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Just trying to gauge to political leanings of the average person on Snapzu

I am too new to Snapzu to have this figured out but I know reddit is very liberal and Voat is very conservative. Where do we stand here? Thoughts?

8 years ago by Harvo with 36 comments

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  • FivesandSevens (edited 8 years ago)
    +12

    I don't know which way the average person here leans, but I do see a bit less of the kind of ill-informed, name-calling, click-baity posts (from any point on the political spectrum) that other sites often have. I like that about Snapzu. As a liberal, I don't mind reading posts expressing ideas I disagree with, so long as they aren't just rants about "libtards" and "Obummer."

    • Gozzin (edited 8 years ago)
      +4

      I feel the same way. I leave politics and name calling out of my posts on all forums I belong to. I'm a liberal,but more of a middle of the road person and chronic American socialist. I hate politics btw and think everyone should have a living wage.

  • madjo
    +7

    I'm pretty much socialist. But I am not American. :)

    • spaceghoti
      +7

      I'm pretty much socialist, but I am from the US. ;)

      • madjo
        +6

        Socialists Unite! starts singing The Internationale :-D

    • Qukatt
      +3

      hey diddily ho socialisterino!

      non- US socialist Highfive!

  • AdelleChattre (edited 8 years ago)
    +6

    I knew it. They got to you, didn’t they? Did They send you? Who are you working for‽

  • LacquerCritic
    +5

    I'm personally quite liberal - I voted for the Liberal party of Canada this most recent election and I'm pretty happy with how Justin Trudeau and the LPC are doing so far - my biggest complaint is probably their stance on the TPP, really. If I had to be more specific, I'm very liberal socially but a bit more conservative financially, though my issues would be more cutting waste at the bureaucratic level that cutting social services, so who knows.

  • SMcIntyre
    +5

    I'm a Rockefeller Republican. We've been pushed out of the party mostly for awhile, but we're starting to make a comeback.

    • FivesandSevens (edited 8 years ago)
      +6

      If you guys could go ahead and put a rush on that comeback, that'd be great! See if you can round up some Eisenhower Republicans along the way too. ;-)

      • SMcIntyre
        +4

        It's been a tough fight, but we're slowly but surely starting to gain some ground. If we could just get the Christian extremists and the Tea Party (I know, that's a little redundant) to go off and form their own party, things might actually start getting done.

        • FivesandSevens (edited 8 years ago)
          +4

          Yeah, but then you've gotta deal with neo-cons, Reagan-era D.C. insiders, and whatever people like Roger Ailes are. As a fan of your brand - from across the aisle, if you will - I've thought a lot about this. IMHO, the formation of a far-right third party isn't hard to imagine, especially if the Wall Street/Koch anti-regulation GOP factions join it. But gaining ground in D.C. and in boardrooms might be less realistic. I wish you the best, however, and will be pulling for you all!

          • SMcIntyre
            +5

            I think there's a sizable group of people who are only in that camp because that's where the power is at the moment. Once we start gaining a little more ground, and make it safe for those people to come in from the cold, things will start to snowball. I also believe that there are a lot, a lot of Independents (and more than a few Democrats) who would come home to the Republican Party if we could get the Christian Right under control, and divest the Tea Party altogether.

            • FivesandSevens
              +5

              All very good points. I know quite a few independents and closeted moderate Republicans that would be on board for that. Do you have a politician in mind that could carry that banner?

            • SMcIntyre
              +4
              @FivesandSevens -

              Therein lies the problem. The money is on the far right at the moment, so that's where candidates have to run. Believe it or not- and I know people are going to freak out when I say this, but Donald Trump is actually best chance we have. Whether you like him as a candidate or not, the biggest thing Trump is doing though is kicking the ever-living-crap out of the Republican leadership and embarrassing the establishment candidates.

              The best case scenario is for him to get the nomination and lose in November. That would be enough to cause a massive revolt in the Party, and then we rebuild a new, much more modern, Republican party from the ashes.

            • FivesandSevens
              +5
              @SMcIntyre -

              I couldn't agree more. I hope others can see that as well. I find him despicable as a person but think he is also a symptom of a hidebound party that's become too beholden to its hardliners in both the right wing and the establishment - and that's why he won't win a general election. He's doubled down on the hardline nativist, authoritarian stuff that can't win in the electoral college. The Reagan-era hardliner stuff and the anti-government stuff won't either. But without the Trump nativists, Tea Partiers, and Christian right, the GOP could actually pivot toward what I think you mean by Rockefeller Republicanism. I hope that happens, and I hope the Democrats adjust their rhetoric accordingly if it does. I just worry what the far right might do if given its freedom from the GOP. Not too many voices of moderation or strategy over there, but plenty of anger and disaffection.

