[beardo]

"No nuclear power" is the norm here

Well that sucks.

Nuclear power is dangerous, and bad for the environment.



This'll get him riled up.

Should I prepare popcorn?

[Tau]

"No nuclear power" is the norm here

How do Australians feel about LFTR technology, then? Does that fall under the category of "fission=bad"?

[Rushy]

"No nuclear power" is the norm here

How do Australians feel about LFTR technology, then? Does that fall under the category of "fission=bad"?

I doubt someone who thinks nuclear power is bad would bother differentiating between types of nuclear power. When you're dealing with people who think nuclear powerplants are all literally chernobyls waiting to happen, there isn't much you can do to assuage them.

[Vindictus]

The Greens are hardly extremist.

Political views that are very distant from the normal are defined as extreme. Thus, they're extremists.

No. People vote for the party they view as legitimate, as per what the media tells them. If you did a vote compass on everyone in the country, a big portion of people would share views with the Greens. They just don't get voted for because most people think smaller parties are a wasted vote, which is also a huge misconception in Australia as we use preferential voting and not first past the post.

[Tau]

"No nuclear power" is the norm here

How do Australians feel about LFTR technology, then? Does that fall under the category of "fission=bad"?

I doubt someone who thinks nuclear power is bad would bother differentiating between types of nuclear power. When you're dealing with people who think nuclear powerplants are all literally chernobyls waiting to happen, there isn't much you can do to assuage them.

I mean, there are legitimate arguments against nuclear power. Much like organic food and the anti-pharmaceuticals movement there's some valid reasoning mixed in with the idiocy and anti-science.

[Rushy]

No. People vote for the party they view as legitimate, as per what the media tells them. If you did a vote compass on everyone in the country, a big portion of people would share views with the Greens. They just don't get voted for because most people think smaller parties are a wasted vote, which is also a huge misconception in Australia as we use preferential voting and not first past the post.

Get it in line with all the other countries. Here in America, our Congressional approval rating is 15%, but our Congressional incumbency rate is 84%. Can't bother voting for someone else, that'd be a waste.

I mean, there are legitimate arguments against nuclear power. Much like organic food and the anti-pharmaceuticals movement there's some valid reasoning mixed in with the idiocy and anti-science.

The problem is those legitimate arguments get washed away when (most) people demanding change don't want change, they want the problem to go away entirely. "No nuclear power/no GMO/no modern medicine" There's no regulatory compromise, they just want it gone.

[Vindictus]

No. People vote for the party they view as legitimate, as per what the media tells them. If you did a vote compass on everyone in the country, a big portion of people would share views with the Greens. They just don't get voted for because most people think smaller parties are a wasted vote, which is also a huge misconception in Australia as we use preferential voting and not first past the post.

Get it in line with all the other countries. Here in America, our Congressional approval rating is 15%, but our Congressional incumbency rate is 84%. Can't bother voting for someone else, that'd be a waste.

Yes, well, your idiots that don't care about politics just won't vote. Our idiots are forced to, and will likely go with whatever narrative the media has assisted in pushing.

i.e 1,000 Asylum seekers deciding an election instead of a $40 billion communications network.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

The Australian anti-nuclear stance is interesting considering they're one of the few uranium-exporting nations (mostly to China.) I wonder how much of the anti-nuke argument is because it's a bigger cash-cow to export uranium than split it?

[jroa]

I expected to be a little closer to the middle. 

[Fortuna]

Instead you got backwoods redneck tier.

[Rushy]

It isn't terribly surprising that the only military people on here are authoritarian. A libertarian in the military is going to have a bad time. We do have them though. In fact one guy I know doesn't have a cell phone because "the government and NSA can track you" but lives on base. I don't think he sees what is so funny about that.

[Vindictus]

I play ACE/ARCO in Arma, that totally makes me military.

[Crudblud]

As I suspected.

[Thork]

I want to vote right wing libertarian.

Also Conservatives more right wing than UKIP? Who wrote that silly chart?

[Ghost Spaghetti]

I want to vote right wing libertarian.

Also Conservatives more right wing than UKIP? Who wrote that silly chart?

In fairness, it must be hard to put UKIP on that graph. Their policies are about as solid as the ale that Nigel quaffs. They wanted a flat rate of tax, then scrapped that less than a week after winning the European elections. Every manifesto has had to be re-written from scratch because they can never agree what should go in it.

You could just close your eyes and play 'pin the tail on the compass' as far as UKIP is concerned.

[Thork]

Well how about the Labour Party, UKIP and Conservatives all being more right wing than the BNP?

(For those not British)

The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right political party in the United Kingdom.

That chart doesn't mean anything. Its a gimmick. Its not a true representation of people's political spectrums.

[xasop]

That chart doesn't mean anything. Its a gimmick. Its not a true representation of people's political spectrums.

Yes, because politics is inherently two-dimensional and there is only one way to interpret someone's policies in order to plot them on a graph.

[Thork]

If you are going to try to term parties as left or right wing, you'd think there would be some effort to put the right wing parties on the right, and the left wing parties on the left. As I say, if not, these charts are meaningless.

[xasop]

If you are going to try to term parties as left or right wing, you'd think there would be some effort to put the right wing parties on the right, and the left wing parties on the left. As I say, if not, these charts are meaningless.

Indeed, and the right-wing parties are right of centre, and the left-wing parties are left of centre. However, when you add a second axis to give a more expressive representation of political views, some factors that would formerly have contributed to an extreme left-right positioning get transmuted to an extreme up-down positioning, such that the relative positions of parties on the left-right scale may change. You will notice that, although the BNP's leaning towards the right is fairly diminutive, they are very extremely authoritarian (moreso than any of the other parties), suggesting that the reasons for their classification as a "far-right" party are mainly social rather than economic.

Now, I'm not familiar enough with British politics to state definitively that this positioning is accurate. However, I can tell you that you can't expect a broad categorisation made using a one-dimensional political spectrum to apply on a two-dimensional extension. If you want to criticise their left-right positioning on the political compass, you're going to have to point to specific economic policies that support a free market, rather than citing a vague statement of their position on some other political scale.

I don't know what makes this particularly difficult for you to grasp, but please try to think before you type. I'm getting bored of explaining the obvious to you.

[Blanko]

I really wonder how people can associate authoritarianism with freedom of market. The USSR was authoritarian as fuck, did they qualify as right wing?

I wish people would just use the left-right axis in terms of economic policies. Anything more than that and you're getting into meaningless buzzword territory. Finland's populist party, for instance, is most commonly characterised as extreme right-wing despite them being one of the more socialistic parties in Finland.

Basically, fuck politics. Nobody ever says what they mean and mean what they say.