NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm working on a political spectrum that will be a little more complex than the ones I've come across. Basically, I plan to build a four part questionaire in which each question has a negative or positive value (negative being more libertarian, positive being more athoritarian). The questions should be straighforward and have an obvious implication to modern day issues.

The four parts are as such:
Gov’t selection (political; democracy->despotism)
Economic modeling (economic; capitalism->socialism)
Social values (social; liberal->conservative)
International diplomacy (military; isolationism->imperialism)

I think political and social would be the same thing. I don't know any examples of dictatorships being relatively free.

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R j00 b45h|n9 m3j3 6r4mm4r, ph45c|57?
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Yeah that's right.

Gov’t selection (political; democracy->despotism)

Neither democracy nor despotism is libertarian. Libertarian would favour individual rights over any authority, whether democratic or despotic.

Social values (social; liberal->conservative)
Both liberal and conservative can be either libertarian or authoritarian. If either of them compel people to behave a certain way socially then they are authoritarian. For example: not prohibiting churches from performing gay weddings: libertarian. Making churches perform gay weddings: authoritarian. Banning enslavement: libertarian. Affirmative action: authoritarian.

Both liberal and conservative can be either libertarian or authoritarian. If either of them compel people to behave a certain way socially then they are authoritarian. For example: not prohibiting churches from performing gay weddings: libertarian. Making churches perform gay weddings: authoritarian. Banning enslavement: libertarian. Affirmative action: authoritarian.

Liberal and conservative in the sense of American political parties are really not that different. They rely on flip answers that are often inconsistent and characterize two authoritarian parties rather than one authoritarian and one non-authoritarian party.

That is why the democrats oppose guns even though they are less authoritarian than the republicans in other ways.

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R j00 b45h|n9 m3j3 6r4mm4r, ph45c|57?
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Neva!

I think political and social would be the same thing. I don't know any examples of dictatorships being relatively free.


The Allied States of Opal Isle. (Unless you are talking about reality...but then again, so many people confuse reality with ideality...)

I think political and social would be the same thing. I don't know any examples of dictatorships being relatively free.

Firstly, thats your opinion. You must be careful to watch yourself for that.

Secondly, whether or not it is possible, it is concieable that a society could have no laws concerning, say, cannibus, abortion, gays, races, and what ever else you could think of, and still have a despotism.

The "Liberataian vs Authoratarian" was meant to indicate a general trend, not an absolute rule.

I would go to www.politicalcompass.org for a good political spectrum. They have a economic and a political/social scale for things.

Imagine a coordinate plane. The x-axis is the first dilemma of government: feedom vs. order. The y-axis is the next, much more recent one: freedom vs. equality. The zero coordinate is freedom because all humans without government are completely free. They are in a "state of nature" as Locke put it. The four quadrants represent the four main political ideologies. They are in order going clockwise: communitarian, liberal, conservative, libertarian, and liberal. Wish I had a picture.