Kym 🌻💜
Ted Smith #ProEU*** POLL ***
How would you describe yourself politically?
Please vote, comment, and BOOST (very important)
Thank you.
Right Wing
Right of Centre
Left of Centre
Left Wing
None of the above
Poll ended at .
Dave Lane 
🇳🇿@Ted more accurately for me: progressive.
@lightweight Yes,, but that still sits within the political spectrum as listed, does it not?
@Ted I suppose so, but there are properties of each of the stereotypical designations that I don't conform to... I'm not fully any of those characterisations. For example, I'm scientific, evidence-focused, and push for broader education. Not sure where that sits in that spectrum.
@lightweight Broader education? Better education for the masses? That is a socialist trait, I would suggest.
@Ted As would I. But some would say that prioritising education is elitist...
@lightweight How can it be? It enables people. The Right want good education for their own, but a highly educated electorate in general is not to their advantage, We saw that with the EU Referendum (Brexit) in the UK. The facts were quite clear. The less one's educational achievement, the more likely you were to vote for Leave.
@Ted I suppose many people think that taking the time out from just surviving is a luxury to which only the privileged can avail themselves. In the US, I've noticed a strong anti-education undercurrent, and some of it seems left-based.
@lightweight That surprises me. I thought it would have been exclusively a Republican trait.
@Ted yeah, surprises me, too. It's the people on the left who voted for Trump because they're so disenfranchised they want to "fuck up" the system. I can sympathise with that motivation, but the method is definitely counterproductive.
@lightweight We have a similar phenomenon in the UK with ordinary working people, whose best interests would be served by a Labour (left wing) government, voting Tory (Conservative, right wing) We say it's like turkeys voting for Christmas.
How do the latter do it? Blame immigrants, as Trump did, I believe. Sadly, those people that fell for it are simply ill informed and/or poorly educated and our conversation comes full circle.
How do the latter do it? Blame immigrants, as Trump did, I believe. Sadly, those people that fell for it are simply ill informed and/or poorly educated and our conversation comes full circle.
@Ted yup. Mass ignorance destroys societies.
@lightweight Yeah. So a poorly educated electorate is more easy to manipulate. The rich get richer, the poor, poorer. I'm with Bernie Sanders on this.
@Ted me, too. But I'm pleased I live in Aotearoa/NZ where things aren't so badly & deeply screwed.
Parami@lightweight @Ted I hope it stays that way for you
Manish@lightweight @Ted Education should not be a luxury, that's why it should be free and public funded for everyone, which again comes under left.
@mani agreed. That's why I've made freely available education my mission. See https://tech.oeru.org/democratising-higher-education-oers-foss @Ted
Democratising Higher Education with OERs & FOSS | OERu Technology Blog
Rather than write a slide-based presentation for the Open Education miniconf at Linux.Conf.AU 2019, I thought I'd try an approach that seemed to work quite well recently: write my presentation as a blog post and make it available for posterity, before and after. You can find this post quickly by going to oer.nz/lca if you want to look at it on your own device.
James@lightweight @Ted Is that down to the type of education? I’m not very keen on the “knowledge based” education being pushed by the UK’s Conservative government. I would prefer the education system taught critical thinking and the skills to enable learning
Eddie Roosenmaallen@lightweight @Ted
That’s one of the things that needs fixed - part of being able to access education is being able to also eat and maintain a home while you study.
Free tuition isn’t enough, we need to ensure a secure living standard so that *everyone* is able to take the time to learn.
PeachyInWales@silvermoon82 @lightweight @Ted we had that briefly- I managed to attend university as a working class mother of 3, and my husband followed. I couldn’t have done that at any stage before and couldn’t again now- the 2000s had some brief glimpses of opportunity.
Azura Grace@lightweight @Ted not to butt in to y'all's conversation *but* ... As a self identified socialist I'd say a lot of "left" American voters, particularly those who'd identify more with personal freedoms' arguments are unfortunately anti education because they believe in a lot of pseudo science. The regrettably left spirituality movement is full of vaccine deniers, conspiracy theories etc. Hippies, white people with dread locs and bindis etc. Folks that are culturally insensitive, usually ableist. I've had the frequent displeasure of coming across folks like this who at first you like and then all of a sudden some anti-science bs comes out of their mouths and you have to back away slowly... I don't think those folks fit well into a nuanced and historically educated version of leftism. They don't have a real understanding of political systems and have a primarily selfish and reactionary perspective which has them voting left for things like weed legalization and LGBT rights when it suits them while ignoring other social issues that do not pertain to them.
@missazuragrace @Ted yes - I can related to that - thankfully, it's less common in my adoptive home of Aotearoa NZ, but still present. Yes, this is another wing of the Idiocracy, and a symbol of partisan (mis)education, I fear. I'm not sure how to combat it.
@lightweight @Ted neither do I 😭 but I agree
Eohippa@missazuragrace @lightweight @Ted
Yup. One of this country's most remarkable and rich resources is our labor history, and most US high school history teachers blow past it in a week, 10 days at most.
Upton Sinclair is a blip on the radar, forgotten and confused with Sinclair Lewis. Okay, not the worst thing.
See: Frances Perkins and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
Heck, they are afraid to bring up the facts of Scopes Trial or the Trail of Tears in any comprehensible way. #sad
@Eohippa @lightweight @Ted it's pretty sad, yeah. Not getting better any time soon since book banning in schools is back in full force in many U.S. states. 😔
Chris McCabe@Ted @lightweight But a lot of Etonians & other 'well-educated' ppl pushed for a Brexit which wd favour them.
