Are There Issues Where One Falls Is Neither Right Nor Left?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I was reading a thread about a departed poster and it made me think of some of the most contentious issues on DU. I think there is a broad consensus on the major issues of the day such as same sex marriage. strengthening the safety net, opposing elective wars, due process for terror suspects, et cetera.

But there are a number of issues where it doesn't seem a consensus exists. These issues include

-corporal punishment

-male circumcision

-hate speech laws

-banning of certain breeds of dogs

-gun ownership and registration

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. Other than capital/corporal punishment... most of these issues are personal freedom issues.

I think a true progressive would want to afford people more freedoms rather than restrict them.

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. I've decided that attempting to define "liberal" is a fools errand.

At best, you create a doctrine with which a diminishingly small percentage of the population can fully agree with.

So, my answer to your question would be "yes, all of them".

[slackmaster]

3. I care about the right/left dimension a lot less than the libertarian/authoritarian dimension

As an eighth-grade history teacher pointed out, going to the extreme right takes you to the same place as going to the extreme left does.

Or as a Chinese friend said, a left jack-boot up your ass feels no better than a right jack-boot up your ass.

[sui generis]

4. I was wondering when circumcision would resurface

it's been the allotted time.

I think the difference is between authoritarianism and personal choice, not political parties. Go far enough to the left or to the right and you end up with authoritarians who think a face slap is a good enough reason to break up a family forever, male circumcision should be punishable by death, anyone who disagrees that gun ownership should be entirely unregulated should be divested of their property and citizenship, and that poodles should be outlawed across the nation and their owners forced to perm and shave their body hair into topiaric patterns as penitance for owning a froo froo dog.

Seriesly.

And all that just on DU.

[Evasporque]

5. dumping sewage into Lake Michagan...

The only people for it are the uber wealthy whose lakeside homes suffer sewer backups.

Yet it continues...

[socialist_n_TN]

6. Well, I'm REAL left, but.......................

I'm not knee jerk about it. I do think about issues. I own guns, I'm uncircumcised, I blame the owners rather than the dogs, hate speech is protected as long as it doesn't advocate violence, and I have spanked my children. I don't know where on the spectrum that puts me, but those are the conclusions I've come to about those issues.

[Hippo_Tron]

7. The Olive Garden is also contentious on DU

[dems_rightnow]

20. I figured you were one of the OG types

Ugh.

[Echo In Light]

8. "Language gives you away." - George Carlin (a lefty)

;)

[JustinL]

9. The Federal Reserve, immigration policy, pornography n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. The Pornography Debates Cause The Most Fireworks

~

[JustinL]

16. also education-related issues

There is a broad consensus on DU against abstinence-only education and creationism/intelligent design instruction, but there is division on other issues, including:

-charter schools

-school uniforms

-single-sex classrooms

[Echo In Light]

18. The legitimacy of the two political name brands may very well be the most caustic

[SteppingRazor]

11. The site politicalcompass.org gets played up on DU every now and then...

and I think it's x-y axis of politics would help explain this. The reason there is disagreement on these issues is because they are not traditional, left-right issues. (They are not "x axis.") Instead, they are issues that fall on what the Political Compass site calls the y-axis -- libertarian vs. authoritarian. People who want to institute hate speech laws, ban certain breeds of dogs, promote strict gun control laws, etc. are more authoritarian. Those who have the opposite view are more libertarian. And yet, in the traditional left-right dynamic, both can be left of center.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

[bridgit]

19. Economic Left/Right: -5.00/Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.97

[SteppingRazor]

23. Hadn't done the test in a while. If anything, I've turned even more leftwing loon:

-8.00/-6.51 :silly:

[bridgit]

24. Oh yeah, last time I pushed my dot into the SW corner by eliminating...

The middle, turning the Q panning for implanted tag lines & jerks then hopping back & forth between Strongly This & Strongly That simple - and almost fell out the bottom of Gandhi's left pocket...so as to say ;)

[Ozymanithrax]

12. The way we talk about something can be a problem...

I oppose the death penalty in all cases. There is no remedy if you get it wrong. I see no benefit to physically inflicting pain as punishment someone for an offense. But prisons suck as places to live and I am not opposed to them.

I would oppose a law against hate speech. I support hate crime law that makes hate as a motive for a crime subject to greater punishment.

I wold oppose laws against male circumcision and laws that require male circumcision.

Banning breeds of dogs. I'm ambivalent. If one dog can mount another, then let it breed.

Gun ownership. Registering your gun does not stop you from owning it. I must register to vote, a right under the constitution granted by citizenship. If I am not registered, I can not vote. If registering a gun is a constitutional offense, then forcing people to register to vote is equally offensive. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." But if I didn't register, they can deny me my right to vote.

I don't think we should all agree on any of these things.