              What about Huntsman for a standard-bearer? I don't know a ton about him and I know he's running as a Libertarian, but he always struck me as a throwback Republican in terms of policy and temperament - though that could just be in comparison to his contemporaries.

            • Appaloosa (edited 8 years ago)
              +4
              @FivesandSevens -

              Huntsman is a very capable and experienced individual. I like his style, delivery, message. He is moderate and tempered in his positions and obviously has a firm grasp of negotiating...aka compromising, which we have certainly lost in the polarized environment we are in. His Mormon background has been a contentious issue to some extent, and may cloud a positive picture of him for many, both within the religion and outside.

              I agree with the Trump sentiment. I love the fact that all of the entrenched Republicans are being sidelined. Trump is winning because he is an outsider....and people are sick of insiders. The same could be said for Bernie. They are throwing the insider Hillary over the side. I think both parties need a good cleansing. With a 15% approval rating for Congress, the majority feel that way, not the minority.

            • FivesandSevens
              +4
              @Appaloosa -

              Thanks. You've confirmed what I suspected about Huntsman. I don't know if he'd pass muster as a Rockefeller Republican, but he'd have outsider appeal if the party wanted to cut the far right and establishment factions loose.

              I agree about the appeal of outsiders right now. Both parties are too entrenched in the world of special interests and D.C. insider politics. But IMO the main problem with outsiders has always been that they're not all equal in their outsider-ness. Some of them have been on the outside because in less turbulent times people could see more clearly that they had no business anywhere near the levers of power.

            • Appaloosa
              +4
              @FivesandSevens -

              Sure, Trump has been dancing around the halls of power for many years, The Clinton's at his wedding to boot. Cruz gets tagged for his "outsider" loans, so they are not that far from the Golden Fleece....and Bernie has been in politics all of his life, but is considered an outsider. Are any of them truly capable to be a president? Who knows, but they certainly are capable of connecting with their constituents and that alone is driving changes in the status quo.

            • FivesandSevens
              +3
              @Appaloosa -

              True. I like that people are rethinking the status quo. I prefer Bernie's take on it because he's focused on solutions that I believe could benefit the most people and shift the tone of politics away from fear-mongering, aggression and cultural revanchism.

            • Appaloosa
              +3
              @FivesandSevens -

              I like many of Bernie's stands, but I am leery of government given perks.

              “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

              ― Alexander Fraser Tytler

            • SMcIntyre
              +3
              @FivesandSevens -

              If we could get the Christian Right and the Tea Party to split off and form their own party, and open the door for the moderates who got pushed out to come back, we'd gain far more than we'd lose; it's the textbook definition of "addition through subtraction". With them gone, and candidates no longer having to try and “out crazy” each other in order to win the nomination, Republican candidates would be able to focus solely on the real issues. Sound Republican policies, absent the Christian agenda, would be hard for the Democrats to beat.

              As for John Huntsman, he's not a terrible choice but I'm not sure he's what we need. If things go as I mentioned earlier (Trump wins nomination but loses the General Election), the party would be in chaos. We need someone who'll be able to fight through that, take charge, and actually lead the party; in short we're going to need a leader who can kick a little ass. I don't know that John Huntsman is that kind of leader.

            • FivesandSevens
              +3
              @Appaloosa -

              I am too, if they are misappropriated. I believe that a society has to care for its most vulnerable and keep a wary eye on its most powerful. That's why I think Wall Street and billionaires should lose some of their government-given perks and we should spend some of that (our) money on society as a whole and caring for the least among us. Not because the wealthy deserve to be punished (some likely do, but that's a job for the wary eye of regulators, who I think have a bigger role to play in a healthy society) but because such perks, given to those who are already doing very, very well, are misappropriated IMHO.

              Turns out that that Tytler quote is misattributed. It seems that it was invented by some American anti-New Dealers in the mid 20th century and attributed to Tytler (an anti-democracy monarchist), likely to give them extra weight. I'm not sure who they had in mind as far as "the world's greatest civilizations," but I'm not sure that history shows us anything quite so cut and dry about the cycles of "civilization." The warning about the risks of apathy and selfishness seems solid, but the dependence part is harder for me to understand, in a broad historical context or as a natural result of social apathy and selfishness.

