(August 21, 2014 at 4:00 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:(August 21, 2014 at 3:48 pm)Blackout Wrote: The Liberals V Conservatives reference is not used in europe, since there are more than 2 parties in most countries. It's mostly 'left wingers' vs 'right wingers', and in any of those sides there are several parties. For instance, left wing parties are usually a center left (AKA socialist party, even though they are not pure socialists so the label is incorrect), a more lefty and a far left (communist party), and between the same side there are arguments and divergences, socialists dislike commies because they take it to the extreme, commies dislike socialists (center left) because they seem them as 'communists without balls'. In the right there's usually a center right (more or less the same as the democratic party of the USA), social democrats and stuff, and then a people's party, usually the conservatives (not only Christian democrats as we call them here, but also right wing conservatives who are not religious). In some countries there are far right parties, the nationalist ones, everyone knows they have a fascist agenda. Unlike the US conservative party they want to increase government invervention to leave everything submitted to the nation (where did we hear that in history books?)
I think that what you're missing here is that the results are not intended to score you relative to any area's political systems, but rather to the range of possible answers. I think it's pretty clear to everyone that the political mean in Europe is left of center (relative to the chart) and the US is right of center (also relative to the chart).
I agree, but then again it's relative. If we compared the USA with a theocracy, the theocratic nation would be right wing and the US would be left wing compared to them (at least I hope so!). I think the easiest way to determine if you're right or left is to answer this question (at least in Europe it's an accurate question) - What's more important - Individual freedoms/rights or satisfying collective necessities? Answer individual rights for right wing ideology, collective necessities for left wing. In Europe we make the distinction like this, even though everyone knows both kind of parties satisfy both (you can't have one without the other), they just focus more on one of them.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you