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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 23:01 
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johno1066 wrote:
prof beard wrote:
As expected:

Economic Left/Right: -6.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23

Firmly in the bottom left corner - a libertarian lefty!

Prof Beard


I would never have guessed


And I thought I was hiding it so well :wink:

Prof Beard


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2005 23:11 
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Zamzara wrote:
I don't agree with where they have placed the parties on that chart: the Greens are left/authoritarian and the BNP are right/authoritarian.

The Greens are libertarian on a number of issues such as the laws covering drugs and sexual relationships, and also on curbing detention without trial and defending the jury system.

On anything that relates to motor vehicles, they are extremely authoritarian.

As it no longer plays much of a part in our politics, we tend to forget the "traditional right" which believed in hanging, flogging, racial purity, curbing the rights of women, gays and ethnic minorities, censorship, conscription and a strong role for the Church in national life.

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 02:04 
prof beard wrote:
johno1066 wrote:
prof beard wrote:
As expected:

Economic Left/Right: -6.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23

Firmly in the bottom left corner - a libertarian lefty!

Prof Beard


I would never have guessed


And I thought I was hiding it so well :wink:

Prof Beard



With a score like that? :lol:


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 11:47 
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I guess you'd call me a lefty, but pragmatic social democrat is probably closer to what I believe.

The Grauniad is far more centre-left (aka "woolly liberal" to some) than "loony left". The facts on the ground are that permanent immigration does far more good to this country than harm, the illegal immigrants that cause the most damage to our economy are in fact white Australians, Kiwis and South Africans who overstay their visas*, and that the vast majority of asylum seekers would gladly work and pay taxes if they were allowed to.

Other facts on the ground are that the President of the USA lied us into a war so that he could get one back for his daddy - and that our Prime Minister went along for the ride, in all likelihood because he believed a Tory/US Republican alliance could seriously threaten his political standing - and that the USA is currently a very much stratified society where the wealthy leave the poor and middle-classes to hang out to dry.

To talk about more relevant stuff, I believe that speed limits are a necessary evil, but that the current method of enforcing them is actually doing more harm than good. I don't buy the argument that NSL should be increased or removed due to the improvement in cars over then last decade or so, and I believe strongly that we're going to have to find a better system of transport for all. Personal freedom's one thing, but if it's screwing up the future for our kids, we need to look at how selfish we're prepared to be.

I firmly believe that driving a gas-guzzling performance car is going to be as frowned upon as smoking in front of children in the next decade or two.

Tc.

* - Of course, because they're white - you don't get the Sun/Mail/Express/People/Star complaining about them...


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 13:10 
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going off topic here but I feel the need to ask:

_Tc_ wrote:
the illegal immigrants that cause the most damage to our economy are in fact white Australians, Kiwis and South Africans who overstay their visas


you obviously haven't been to Australia recently if you feel the need to attach 'white' in front it. The white australia policy died a long time ago.
While I agree that most illegal immigrants are from these countries, the reverse also applies in that in Australia the majority of illegals are from the UK. A fair swap no? Our governments don't worry about them particulary because they know that the majority will eventually get bored and go home.
That said, what I can't see is how these visa overstayers damage the economy as they have 'no recourse to public funds' but presumably they're still having to buy stuff to live so are at least paying VAT even if they're managing to evade income tax.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 13:11 
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_Tc_ wrote:
IAustralians, Kiwis and South Africans who overstay their visas


yeah, but if you sent them all back where they came from, all the bars in London would have no staff. On the upside, though, there would be thousands of affordable rental properties available in the Earls court triangle!

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 15:29 
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handy wrote:
_Tc_ wrote:
IAustralians, Kiwis and South Africans who overstay their visas


yeah, but if you sent them all back where they came from, all the bars in London would have no staff. On the upside, though, there would be thousands of affordable rental properties available in the Earls court triangle!

:lol: Funnily enough I hear that English ex-pats in the Melbourne area are planning parties if we win the Ashes. Wonder if the Aussies will close all the English pubs and send 'em all back here in disgust. :hehe:

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 15:57 
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Gatsobait wrote:
Wonder if the Aussies will close all the English pubs and send 'em all back here in disgust.

if you win, I'm leaving.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 16:02 
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handy wrote:
On the upside, though, there would be thousands of affordable rental properties available in the Earls court triangle!


Not if all the expats came back from Australia, NZ and SA, there wouldn't.

Cheers
Peter

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 16:35 
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Like the prof, according to the test I'm a libertarian lefty, right between Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. 8-)

Looks like my socialist worker roots are still finding some expression. :)

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 16:38 
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johnsher wrote:
if you win, I'm leaving.

