The political side that is the "correct" side.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Economic centre? Social centre? Or both?

All roads leads to the centre. They aren’t mutually exclusive but rather intertwined on both sides of the coin. You can’t have one without the other, really.

Both are contextual and liable to change left or right depending on the context. Economics especially varies day to day as policies shift, mainly, to keep growth stable, inflation controlled, and interest rates within a tolerance.

Politics ain’t much different. In states where people have been lucky enough to live under liberals democratic structures any shift too far from the middle is usually met with protests and really, really angry twitter posts telling them how angry people are.

And nobody wants angry tweets.

[Tiberius]

A bird needs both wings in order to fly,

and the most stable flight is when most of the weight is nearest the center.

Right, concessions to both sides seem to work out pretty well.

Freedom of speech is great, but someone yelling "FIRE" in a movie theatre should face legal consequences. People should be able to own guns, but they should be registered, and people should have to go through training in order to use them, and be prosecuted if they do not store them securely.

[Edwardo Piet]

All roads leads to the centre. They aren’t mutually exclusive but rather intertwined on both sides of the coin. You can’t have one without the other, really.

You say they aren't mutually exclusive but then you say you can't have one without the other?

I agree, they aren't mutually exclusive. That's why I asked if you meant socially centre, economically centre or both.

It is confusing for you to on the one hand say they aren't mutually exclusive and then on the other say that you can't have socially centre without economically centre?

I disagree completely. You can be left, centre or right socially and anywhere in-between. You can be left, centre or right economically or anywhere in-between. And any combination thereof. It's two separate spectrums... they do correlate but they aren't the same spectrum.

Both are contextual and liable to change left or right depending on the context. Economics especially varies day to day as policies shift, mainly, to keep growth stable, inflation controlled, and interest rates within a tolerance.

Like I said, they correlate. And they do affect each other. But you can be economically left and socially right. You can be economic right and socially left. Stalinism and Facisim are both strong right socially (authoritarianism) but they are opposites economically.

---

Freedom of speech is great, but someone yelling "FIRE" in a movie theatre should face legal consequences.

I agree with this exception but I think it's an exception that can be made while still being very far left.

People should be able to own guns, but they should be registered, and people should have to go through training in order to use them, and be prosecuted if they do not store them securely.

I don't think sensible regulations makes someone less liberal. And I don't think allowing or disallowing guns makes someone more liberal. I'm not sure that the freedom to kill others or defend oneself from others who kill is liberal.

At least for me, it's just whatever leads to the least shootings. I am not sure whether no guns is the best way to reduce shootings as it does mean more criminals will have them. But then, on the other hand, here in the UK most guns are illegal and we get less shootings here than in America. Although there may be other countries where guns are legal but there are less shootings than the UK?

For me that would just be a matter of what leads to the least deaths and severe injuries. So it's an empirical matter for me. I am not sure that being in favor of freedom includes being in favor of the freedom to harm each other. Like I said, my view is that everyone should have maximum freedom as long as they don't hurt others(I don't think the "as long as they don't hurt others" part makes me less left than I could be?), the exception is of course being if having the ability to hurt others by means of self defense leads to less harm and violence overall.

[unsapien]

A bird needs both wings in order to fly,

and the most stable flight is when most of the weight is nearest the center.

Right, concessions to both sides seem to work out pretty well.

Freedom of speech is great, but someone yelling "FIRE" in a movie theatre should face legal consequences. People should be able to own guns, but they should be registered, and people should have to go through training in order to use them, and be prosecuted if they do not store them securely.

Perhaps. But are you suggesting that the one person yelling fire should be held responsible for everyone else in the theatre that panicked in their own frenzied or panicked behaviour that that yell might have caused?  

Someone yells FIRE! I still hold myself to account as to how I act in that situation.

[Rev. Rye]

I'd love for the answer to be C, but given that the right has essentially devolved into a mix of corrupt corporations fighting for their own interests and actual Nazis, I can't, in good conscience, give them credit. Maybe with a more moderate right; even a Nixonian Republican would be better than Trump. Then again, given that the left has its own, increasingly more vocal lunatic fringe (just look at Tumblr) I cannot co-sign with, I find it hard for me to say the left.

The policies of the left tend to be more agreeable to me, but I'll settle for something that at least works properly.

[Rhondazvous]

I can't answer the question because most politics don't have much to do with morals if you want to be logical.

First kudos for this thread.

Politics is about politics. It's about juggling public opinion to get the votes that count. To do otherwise is to commit political suicide.

People say they're tired of politics. At the same time they want representatives who pay attention to their opinions. I think that's called having your cake and eating it too.

