ANOTHER Political Quiz

Politics is the art of arguing about what the consequences are. Who's going to decide what to teach the kids? So how are we going to vote on the budget? A yes or no for each of three hundred and eighty-seven clauses? The ballot would be twice the size of the budget.

Looks like I'm the oddball:Republicans 98%
Libertarians 72%
Green Party 5%
Democrats 2%
Socialist 1%

I could not agree more with this post.Those who are acquainted with history are well aware of various expressions of popular rule that have happened over time.Lynch mobs in the US as late as the 1950s, Pogroms against Jews in Europe in revenge for the purported blood libel that culminated in the Holocaust. The murder of "witches" still occurring in some parts of Africa to this day.Those are only the most egregious, I could go on for pages.The system we have now in the US royally sucks because it is incredibly corrupt, but if one is familiar with history, they will know it has always been that way. It is a constant struggle to maintain the slightest semblance of democracy in this nation. As for others, in almost all cases, it appears there is quite a mixed record as well.Now to quote the obvious that I am sure most here have heard before:"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."-Winston ChurchillIf anybody has a better way to rule over the people, please feel free to let us know. Don't even say direct democracy - been there, done that..

What happens when the majority passes laws depriving the minority of the right to participate in the political process? Or agree to strip unpopular groups of some of their rights. They majority will never have to face any consequences for having done so.Simple majority rules for whose neighborhood gets to be the site for the next land fill?

On a lighter note, here are my test results - for whatever it's worth:Dem. - 91
Gre. - 91
Soc. - 57
Lib. - 46
Rep. - 27As a firm believer in freedom, liberty, equality, and social justice my only comment is this:First Fox News came after me for calling myself a liberal and I did nothing, then they came after me for calling myself a libertarian and I did nothing, the they came after me for calling myself an intellectual and I did nothing, then they came after me for calling myself a human being and ...............

I think that you are confusing examples of chaotic mob rule with the idea of direct democracy and that it has never been attempted on any grand scale. I would submit that every move toward a more inclusive democracy leads to improvements in the standard of living and to more just societies. Of course the system has to open with good access to good information and devoid of corruption. Do you really think that we will start burning witches again?There is no need to abandon the rule of law and I don't see why you guys think that that would be the inevitable result. Take prop 8 in Ca. for example. The established protection of constitutional rights kicked in and the rights of the minority were protected against the will of the majority. (I am not sure what the mechanism was or what the actual numbers were.)Take another example of a plebiscite held in Kitimat BC regarding the construction of a pipeline through the community. Why shouldn't these folks have some right to prevent the construction of a pipeline through their community against the wishes of some rich dudes in Calgary and Toronto? Why should the PM be able to override the wishes of the people in favour of the wishes of some group of elite and powerful?You don't abandon the rule of law. You don't throw out all of the advances that we have made and all of the lessons that we have learned. I don't see why you think that would happen. Again if democracy is a good idea then why isn't more democracy a better idea?Direct democracy is not the same thing as mob rule.

Except that you don't really believe in freedom and equality. You believe that the people need to be told what to do by the elite wielders of power.

The way that it is now is that a minority decides where the next land fill is.

Don't you think that if we can figure out how to go to Mars that we can figure out how to vote on the budget? The first requirement is to decide that we want to do it.

Going to Mars is far easier.

You're equivocating relatively simple technical problems with philosophical questions that have no pat answers.We don't grow our own food or fix our own cars. We even hire advisors to handle our individual finances. Doesn't it make sense to hire specialists to handle our collective budget too?

Well we all know this will happen if the other party wins so get to the voting booths.

So I'm new here, and I thought this would be a good first post/comment/thing. I took the test, and my results were
Green: 96%
Dem: 93%
Socialist: 73%
Libertarian: 43%
Rep: 1%On a side note, I don't know if the test I'm going to recommend has ever been shown here before, but I prefer it. It's a political compass test, with two axes (social and economic), and I feel like a universal numerical value is more accurate (I shudder at saying these tests are accurate) than a percentage relative to the correspondence of your views to those of the parties in a bought-out government. So here are my results for that test, I added a few points of leaders that had already been plotted on the site:http://www.politicalcompass.org/crowdchart.php?showform=&...In this case, Libertarian isn't the American Libertarian Party, it's Liberal, and Neo-Liberal is just capitalist. The link for the site is: The Political CompassAs well, I mean no offense to the site that was originally shown here, I just wanted to add another version of a test like that.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Reset signature font size to smaller.

Politcal Compass (Their spelling, I have spell check).Also maybe of interest: Political DimensionsPolitical Identity CrisisMoose

Before we get into some game of trading insults, I want you to know that as a Anarcho-Syndicalist Libertarian (for as long as Fox News and others allow us to define the term), I actually have some sympathy toward your ideals, it is just coupled with a lot of skepticism.Perhaps one of us could start a new thread detailing exactly to what extent direct democracy could be implemented.Such a thread could be used to explain:Who is allowed to vote?
What level of detail would such voting comprise?
Would this replace all functions, executive, legislative, and judicial -- or would the judgement of guilt or innocence be exempt from the popular will of those unfamiliar with the details of each particular case?
Which laws would be the purview of the federal, state, or county level? Would all decisions be nationwide?
Who would be empowered to write the actual wording of each referendum bought before the people at large?Those are just a few of those "devil in the details" things I am curious about. I am eager to see your response.Edited by anglagard, : Replaced the term me with us as I am not the only self-defined Anarcho-Syndacalist Libertarian, as Noam Chomsky still lives.Edited by anglagard, : Had to add to definition of popular will as around these parts one is still purportedly judged by a jury of their peers.