h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The "official" party line of the Dems is still liberal, and so are most of the people who continue to vote for them. However, lately it is impossible to tell your ass from an elephant without a scorecard.

I'll give the Greens a mention in that section... fair enough?

Ass, elephant, same party in my opinion. No matter who you vote for in those two, nothing *really* changes. Plus they've got some great collusion going on to keep the other parties from encroaching on their turf.

I came across some new information about how widespread libertarianism is, and I have incorporated it. Let me know how it reads, would ya?

BTW... has everyone here taken that World's Smallest Political Quiz? It might be interesting to see where H2G2 scores...

There's an article on Gun Control in the US at http://www.h2g2.com/A190568. We're having some active discusion there too.

I've taken the World's Smallest Political Quiz- it just confirmed what I knew all along: I am a Libertarian.

Well it put me down as heavy left-liberal... but the quiz was created by idiots.

Just off the top of my head, who decided that disagreeing with "minimum wage laws cause unemployment" made you economically left-wing? That's not a statement about political philosophy, that's a statement about economic fact.

One which depends on the level the minimum wage is set at, amongst other things. At the right level, a minimum wage decreases the amount of support needed to the low-paid in all sorts of ways. It can also decrease unemployment by creating an incentive for the unemployed to bother to get a job - by reassuring them that they will always be better in a job than out. That means it's something that both leftwing and rightwing people can support - the former because it reduces inequality, the latter because it reduces taxes. And, heck, both because it makes the economy run better. The only people who won't are libertarians, because they have an ideological chip on their shoulder.

And there's absolutely *nothing* about the level of tax and spending, which has to be the number one division between the (economic)left and right. Everything else is just detail, frankly.

I would have to say that these two questions bear directly on tax and spending:

"End taxes. Pay for services with user fees."
"All foreign aid should be privately funded"

And the ideological part of that minimum wage question comes into play in the second sentence on it: "Repeal them."

BTW, I'm a Libertarian who supports minimum wage laws. Just so you know... we're not all dogmatic about our politics, and I would be shocked to find anyone of any political persuasion whatsoever who agrees with every item on their party's political platform. Another idea on the Lib ticket I don't support involves free, unrestricted migration throughout the world. That, coupled with a lack of minimum wage, would drive the economy of this country into the crapper faster than anything else I can think of... massive unemployment, homelessness, and welfare requirements would be the result. Labor is based on supply and demand, just as in any facet of the free-market economy. Too much labor supply drives down wages. And without some sort of lower limit, we could be back to the same sort of wages that they made in the '50's, only with the same buying power as in today.

I disagree. As far as I'm concerned, 'user fees' are just another form of taxation. You're just replacing global taxation with taxation at the point of delivery. {And the economists agree with me}

Right-wing would be to privatise those services so that they were no longer part of the government. As long as the services are under governmental control, it's left-wing.

On the btw - oh good. I'd been misled from the entry that it was very much an all or nothing thing: while you might be more or less left or right wing - you were either libertarian - or not. Oopsie

"You're just replacing global taxation with taxation at the point of delivery." - I agree. I also think that there are certain services that cannot be privatised... fire departments and road development (you can get contractors to do the building, but the actual planning needs to be centralised, or it becomes a mess) come to mind. But I do believe the government can get out of a lot of the things they are doing, and the result would drop taxes immensely. I have no problem sharing the burden for education, but 40% of my pay is just too much to take.

I define myself as a moderate libertarian. I support the social freedoms of the left wing, but I think they sell themselves short... here in the US, for example, it is they who are the champions for censorship and gun control. I also support the free-market principles of the right wing, but I think even they get overly involved, especially with corporate welfare. So this makes me a libertarian, which is neither right nor left wing.

But obviously, I think that the Libs go too far in their extremes. I don't support privatisation of schools... instead, I support the curtailing of the bureacracy involved in education, which is the major obstacle. I think the government must intervene in business to break up monopolies, and also to enforce health standards. In short, I believe the government needs to protect the people from corporate excess... this is in keeping with the spirit of libertarian philosophy, even though many libertarians are against the idea. I think it's the extremists who scare the rest of the country away from a political ideology that makes a whole lot of sense. What do you think... Sellers/Ventura for 2004?

Privatisation of schools could work... though it shouldn't be an excuse to reduce the amount of subsidy that they are given - educated citizens benefit everyone - so everyone should help pay for them.

I notice that few of the things about the libs you disagree with are in the entry...

Well, this isn't an article entitled "Colonel Sellers' Moderate Libertarianism", now, is it?

You misunderstand me - it *doesn't* mention things like the abolition of the minimum wage - which just happens to be one of the things which isn't in CS's moderate libertarianism...

co-incidence, of course...

Yes, I did misunderstand... I read "I notice that few" as "I notice that a few". Very bumbleheaded on my part.

It's probably not a coincidence in this case. I find the concept of abolishing minimum wage so unpalatable that I don't think I could bring myself to write about it. Plus, I'll end up generating a storm of criticism for that one when it goes on the homepage, and I'll end up telling people "no, I really don't agree with that part, now please don't throw that at me."

But really, I agree with the central philosophy, and I agree with their stance on crime and drugs, but after that, I have differences with almost everything... just not to such a degree as the minimum wage thing. You'll notice I did include the immigration thing, which fills me with even more horrors than the minimum wage thing (it would have the same effect on the job market, but also raise the level of hate-crimes and bigotry). And there were a few other items that were left off, but mainly those were because they were Ameri-centric. It was not my intent to lay out the entire party platform, but just to let people understand what the movement is all about.