Tom@CableSt @Ted @lightweight that kind of education is different to the idea of what most people think of when we say education should be free for all up to and including a PHD if you have the brain for it.
Eton alumni ran the British empire, were always to do with the ruling class. Their education is to do with being superior (in their minds) to the mass of the population which is there to be manipulated. It's a dangerous machine churning out sociopaths.
@lightweight I see you have 2.6K followers, Dave. Would you be so kind as to boost this for me? Thanks.
fear is not a Weltanschauung@Ted in the american sense, or in the rest-of-the-world sense?
@wouldinotcallmyselfahumanbeing Think Trump v Bernie Sanders, yeah?
@Ted thanks, that qualifier makes it much clearer.
alcinnz@Ted After the anti-COVID-measures protests I'm not sure how meaningful the left-right spectrum actually is...
But I do get the impression I'm further left of most politicians in the Beehive!
@alcinnz How do you see it if not on a spectrum? Interested.
@Ted I'm not entirely sure?
But what I was seeing was groups thinking of themselves as lefty talking rightwing conspiracy theories in leftwing vocabulary.
Ultimately I think this is an oversimplification brought on by subpar voting mechanisms limiting the number of parties. Certainly these camps seem to more relate to social groups than strongly-held political views.
I reckon there's more than one political axis!
esa
Billy SmithTurnip-flavoured. :D
Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥@Ted I'm more of a moderate "Gary Johnson"-style #libertarian. I put left-of-center b/c I vote Democrat, but I would be open to Republicans if they rejected #MAGA, conspiracy theories, and general mean-spirtedness.
Christian@Ted this result will be interesting to follow. Partly because I think, for example, the term "left wing" means something very different in the US other places in the world, like where I'm from (Sweden).
Incognitim@teachpaperless @Ted
Very true! Obviously the feather tips at the ends of each particular wing will match up, because you can't get any more extreme than extreme (pretty sure I stole that from a mountain dew commercial 😅).
But I'm guessing there's a MASSIVE difference between the 'center' here and the 'centre' in Sweden/Scandinavia/Europe. So 'middle-left-wing' here is maybe closer aligned to 'centre-right' over there?
Very true! Obviously the feather tips at the ends of each particular wing will match up, because you can't get any more extreme than extreme (pretty sure I stole that from a mountain dew commercial 😅).
But I'm guessing there's a MASSIVE difference between the 'center' here and the 'centre' in Sweden/Scandinavia/Europe. So 'middle-left-wing' here is maybe closer aligned to 'centre-right' over there?
@Incognitim @Ted you're pretty much bang on the money there. Sweden have historically been leaning, in views on welfare and social politics, towards socialism. Economically tho more liberal / IMF / Friedman which for a long time didn't really affect views on solidarity and so forth.
@teachpaperless @Ted
Hmm- that's an interesting combination.
In a weird way, it kinda reminds me of a lot of my friends here who'd say they were 'socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.' Which basically meant that slightly over half of the time they'd vote republican- because although they supported gay marriage, they hated tax increases more (even ones for rich people, which most of them were not).
I'm pretty sure those people are considered the 'centrists' here 😂
Hmm- that's an interesting combination.
In a weird way, it kinda reminds me of a lot of my friends here who'd say they were 'socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.' Which basically meant that slightly over half of the time they'd vote republican- because although they supported gay marriage, they hated tax increases more (even ones for rich people, which most of them were not).
I'm pretty sure those people are considered the 'centrists' here 😂
@teachpaperless Yes, I agree. I don’t think America gets the concept entirely. Far too many think Left Wing Socialism and Communism the same thing and have a misunderstanding and visceral hatred of it as a result. It is difficult to be inclusive when choosing the words, but there is no other way to put it such a question on a limited social media poll.
@Ted I totally agree. Will be interesting to see the result either way!
Jane Fanghanel@Ted verging on left wing at times
Gwen@Ted Was left of centre but as the centre shifts right more and more I am consequently shifting in the opposite direction.
Sean Macreavy
Ian@Ted As Alan Bennett remarked... "Soft Centre".
Steve Peebles@Ted since a boy
Graeme Bell 
@Ted Lefter than a left thing on a left day. But with a compensating amount of healthy
pragmatism. Baby steps ...
pragmatism. Baby steps ...
Song Gao 
@Ted this will need to be location adjusted because US center is EU right wing and US left us usually EU center
Picktishheathen@Ted Those describing themselves as left of centre are old fashioned Tory's as compared to the right Nazis in power.
Jamie Frew@Ted the more stupid I see from Trump, Brexit and nutty left wing pontificating about stuff that really does not matter, the more I come to realize that boring centre left democracy is a reasonable choice. Sensible shoes for politics
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@Ted No option for being liberal.
Winston Smith@Ted interesting to note the leftward skew here but with popular oxymorons like "left" libertarianism that could be explained?
@Ted it's anecdote but my first few posts were met with very (right wing) libertarian rebuttals from defenders of Elon Musk (yes they live here too) who thought of him as a centrist through a "left" libertarian lens.
@winstonsmith Interesting. I haven’t seen that.
@Ted personal experience and opinion, outspoken on the subject of "left" libertarianism being a simple case of identity politics or an Overton window push though 🤷
Dave Hounslow