[kirby]

13. Immigration most certainly n/t

[kctim]

14. No

unless one doesn't care one bit about the issue.

"Left and Right" are not 'absolute' positions. There are incremental steps with each, but people wrongly use their own stance to judge if anothers stance is absolute "left or right" in order to discount and silence a differing view.

I support anybody marrying anybody they so wish (adults) but President Obama does not. Does that make him a "teabagger?" A Republican? Should I label him as such? Of course not, and rank and file Democrats should not do that to each other either.

[X_Digger]

15. Well, no political compass is really one dimensional..

Right v Left is only one axis.. I'd add authoritarian v libertarian at a minimum.

You can have an authoritarian left (the state should outlaw circumcision on males as a 'public health' initiative), a libertarian left (the choice to circumcise one's child should be up to parents based on full knowledge of all the benefits and risks), etc etc. (bad example, I know.)

So even with general agreement on a topic, how that position is.. umm.. advocated? propagated? enforced? can differ.

[bridgit]

17. That's a plenty fair Q, but not so easy to answer at its interface where when...

FOX & The Light-Pale Bagger Cult of Ailes submits that: laying scourge upon America braodcasting from Hitler's glass & brass bunker because she so little uses the words 'war' & 'terror' together again like they were focused grouped, bought & paid for like back in the glory days. Stirring the pot like a solvent they dilute the membrane then spit that NYC SUV bomber Shahzad should have *never* been Mirandized, should this revoke that shred The Consti head on pike offering a Glenn fucking Beck a foil that says as with the calming effect of a day full of sunshine and fresh meds, "No. I'm sorry. But *I* respect The Constitution. Faisal Shahzad, is an American and has every right to (fill in the blank)"


So not up the middle, not any more. That's where home-spun Texans say the dead armadillo is; and who wants to be that? The fence is there too. Chameleons move & stop jig/jump/reel peering through pickets & leaves changing not just their minds but their colors & patterns. And while colorful & interesting - a scene that remains able to otherwise crackle with a pointless display of clocks & diluted mediocrity. So while some things make perfect sense or they had better as in, "I never liked him anyway, he wasn't right in the head."


There's allot of pieces to your answer somewhere else - like a quilt

Take your hands, palms out - leave only your index fingers up & push them together so you can see your fingernails - roll your index fingers forward facing down so now you can see your fingerprints, and begin to move them apart equidistantly as far as your arms will outstretch: on that line from what should be a point of balance to the L&R-wing tips are some of the metrics it is in my opinion you are referencing - corny yes, but degrees of separation - not too unlike sliding scale mosh pits teeming with kinetic release at 'the deep ends'

:scared:

Where people shout "Huzzah! We don't need no stinking badges!" "We're like herding CATS, dude!" "Fuck Yeah!"

Which, loving kittehs as I do, I sometimes still find a sad position having found even them dead on the side of the road, off on the shoulder whether they were hit in the slow lane, the fast lane or dancing with the chameleons. Maybe someone still cared and laid them there as though sleeping. Which is poetic enough for me cause I don't like to have to think that kittehs ever die. As for me, however, its a good thing I'm made of rubber cause it never takes long anyhow ~

"Define 'kitteh'" "You're an insensitive asshole, bridgit!" "Memememe, there's that bridgit girl hahahahaha!!!" "Stupid!" "Everyone *here* is laughing at *you*!" "Yea, Dumbass!!" "STFU!" "SUFO&D!" "You're insane!" "You're five people you need to be medicated" "Uck-fey ooo-yeh itch-bay, hahahahaha" "I don't even *have* fingerprints, bridgit, you idiot!!" "Broken link" and that's the shit from people I agree with as-where civil exchanges are better thought of as reciprocal, summary matters shit llike that cause I guess I'm ah'pot/hole, sooooooooooo

Good Luck! :hi:

[William Z. Foster]

21. there is no consensus on any issues

"Same sex marriage" - just about everyone says that they support that, because they can't say otherwise and stay, but there is certainly no consensus on equality.

"Strengthening the safety net" - again most everyone will at least pay lip service to that, but there are quite s few people who aggressively defend and promote privatization and regressive taxation and argue against organized Labor. Many argue in favor of "personal choice" as the best approach, or even only approach, for effecting social change.

"Opposing elective wars" - there are quite a few people who support and defend what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Due process for terror suspects" - no consensus there, never mind terrorists. People are arguing in opposition to due process being afforded to workers who may be undocumented, or may or may not be immigrants.

The right wing and the Republican party know what they stand for, know what the battle is about and where the battle lines are drawn, and know which side they are on. They are consistent and relentless and they get results, even though they are fighting against the best interests of 90% of the people or more.

None of that is true for us. That is the source of all of the confusion, controversy, and all of the failures.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Pigeon holes are for pigeons.