            • AdelleChattre (edited 8 years ago)
              +4
              @SMcIntyre -

              I don’t get it. Jon Huntsman gave up on the Republican Party. He’s not in the clown car any longer. Because he realized what it’s become, and that was before it got to where it is this year. From what you’ve said, I would think you’d be more interested in where he’s gone than the smoking cinders of the party he quit in absolute, unmitigated disgust. All due respect to the roughly even half of the country’s electorate that identifies as Republican, but this is a party that has devolved to the point that the thinking-person’s go-to most-sane likely candidate is the doomsday prophecy Christian Dominionist that’s Hell-bound for leather on carpet bombing as a foreign policy. Death, even of a political party, can be a relief. Let it go, already. A very great many Democrats are right there with you, ready for their party to go peacefully.

            • FivesandSevens
              +3
              @SMcIntyre -

              I see what you mean. It's a tall order. A post-Christian Right/Tea Party mess would take a while to clean up. No doubt many would volunteer in hopes of being the new face of the GOP (or whatever it may be called by then). Here's hoping someone worthy pulls it off, if it comes to that.

            • Appaloosa
              +3
              @FivesandSevens -

              Ha Ha....no more Goodreads.com for quotes!....but the "Tytler cycle" has some merit points. When 62 individuals own as much wealth as 3.5 billion, there is something out of balance. Part of it is the consolidation of power though wealth, ie our current plutocracy. The aggregators of wealth inject that into the political process to further consolidate. It becomes self serving. They in turn rob people of opportunity, which I see as the greatest loss in society right now. You see it everywhere in the world, and automation is just around the corner, displacing even more opportunity.

              Consolidation is the enemy of opportunity.

              I see some talk about a basic wage, a stipend given by government to every citizen and It may come to that some day. People should dread that. It really is the ultimate loss of opportunity.

            • FivesandSevens
              +3
              @Appaloosa -

              I couldn't agree more about consolidation and I am very wary of a national wage. Such ideas have the ring of real desperation to them, and despite what we hear from the politicians, I don't think we're that far up S**t Creek yet.

              I think sufficient opportunity to take a national wage off the table can be created through correcting consolidation, ending plutocracy, and investing in society through things like infrastructure repair and creation, new energy sources, addiction treatment, education (which is a whole other topic I won't uncork here), etc. It's not the final answer or guaranteed to be awesome, but I believe it should be tried before we dismiss government spending as a tonic entirely simply because of its potential to negatively affect opportunity. We've seen how deregulation, multinationals, and neoliberalism affect opportunity and they're no sure thing either.

  • mcoorlim
    +5

    Socialist with forays into collectivism.

  • NinjaKlaus
    +5

    On the political compass site, I place something like -4 down and -2 over. or vice versa. Which means I am theoretically in the center for the most part, or left leaning libertarian. In fact I usually vote Republican, not always but usually. I just don't like a lot of policies of the left, I don't believe banning guns will help anything, I don't believe insurance reform fixed healthcare. Then again I don't believe a profits first economy is helpful to the public, I don't think mandatory jail time is necessary, medical marijuana is ok by me and stay the hell out of my bedroom, you're a politician not a sex advisor. So, I guess I'd say I'm center and vote for whoever has the most for me personally. I hate party lines too.

    So I think I'm what is usually classified as Independent in the US.

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  • kdawson
    +5

    Personally I am so far left and liberal that I'm probably some sort of socialist. I think we need to take care of each other period. On the other hand I am a gun owner/shooter and I think gun control is magical thinking (Oh! If only we didn't have those guns the sun would shine) that takes vital attention and resources away from the real problem, I.E. why do humans do such things. I also think that liberals should acquire firearms and learn to use them, especially if a Republican is elected president. The right wing militias are doing so and helplessness is not a condition I like.

  • CrookedTale
    +4

    I don't think it matters much what political affiliation everybody is. It seems Snapzu doesn't really lean any which way. Personally I am Pirate, not Pirate Party. Just Pirate.

    "Damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under protection of our own courage; had you not better make one of us, than sneak after the asses of those villains for employment?" "Black Sam" Bellamy

  • catholicismwow
    +3

    Liberal. I'd expect that to be most common on here given the type of submissions I see.

  • MAGISTERLUDI
    +3

    It's simple, just look to the source(s)/publishers of submittals.