meritocrat

The common left-right political spectrum is an archaic method of cataloguing political viewpoints/ideologies.

Where would socially conservative (or liberal) views fit on the spectrum, for example?

George Oilwell

This may interest you.

Political Compass

Shake

That one is good, but here is a shorter quiz.

Hubble head

Absolutely time to ditch it. I've come to consider myself somewhere far outside the left and right these days and until we get a real education system back in place I will lean to whoever wants to really overhaul our public schools and pour money into them like there was no tommorrow. We could build and staff thousands of schools for 1/4 the cost of our imperialism and weapons' lust. It's truly sickening.

No doubt about it. Our system here is broken on many, many levels and the narrow little boxes of the so-called left and the so-called right are just the beginning.

ex-idaho

The problem isn't right or left its the lack of issues. This country operates on primarily 3 issues. Abortion, taxes and social security. You can add security in there but I don't feel that Americans are really that concerned otherwise they would be all over the Bush admin for not providing the funds promised post 9-11. Until other issues can be discussed and dealt with we will not really have any parties in this country. We talk alot about education but we haven't really done anything since integration. We talk alot about elimination poverty but the poor don't vote and when they do they vote Republican because of the Xian conservatives so they have alienated themselves. Cutting the label out of t-shirt dosen't change the t-shirt just like eliminating the labels of politics dosen't change the debate.

Dr. Retard

Well, maybe the left/right spectrum is useless, but some of the political slurs in currency still have their uses. Take "religious right" or "bleeding-heart liberal". Take someone who falls under either category, and you can predict his/her stance on abortion, gun control, the death penalty, welfare policies, defense spending, affirmative action, environmental issues, taxes, and civil liberties. That's a pretty disparate group of political topics, but somehow these people always follow their peers and end up with the same opinions.

Colander of Truth

Why not use them as they were originally intended: to relatively place positions on a continuum of statism. Left = less statism. more individualism; right = more statism, less individualism.

Relatively speaking:

Republican environment policy = left.
Democratic environment policy = right.

Republican abortion policy = right.
Democratic abortion policy = left.

Republican tax/welfare policy = left.
Democratic tax/welfare policy = right.

Pro-Affirmative action = right.
Anti-Affirmative action = left.

The constitution states that statism is to be used to promote the welfare of the people.

Loren Pechtel

It's not antiquated because it was *NEVER* a valid representation. It's not less valid now than it used to be.

johngalt

I don't think the whole thing should be ditched, but i think there needs to be some revision to the system.

ma1939

I think the left/right spectrum is outdated, and has been outdated for quite sometime. I think there should be four distinct political spectrums. None of these would necessarily be correlative to the others, though often certain positions within the respective spectrums would go hand in hand with others. In arguable order of importance, they are:

1.Globalist/anti-globalist
2.Capitalist/socialist
3.Libertarian/authoritarian
4.Fundamentalist/secular humanist

Of course, these spectrums are just parameters. Within these would be "extreme capitalists", "moderate socialists"; you get the idea. I think the left/right spectrum is convenient for indolent journalists and extremist political commentators on TV and radio, because it's easier to pigeonhole than to actually understand the abstruse motives and hidden agendas behind an individual's or an organization's stance on an issue.

I also think the terms "conservative" and "liberal" have lost their usefulness. In classical economics, a "liberal" is someone who believes in free trade and unfettered market fluctuations, a "conservative" is someone who wants high tariffs and agrarian protectionist policies. Does it make sense to label anti-capitalist socialists as "conservatives", because of their position on international trade? Plus, it's too clumsy to say you're a social "conservative", but an economic "liberal". "Radical" and "reactionary" are also rather antiquated and confusing terms.

We need to do away with the left/right, liberal/conservative spectrum. While this is an alternative political spectrum, I'm sure it's not necessarily the best one we can come up with.