Aw, it's been twenty years or so. If we win you'll get over it, especially if normal service is resumed afterwards. :wink:

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 17:34 
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johnsher wrote:
you obviously haven't been to Australia recently if you feel the need to attach 'white' in front it. The white australia policy died a long time ago.


Overtly, maybe... but to hear some of the pols coming in and out of the Australian High Commission talk, it's very much still going on under the surface. They're actively encouraging white immigration to have an excuse to refuse Asians entry into the country... but that's going *waaay* off topic.

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That said, what I can't see is how these visa overstayers damage the economy as they have 'no recourse to public funds' but presumably they're still having to buy stuff to live so are at least paying VAT even if they're managing to evade income tax.


Aye, but it does kind of shoot a hole in the 'Eastern European Immigrants Taking All Our Jerbs' argument that our right-wing media seems to revel in. They only care if it's swarthy or brown people doing it... not unlike the AHC.

J.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 21:26 
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 20:24 
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Zamzara wrote:
I don't agree with where they have placed the parties on that chart: the Greens are left/authoritarian and the BNP are right/authoritarian. Not sure about the Lib Dems as they tend to have a bit of a mixed bag of policies.


They clarify the positions on this page.

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It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 09:52 
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My result was similar to Petes, and only confirmed one thing, the only party that came close to my "blob" was the greens, and I disagree significantly with them when it comes to transport. So I have to stick with my original assessment of being totally unrepresented, and from most of the others that have published their results it would appear that the same is true for them. So here is the biggest truth of UK politics: Nobody represents the majority.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 18:52 
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Rewolf wrote:
My result was similar to Petes, and only confirmed one thing, the only party that came close to my "blob" was the greens, and I disagree significantly with them when it comes to transport. So I have to stick with my original assessment of being totally unrepresented, and from most of the others that have published their results it would appear that the same is true for them. So here is the biggest truth of UK politics: Nobody represents the majority.


Sadly that is a fact - so maybe, just maybe the time has to ditch countless years of politics and move to Proportional representation - you tell me


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 19:13 
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I quite like the Aussie system, when I got an Aussie to explain to me in words of one syllable HTH it worked. I had thought it was bog standard PR, but AIUI that only applies to the Senate (upper house). The House of Representatives (though he called it the House of Reprehensibles, which I thought describes most of our lot pretty well) is elected by preferential voting. You vote for all candidates in order of your preference e.g. if it was done here I might vote Tory 1st, Independant 2nd, Labour 3rd, LibDem 4th, Green 5th, Loony 6th. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the first choice vote then they win the seat. If no-one gets >50% the one with the lowest score drops out. So if the Tory candidate in the example had the lowest percentage of first choice votes he'd go and all his supporters would then have their second choices counted instead - in my case it would be for the Independant candidate.

IMO it's a better system than either plain first-past-the-post or PR, especially when combined with compulsory voting. It more or less ensures that winners get some semblance of popular support while avoiding the strong chance of hung parliaments that comes with PR. About the only serious drawback is that you have to vote for all candidates, and there may be individuals on the ballot paper that you can't stand and to whom you don't want to give even your last choice vote. The other slight problem is that I can imagine people who really can't be arsed just writing 1,2,3,4 and so on all the way down the ballot, which means extra votes for whoever's name is first alphabetically (or however they decide the order on the list). Perhaps the very first box should simply be marked 'Abstain' to deal with that. IMO we should trial it in this country instead of all these crappy postal schemes.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 20:15 
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Gatsobait wrote:
About the only serious drawback is that you have to vote for all candidates

well you do and you don't. The parties list their preferences so by ticking 'above the line' for a party then your preferences allocated automatically. It's only if you don't agree with that that you have to number all the boxes.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 01:26 
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Yes, I've been told about the above the line bit, but IMO the same thing still applies. You might be happy with nearly all candidates but think that one is the worst kind of lying filth and the last person who should be given the slightest hint of power. But AIUI ticking above the line implies support for all candidates of that party. Or have I misunderstood what I was told? Incidentally, I heard Queensland was trying out a revised preferential vote which allows a voter to not mark a preference against one or more candidates. I forgot about it when I posted earlier, but it sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 07:26 
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Gatsobait wrote:
You might be happy with nearly all candidates but think that one is the worst kind of lying filth and the last person who should be given the slightest hint of power. But AIUI ticking above the line implies support for all candidates of that party. Or have I misunderstood what I was told?

no, I don't think you've misunderstood. Let's say you've got Tory, Libs, and Labour. If you tick the tory box you're voting To, Li, La. If you tick the Labour box: La, Li, To and the Lib box Li, La, To
If instead you want to vote To, La, Li then you'll need to number those boxes 1,2,3 yourself.
There may be someone you think is a nutter low on the list somewhere but the reality is the outcome is not generally a major surprise - one of the major parties or a well-known independent.


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