[Rev. Rye]

I can't answer the question because most politics don't have much to do with morals if you want to be logical.

Exactly the basic problem with the assumptions behind this thread. Case in point, CL mentioned abortion as something she agrees with the right on. Make no mistake, it’s a dirty business and there’s a reason people don’t like it. Unfortunately, the biggest thing (besides the question of bodily autonomy) that makes the “pro-life” position untenable is that making abortion illegal will not make things better. In fact, it will likely end up with many women dying to get rid of that fetus. How do I know this? Because when abortion was illegal, women DID die trying to get rid of it. Don’t take my word for it: take this doctor’s. He was there when it was common for women to come into his office asking him to remove foreign objects from their vaginas that had become lodged in there (including the famous wire hanger, and in some cases, soda bottles, some of which had broken off inside them.) In one case, Gerri Santoro died after performing an abortion on herself and hemorrhaging. The photo of her bloody body became a famous image of the sort of thing pro-choicers want to avoid, and given that legal abortions have a mortality rate 10 times lower than that of childbirth (which is still pretty negligible), like it or not, it works.

And it’s the same thing with the drug legalization debates. Nobody (except maybe some cranks) is saying marijuana is perfectly safe, especially not the ones with the power to legalize it. But in the 81 years since the Anslinger Act made marijuana possession a crime, it’s become blindingly obvious that the effects of making it illegal are far worse than they would be if it was just illegal, from filling our prisons at a higher rate than ANY other nation with the possible exception of the Nazis just so we can get tough on the minor offenders who keep getting arrested, all the way up to the cartels who stay in power because we can’t get our collective fixes legally.

And just to further the point, here's this scene from 28 Days Later:





Make no mistake, infecting a monkey with a deadly virus is not a terribly moral thing to do. But would setting them free be the best thing? Well, this video doesn't show the devastation that occurs, rendering England sparsely depopulated as a direct result of the rage virus being unleashed by the world by these people who thought they were doing the right thing. And before you assume Danny Boyle, Alex Garland, and I are overreacting somehow, bear in mind that even in less dire situations, this type of behaviour can lead to catastrophic problems down the line.

[Shell B]

Hammy, I didn’t even say politics and morals don’t sometimes overlap. You’re arguing against things I didn’t say.

Yes you said most but I didn't say most.

I didn’t say you did. You disagreed with me when I said most by citing a scattered few political issues. I asked if you thought those incidents made up most of politics.

[Jackalope]

I believe that on balance, the left has better ideas than the right. Pity we don't have a real viable leftist party (no the Democratic party is not it).

Keep in mind I used to be an Ayn Rand inspired nutjob, barely 10 years ago. Card carrying NRA Life, which I have since quit. I used to have a permit to carry and I did. I don't even own a gun now. Back in the day I despised Bill Clinton and vowed I would die before voting for Hillary. Well....then came 2016. I voted for GWB - twice. I didn't vote for Obama either time. I think the US started down the path to fascism long before Trump (whom - predictably - I despise)

y values changed after I split from my first wife. Getting outside the right wing bubble really opened my eyes.
In terms of overall standard of living and happiness of the people, the right's ideas mostly suck.

My .02

[Rev. Rye]

I believe that on balance, the left has better ideas than the right. Pity we don't have a real viable leftist party (no the Democratic party is not it).

Keep in mind I used to be an Ayn Rand inspired nutjob, barely 10 years ago. Card carrying NRA Life, which I have since quit. I used to have a permit to carry and I did. I don't even own a gun now. Back in the day I despised Bill Clinton and vowed I would die before voting for Hillary. Well....then came 2016. I voted for GWB - twice. I didn't vote for Obama either time. I think the US started down the path to fascism long before Trump (whom - predictably - I despise)

y values changed after I split from my first wife. Getting outside the right wing bubble really opened my eyes.
In terms of overall standard of living and happiness of the people, the right's ideas mostly suck.

My .02

I heard that Ian Hislop once said about the American political scene, "Well, you have the Democrats, who are right wing, the Republican party who are very very right wing, and the Tea Party, who are mad". I have a clip of him saying the last two thirds of that saying around 2:16:



I'm not sure if he actually called the Democrats right-wing, but I don't think he'd disagree with that statement, as a satirist or even as a European. Honestly, if Hilary Clinton was running for office in Britain, she'd probably have been considered the second coming of Thatcher. Unfortunately, since her opposition have a social policy that basically involves turning America into Gilead and a fiscal policy that involves fellating the wealthiest and most corrupt businessmen in the nation so they can make money in the short term and in the long term... well, I don't know, just hope the Second Coming happens so Christ can end us all.