Political Compass

karrie

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With respect I don't follow your logic YukonJack. It is authoritarian, and thus the Pope is authoritarian, but showing him on a political spectrum as such is flawed?

I'm bumping this because I actually want to discuss the issue.
 

karrie

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It's going to be tough. lol

yeah I've noticed the whole forum just devolves into squabbling these days. Frankly I'm done with it. I've said my piece and asked my questions... people can either reply in good faith or not.
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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I don't see the issue at all with the Pope being in the same quadrant as Mugabe. Mugabe is more extreme than the Pope, certainly. Hence why he's further towards the upper left corner...

As Karrie has pointed out repeatedly, it's just two spectrums. If you analyzed their 5 factor personalities you'd probably see more differences.
 

YukonJack

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petros, the undisputed champion of racism asked me:

"What about the "Black Pope" YJ? Do you disregard Kolvenbach too because he is the BLACK POPE?"

The Black Pope Count Hans Kolvenbach,The Jesuit’s General

petros, I give you the benefit of doubt that you meant to put your idiocy on another thread.

But I still question your eyesight.

Mugabe is responsible for the ruination of thousands of white farmers. Not to mention his country.

Stalin is responsible for the death of untold millions of people, by starvation, concentration camps, wanton killings and murderous political ambitions.

Mahmoud Abbas would love to see all Jews wiped off the face of the Earth.

If you can prove to me that Pope Benedict XVI belongs with them, I will admit that I am politically naive, and give full credit of the validity of this test.
 

karrie

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Mugabe is responsible for the ruination of thousands of white farmers. Not to mention his country.

Stalin is responsible for the death of untold millions of people, by starvation, concentration camps, wanton killings and murderous political ambitions.

Mahmoud Abbas would love to see all Jews wiped off the face of the Earth.

If you can prove to me that Pope Benedict XVI belongs with them, I will admit that I am politically naive, and give full credit of the validity of this test.

The political spectrum has nothing to do with those things though YukonJack, that's why I'm asking you what part of the political spectrum it got wrong. It's not a 'good leader' plot chart.

I think a lot of people avoid ideologies for the wrong reasons. How many people have you heard use the tired old line "yeah, that's what Hitler thought too"? Just because a narrow aspect of someone's ideology may make them look similar to someone else, doesn't mean that the entirety of their application of that ideology will come anywhere NEAR to negative.

How many people did the compass and came out in the vicinity of their political party?



 

YukonJack

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karrie, polls, surveys and statistics are mallable, changeable, definable, redefinable.
One can twist them any way one likes.

So, in the name of good neighbourliness, let us just agree to disagree.
 

karrie

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Absolutely it is malleable YukonJack... especially when talking politics. What's right? What's left? It's all subjective, and the site itself says that in a couple places.
 

AnnaG

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Mugabe is responsible for the ruination of thousands of white farmers. Not to mention his country.
Irrelevant.

Stalin is responsible for the death of untold millions of people, by starvation, concentration camps, wanton killings and murderous political ambitions.
Also irrelevant

Mahmoud Abbas would love to see all Jews wiped off the face of the Earth.
Irrelevant again. All those people are or were definitely not capitalist, small "c" conservatives. They all thought they had the best way to control their people while they were against capitalism. That makes them left-wing. And they were certainly fanatical about it which makes them authoritarian.

If you can prove to me that Pope Benedict XVI belongs with them, I will admit that I am politically naive, and give full credit of the validity of this test.
The pope is not a fanatic but he pretty much favors social issues over capitalist issues. And as I said, if you read one or more of his encyclicals, you can easily see his authoritarian views.

As the people at the Political Compass site mention (if you read it), " If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line (left vs. right) it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.
That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitrary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities exisited in Spain during the civil war period
You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.
The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( i.e. an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (i.e. extreme deregulated economy)

The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples social Darwinian right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.
In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily "right wing", with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today's Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.

U.S.neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the "free market", in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion. "

At any rate, if you prefer to remain ignorant of political science, that's your problem and I have posted enough clues for a 6 year old to have clued in by now.
 
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AnnaG

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If murdering 20 million people is irrelevant, Just what the hell would you deem as being relevent?
Jeeeez, JLM. Haven't you been following the conversation? Who did what to who is irrelevant to whether the pope is left-wing authoritarian or not.
 

JLM

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Jeeeez, JLM. Haven't you been following the conversation? Who did what to who is irrelevant to whether the pope is left-wing authoritarian or not.

Oh, OK Anna - Mea Culpa. As far as the Pope goes, I think he'd be pretty hard to measure politically- for one he's supposed to stay right out of politics and his financial involvement in life is about nil. :lol:
 

AnnaG

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Oh, OK Anna - Mea Culpa. As far as the Pope goes, I think he'd be pretty hard to measure politically- for one he's supposed to stay right out of politics and his financial involvement in life is about nil. :lol:
A person doesn't need to be political to have left-wing, libertarian, socialist, right-wing, autocratic, conservative, etc. views.
 

karrie

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Jan 6, 2007
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Oh, OK Anna - Mea Culpa. As far as the Pope goes, I think he'd be pretty hard to measure politically- for one he's supposed to stay right out of politics and his financial involvement in life is about nil. :lol:

Uhm... the church gives its opinion on issues of abortion, birth control (both effecting health care), marriage, divorce, education, and even criminal justice. It lobbies regularly for its views to be heard. We may say that it shouldn't be RUNNING politics, but, it's certainly involved in voicing its political views. It doesn't keep them secret and say 'oh, I'm not supposed to have an opinion on that, it's too political.'
 

YukonJack

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"At any rate, if you prefer to remain ignorant of political science, that's your problem and I have posted enough clues for a 6 year old to have clued in by now."

Political Science is every bit of an oxymoron as Army Intelligence.

No, never mind! A hell of a lot more so!
 

AnnaG

Hall of Fame Member
Jul 5, 2009
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"At any rate, if you prefer to remain ignorant of political science, that's your problem and I have posted enough clues for a 6 year old to have clued in by now."

Political Science is every bit of an oxymoron as Army Intelligence.

No, never mind! A hell of a lot more so!
Ahhh, a comment born of unbounded ignorance. :tard:

Well, as M.I.T. has had political science courses since the mid 50s, I'd take it for granted that there's more to it than the puny little amount you know about it. I'll take MIT's word for it way before I'd take yours.

Free Online Course Materials | Political Science | MIT OpenCourseWare

There's more:

The Berkeley Electronic Press Journals

In the News — Political Science

Department of Politics and International Relations

http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/

Meiji University

Political Science and International Relations - Information For

Harvard University - Department of Government

Department of Political Science

Department of Political Science

University of Victoria - Department of Political Science

etc. etc. etc.

At any rate, if you prefer to remain ignorant of reality, that's your problem.
 

YukonJack

Time Out
Dec 26, 2008
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AnnaG, I could quote you just as many or even more references on how to boil water. Which is about as scientific as politics.

"Political science" is promoted, required and believed by those who falsified history.

A degree in political "science" is about as valuable as a degree in basket weaving or baby-sitting. No, wait, baby-sitting needs skills.
 
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