POLL: As an Atheist, What Do You View as Being the Most Rational Political Outlook?

[Mothonis]

I imagine the "most rational" (as if this were all that went into such decisions) would be a mix of elements from any system that had a beneficial effect in a given situation and could be carried out in a practical and consistent manner. Pick the right tools for the right job. Hammers don't work on screws, and a wrench hardly drives a nail.

wtf you just took the words out of my words exactly!!

[CleanShavenJesus]

This thread is very old, but eh, I voted anyway. I picked "Liberalism (i.e US Democrat)", even though, as someone else pointed out, liberalism and U.S. Democrat aren't exactly interchangeable terms.

I'm surprised at the number of libertarians on the forum.

[Zazzy]

I voted "other" because I consider US Democrats to be yellow-bellied, toad-sucking assholes- and liberalism does not describe them unless you look at them next to Ted Cruz. I'm too liberal to be a democrat.

I also lean towards socialism.

[TaraJo]

I'd like to say Libertarian, but I've seen too many powerful groups and individuals who are more than willing to use their influence to cement their own power, even if it's less than beneficial to the rest of us for them to do that. So, were the government to just let them do as they will, I could easily see them turn into their own defacto government (think like Shinra from Final Fantay VII).

But even if we changed things as they are now to eliminate some of those powerful groups, the problem would probably just morph into another form. Specifically, there's corruption in the military industrial complex and the prison industrial comples. Owners of prisons/defense contractors lobby congress to not only do business with their company, but they lobby them into policy which favors their company. If we changed the law to eliminate those, he companies are still going to be there and they're going to find a way to work with the new rules to keep themselves in power.

If you want my opinion, I think the best thing we can do to help our nation is to get more of an idea of flexibility of law instead of thinking that, since the founding fathers put such-and-such together 250 years ago, wehave to have that now. I think they were intelligent enough to realize that situations and people can change and that the government would need to be able to change with it (heck, they were willing to change things right off the bat by abandoning the articles of confederation and adopting the bill of rights instead).

[ablenova]

Ideology is just religion - god. In some cases, major ideological figures become godlike (ie "the immortal Lenin") and in some exceptional cases are actually transformed into gods in the public imagination (like Kim il sung in N. Korea). I'm a proponent of common sense.

[zenblaster]

I've come to view libertarians as the most rational. Laissez-faire capitalism and a very limited government would decentralize power. It fits comfortably with my Humanist views.

[EgoRaptor]

I believe the best system is egoist-individualist-anarcho-communism. The first step in the creation of such a society would first be a minarchist-socialist society based off the abolition of private property & laissez-faire markets with a minimal welfare state (ie. one that provides healthcare, but does not interfere with the markets). This would allow for a form of social Darwinism that would eliminate those unfit for individualist-communism.

[Minimalist]

The older I get the more I think Sallust got it right.

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

--Gaius Sallustius Crispus

[Cinjin]

Regarding the Poll:

Can't both a Conservative and a Liberal be any of the other choices on the list?????

How is being a US Republican or a US Democrat compared to NOT being a Socialist? How did these get grouped into the same category?

[zenblaster]

The older I get the more I think Sallust got it right.

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

--Gaius Sallustius Crispus

Relieved to be part of his minority.