What Is Your Political Orientation?

[EdRooney]

Nah. The liberals would show up in a slick hybrid limousine with custom matching Vera Wong uniforms (made in Bangladesh) and "Bomb Syria for Peace" patches on their silk lapels. Trés chic.

 

[MDZ]

cooler uniforms too

How about a dictators team:

 

[ghost]

How about a dictators team:

Gadahfis body guard?

 

[Chet]

the free market at work:
http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/09/3-major-u-s-airlines-fight-cancel-cheaper-international-travel/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

 

[camino no tomado]

... there were never more violent societies as we have it today ...

Dang Matias, you were doing so well when you stuck to the standard Marxist analysis, but this is just wrong. Completely wrong. In fact, in the history of the human race, the world has never been less violent. For a statistical proof of this (and some interesting conjecture as to why it's the case) see Steven Pinker's latest "The Better Angels of Our Nature".

As for politics, despite having degrees in both political science and law, I concur with Chet's comment that the older I get the less I know ... or the more I'm willing to admit that I don't know. When pressed, I will refer to myself as "centre-centre" (where I get to define the centre) since at least most people understand that means that I believe some functions are best performed by government and others best reserved for private initiative. Going beyond that risks both contamination from partisan influences and, as others have pointed out, the confusion resulting from the same label being used for opposite meanings in different places or times.

 

[MDZ]

Gadahfis body guard?

Correct.

 

[EdRooney]

Camino,

You might be interested in this article by Edward Herman on Pinker's Better Angels. He makes an excellent case that Pinker cherry picked his data, and that in fact Matías is right, we are living in the most violent of ages.

 

[camino no tomado]

Camino,

You might be interested in this article by Edward Herman on Pinker's Better Angels. He makes an excellent case that Pinker cherry picked his data, and that in fact Matías is right, we are living in the most violent of ages.

Thanks for the reply Ed. I'm somewhat familiar with the critiques by Herman and others and have also heard Pinker address some of the issues they raise. Frankly, much of the criticism is merely anecdotal--amounting to little more than nibbling around the edges--or is blatantly ideological in origin (the interests of neither the hard right nor the hard left are served by the public becoming less fearful). I've not seen anything that rises to the level of refuting Pinker's conclusions. It's difficult to convince people of something that contradicts their gut feeling or the conventional wisdom (and yet so simple to pander to fear) but until someone else does the necessary scholarship--invests the time and effort to marshall and collate as many sources as Pinker--and is able to demonstrate an opposite conclusion, I think "Angels" will remain the book they wished they'd written.

Edit: clarified the line on ideology and fear.

 

[Joe]

the free market at work:
http://dailysignal.c...m_medium=social

Since the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of unlimited political contributions this is the wave of the future. I wouldn't call it a free market, more like Crony Capitalism, aka Socialism for the Rich run amok.

 

[internationalguy]

Absolutely