies of the ACT party.

I favour America and the American people. I have never trusted Bush. I feel he is largely equivilent to klarke in his level of deceit and dishonesty. Like the Americans or not, the world in my view needs the ying and the yang. Both communism and Islam are expansionist, as such they do not rest with what they have and will try and acquire or convert neighbours.
As you could guess by my first comments, this is not something I would be too open to.

So yeah I guess believing in personal freedoms and responsibilities, believing that I know what is best for me and my family and being responsible both financially and socially for my children and family makes me lean right.

[idleidolidyll]

Perfect sense, socialism actually slowly and incessantly destroys the will to work and MMP ( mickey mouse politics ) has just given us a whole load more dregs in Parliament feeding off us. How many shonky recent decisions have been a pay off to minorites?

Perhaps we should all vote Green ( red on the inside ) at the next election. Compulsory marijuana abuse, we would all have to smoke it and pretend that everything is allllright..............

No more posts from me today. Im now going to further engage in being a nasty capitalist for the rest of the day, delirious in the knowledge that a proportion of the tax dollars that are raped off me will be subsidising the ''Governments'' election bribery fund.

Hilarious!

You quote the extremes but don't offer the counter argument that capitalism reduces wages and creates serfdom.

The answer is a combination of capitalism tempered by socialist humanity. Capitalism without the restraints of socialism will always return us to the days of Kings and servants but merely with a new title.

The powerful must always be restrained to protect their prey; the poor and weak.

[idleidolidyll]

I tend to favour personal responsibility and personal freedoms. I believe that if you remove a persons responsibility they (by and large) act irresponsibly.
Certainly in that regard I favour the policies of the ACT party.

I favour America and the American people. I have never trusted Bush. I feel he is largely equivilent to klarke in his level of deceit and dishonesty. Like the Americans or not, the world in my view needs the ying and the yang. Both communism and Islam are expansionist, as such they do not rest with what they have and will try and acquire or convert neighbours.
As you could guess by my first comments, this is not something I would be too open to.

So yeah I guess believing in personal freedoms and responsibilities, believing that I know what is best for me and my family and being responsible both financially and socially for my children and family makes me lean right.

the road to serfdom is paved with the excuses of personal freedom and responsibility.

[idleidolidyll]

Many people are surprised when they take this test. Often they are surprised because they vote on individual issues rather than on the broad platforms of each party.
The test is based on what the political parties themselves espouse as their philosophies as well as what their actual policies are. The entire website is a very interesting read.

So, here's a challenge to all, take the test and discover what your economic and philosophical leanings actually are:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

My results in the past have placed me firmly in the left liberal quadrant but I'll do it again for this exercise.
Be honest answering the questions and post your index here.

[idleidolidyll]

So, here's a challenge to all, take the test and discover what your economic and philosophical leanings actually are:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

My latest results are similar to my older ones and if you compare these to the political parties you should understand why I don't vote Labour or National.

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.95

[idleidolidyll]

I'm proud indeed to be in much the same place as Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama and also proud to a long way from Thatcher, Bush, Blair and Mugabe.

[idleidolidyll]

For comparison, here is where our political parties lie on this chart:

The New Zealand Party Political Compass™

also interesting is that the gross abusers are not inherently right or left wing but as I've said before; authoriatarian (Bush and Mao would also be well into the upper two quadrants but opposite on the economic scale):

[BIGBOSSMAN]

Go and see 'The Lives Of Others', a german movie about the Stasi before the fall of the Berlin wall - you'll see a pretty accurate portrayal of your ideal 'powerful being restrained to protect their prey: the poor and weak'.

[idleidolidyll]

Go and see 'The Lives Of Others', a german movie about the Stasi before the fall of the Berlin wall - you'll see a pretty accurate portrayal of your ideal 'powerful being restrained to protect their prey: the poor and weak'.

I don't need to; the Stasi were a product of an extreme authoritarian state and i've already stated that IMO authoritarianism is by far the greatest cause of abuse in any political system.
It had bugger all to do with the right/left economic index; that's just a smokescreen.

[Ocean1]

my 'fix' is already here; MMP

a far better political system than the abusive dictatorships we had before it.

That rednecks don't like it only proves to me that it works.

MMP tempers the worst excesses of the majority partner.

Possibly, it also destroys the possibility of any long term initiatives and reduces core policy to an inefective mish-mash of mediocre compromise.

Labour's problem is that they have shifted right and cosey up to foreign business without enough considereration of the impact on wages and jobs in NZ. Our real income has dropped drastically since the 80's and the gap between rich and poor has grown.

Labour's problem is that, having recognised that competitive international economic performance is incompatible with general socialist ideology, they sought to bolster exactly those concepts by expanding the tax burden to the only source that can afford it: The middle class, the definition of which has since broadened to include anyone indulging in actual worthwhile commercial endeavour, including any attempt to earn a decent wage.

Nothing wrong with optimising the tax take, great idea, allows a maximum level of public service support. However, there is a level at which the disincentive to produce revenue begins to impact on GDP, reducing the overall take. We are so far down that path as to be analogous to pruning the apple tree at ground level. It’ll take decades to restore the commercial capabilities, (read job opportunities, export initiatives, technical expertise, capital investment base) we had a decade ago.

National’s problem is that, having moved so far left in an attempt to compete with the lolly scramble it’s policies look to be an ineffective tool to do the job. Even if fiscal common sense prevails and taxation is reduced to the levels required to maximise the crop they’ll likely be hamstrung by MMP and the narrow focus interests who’s main concern is saving the lesser bloated blue wattle wren, or similar.