I’m really curious (as I’m not living there) what the difference is. Is it just their religious tendencies? Or is it their feelings towards the nebulous “other” that defines them?
In Australia there are two major political parties, Labor and Liberals.
Liberals does not mean what it does in the US, they are the right wing party, who are in a coalition with the Nationals party which is even further right wing.
Labor is now centre-right as they kept running on centre-left policies and losing.
The defining difference between the parties on the domestic front are that Labor supports and Liberals oppose
Social safety nets
Universal medical care
Taxation of corporations
On a foreign policy front they parties are broadly aligned however their stance on how to deal (interact) with China is vastly different, where Labor engages the Liberals attack China endlessly which resulted in a trade war which we’re still feeling the effects of.
This is a very shallow examination of Australia’s political landscape but I’m not a political commentator.
I am generally curious what you mean by centrist nut jobs? The whole point of the centre is to be somewhere in the middle and therefore the best of both worlds that everyone has something in common with as far as I’m concerned
What’s the best that should we take from the far right?
It’s an ideological desert over there once you look past the race supremacy, inevitable oligarchy and people dying if they don’t spend enough of their time struggling to survive. It’s literally just psychopathic power grabbing when you really distill it down.
If any of that sounds good to you, I’m not interested in the world you want.
Support for centrism is either complete political ignorance, or looking at that desert and thinking “I think we need some of that shit over here”
The general idea of changing things that are bad instead of sticking to traditions
Gay marriage and other rights
More efficient and affordable healthcare
Abortion (though ideally I’d find it fair if “paper abortion” was also a thing)
FOSS (though most people don’t have a strong opinion on that)
Public transportation
Some things I like from the right:
General cautiousness about the negative effects of new policies (for example, schools catering to problematic students at the expense of the other students)
Trying to minimize unnecessary government intervention
Support of free speech (used to be a leftist thing, seems to depend on who is being censored more)
Cautiousness about illegal immigration
Banning of harmful addictive drugs
And what I don’t like about either:
Takes on gender/race equality (left tries to achieve it but has a different idea of what equality looks like, right seems content with inequality)
Voter fraud prevention (right wants the requirement of a driving license or something, left wants no verification at all; I like the normal system of requiring an identity card that every citizen gets for free from the government)
Based on these, I’d consider myself centrist or maybe a bit left-leaning, but the far left would consider me a Nazi and the far right would consider me a communist or something.
Also note that I’m not from the USA and I see USA politics through the lens of what I know to work and not work in my country.
Well actshually… Australia used to be run by right-wing nutjobs. The current mob in power are centrist nut jobs.
The power behind the throne in Australia is still right wing nut jobs and corporations
I feel like Australia and New Zealand is kind of like England and Scotland in that sense.
I’m really curious (as I’m not living there) what the difference is. Is it just their religious tendencies? Or is it their feelings towards the nebulous “other” that defines them?
In Australia there are two major political parties, Labor and Liberals.
Liberals does not mean what it does in the US, they are the right wing party, who are in a coalition with the Nationals party which is even further right wing.
Labor is now centre-right as they kept running on centre-left policies and losing.
The defining difference between the parties on the domestic front are that Labor supports and Liberals oppose
Social safety nets
Universal medical care
Taxation of corporations
On a foreign policy front they parties are broadly aligned however their stance on how to deal (interact) with China is vastly different, where Labor engages the Liberals attack China endlessly which resulted in a trade war which we’re still feeling the effects of.
This is a very shallow examination of Australia’s political landscape but I’m not a political commentator.
I am generally curious what you mean by centrist nut jobs? The whole point of the centre is to be somewhere in the middle and therefore the best of both worlds that everyone has something in common with as far as I’m concerned
There is no “best of both worlds” when one side wants you to be a fucking slave. Wake up, dummy.
How about just a little bit of servitude…?
…wait
“Best of both worlds” doesn’t literally mean expressing everything on a numeric scale and averaging it out.
No, we know.
What’s the best that should we take from the far right?
It’s an ideological desert over there once you look past the race supremacy, inevitable oligarchy and people dying if they don’t spend enough of their time struggling to survive. It’s literally just psychopathic power grabbing when you really distill it down.
If any of that sounds good to you, I’m not interested in the world you want.
Support for centrism is either complete political ignorance, or looking at that desert and thinking “I think we need some of that shit over here”
Nothing. And neither should we take anything from the far left. It’s the moderates that have good ideas.
Okay, humour me then, I’m clearly the ignorant one here.
Let’s pretend that this centre which pulls from both sides is completely uninfluenced by the extremes somehow.
What’s good about the not-quite-so-right that’s unique compared against the far right then?
What’s good about the not-quite-so-left that’s unique from the far left?
Do these things marry up in a way that’s not entirely ideologically bankrupt in the dissonance required?
Some things I like from the left:
Some things I like from the right:
And what I don’t like about either:
Based on these, I’d consider myself centrist or maybe a bit left-leaning, but the far left would consider me a Nazi and the far right would consider me a communist or something.
Also note that I’m not from the USA and I see USA politics through the lens of what I know to work and not work in my country.