You know you're a Conservative when...

[matgb]

Chris Dillow responds to the question:

Iain Dale is inviting people to complete the sentence, "you know you're a Conservative when..."
OK. Here goes:
1....you think people should get on their bike and look for work, unless they cross a border in doing so.
2...you think people should stand on their own two feet, unless they have a rich daddy.
3...you think people should stand on their own two feet, unless they do so by joining trade unions.
4...you believe in equality under the law, even though it's mostly your opponents who have achieved this.
5...you think state authorities shouldn't intervene in markets, unless doing so would benefit your business or support share prices or house prices.
6...you deplore youngsters' ignorance of history, but forget about primitive accumulation.
7...you think a centrally planned economy is a bad idea but centrally planned companies are great.

The comments to both posts are comedy brilliance as well. Plus more than half at Iain's made me want to say "no doofus, that makes you a liberal" (note the lack of capitalisation there is deliberate, not all liberals are Liberals, and unfortunately a chunk of Liberals aren't liberal—there are also liberals within all the main British parties).

NB: I'm aware that there are smart conservatives, and that conservatism in and of itself is not necessarily a philosophy that contradicts itself. I'm also aware that not all Tories contribute to the frequently used moniker "stupid party". Unfortunately for the smart and fairly liberal Conservatives on my friends list, they do remain a minority within the membership. If the evidence of online activity is anything to go by, a small minority.

Hmm, I know, let's turn this into a little meme. Duncan informed me earlier that Facebook now has a Political Compass application^[1]. My liking of the Compass as a good way of broadly assisting you place yourself and opinions remains strong, and the app is fairly good, so...

Either install the Facebook App ^[2]or complete the test on the main website, and post your results either in a post or in a comment here. It's been ages since we did this, lots of new friends and people may have clarified their opinions if they've done it before.

I'm now at:

Economic Left/Right: -2.50

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.69

Which means I've moved (again) further down (I used to be at -5) and also closer to the center (I was at -5 there as well). So that's 4 times I've taken it (third on here), and each time I've moved further down and further to the middle. I remain convinced that it's because they're classifiying support for markets on the left/right spectrum when as they're strongly an aspect of econic activity, they should be on the up/down axis.

Alternatively, of course, we could try to answer Iain's questions: You know you're a conservative when.

Anyone else looking forward to there being an actual Tory policy on something? I dunno, thinking of running an anti Govt tactical voting campaign isn't made easier when it involves you persuading people to vote for Mr Cameron's Flip Flops...

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[1] There are some other good apps on his list, I especially also recommend Irrepressible
[2] One of the good bits about the facebook app is it allows you to compare yourself to friends, hence doing it there is better if you've an account. Plus, the image they display on FB has within the properties the plotting for the marks on the graph, which makes C/Ping it to display much easier—right click, properties, copy in IE, or right click, copy image location in Fx, or if you've got IMG tag, well, you know what to do...

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

I'm still hangin' out way in the corner, as I have been pretty consistently for the last three or four years.

Economic Left/Right: -8.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.51

[matgb]

See—that's where I should be.

*repeats grumbles about markets not being right wing*

*does it again just because*

[cosmolinguist]

Heh. Aww. I always feel a bit freakish really; people who act like me don't think like this; people who think like this are much more radical and activisty....

[matgb]

Nah; I know some very active campaigners who are dead in the centre, and I know some incredibly lazy hippies who make us look like boring centrists.

At some points, issues come up and you feel you can make a difference; sometimes then you get involved-I'm a lot more involved now than I was 2 years ago, but nowhere near as involved as, say Cllr Barlow (getawaywithit), below.

Mostly I have to work to get rid of the apathy—it's part of the appeal of bloggin, I can play a small part without putting a huge amount of effort into it.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same corner as minnesattva with...

Economic Left/Right: -6.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.74

but I still had trouble with some of the market questions too. ie...

"A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies."

I strongly disagreed with that, treating the statement as being about a system, not a means to an end. The alternative is a bit like saying that competition is good, but there mustn't be any winners.

Monopolies are the natural product of a genuine free market...

[matgb]

Monopolies can be, but I do think there needs to be a system to ensure new potential competitors aren't excluded.

Traditional record companies versus new methods of distribution, for example. The RIAA is instead of trying to adapt and compete, using some rather dodgy practices to sue people for notional infringements, etc.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree there should be restrictions on monopolies and dodgy business practices like selling below cost - I just acknowledge that such restrictions kill the concept of a free market. It's a controlled market then.

[matgb]

I tend to call myself a "fair market socialist" when asked for a label (you've seen my rants about labels and categories before), or simply a Millite—confuses people, but other terms get you lumped in with fruitcakes (Chomsky's a libertarian socialist for example).

Some sort of regulation is bound to happen, even if just the policing of contracts.

Then of course you get into the interminable debate about what is meant by freedom—a market free from exploitation for example. But then, I exploit my brain typing this, well, sort of, it's not working great currently.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Yeah - 'fair market's a good term.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Just retook it myself. Economic left/right - -9.38 , Social Libertarian/Authoritarian - -7.38 .