Political identities, political parties, political calculators

Unless you are a swinger from the marginals, you probably draw upon a political philosophy of some approximation in order to decide upon whom to vote for. It could be a rudimentary “fair go” and/or “live and let live”, or a “dog eat dog” and/or “moral impetus to intervene against sin”. It could be classical Marxism, classical liberalism, neo-conservatism, social democratic or whatever else you’ve looked into.

There are political calculators that based on a varying number of questions for matching up parties, preferences and the like. I’ve always been a little suspicious of these things. They often wind up with a graph at the end of it that naturally has both Hitler ans Stalin diametrically opposed to the author of the test.

I’ve road tested one that I think is pretty good, and seeing that GetUp! is using one, it’s topical now.

Bare with me while I pontificate about my own position for a bit. It’s relevant to what follows. I promise.

Bruce the guinea pig

I myself am a social liberal, who’s ends often coincide with those of social democrats (which is why I once identified as one, but wasn’t really). My notions of social justice come from (negative before positive) utilitarianism, not from Marxism, which after reading Popper’s Enemies of Open Society, ended whatever chance there was of me being an economic socialist. My epistemology and ethics are just too different to that inferred by Marxism.

I’m not presuppositionalist, I just see economic disadvantage as robbing of liberty by way of harmed opportunity. Harm being the primary factor for an ethical utilitarian. This leads some of my economic views, particularly fiscal, to be similar to some of those espoused by socialists leaning towards the political centre from Trotsky. I’m not as economically conservative as Rudd, but I’m not against tax cuts per se (personally I think filling up holes such as those like the Government’s superannuation obligations and/or perhaps some of the state’s debts, would be better policies than increases in child care rebates or Labor’s planned tax cuts).

If we accept that inequality of opportunity is a violation of liberty (ie. if we believe in a fair go) then we have the basis for a true meritocracy. To me, this is important in education. Tertiary education is a part of this meritocratic game of life and “rich dumb kids” who buy their way into Uni when their efforts won’t suffice are to this game what Ben Johnson was to the Olympics.

Students of merit should not have to compete with other students for educational opportunities when those other students are not similarly of merit. Part of equal opportunity is not wasting it and certainly not handing more opportunity to those who have had their share.

You can draw from this what conclusions you may about how I view education funding and university entrance requirements.

As far as social policy is concerned, I’m a civil libertarian. Once again, the harm principal comes into play again. What actual demonstrable harm is caused by gay marriage? None that I’ve seen. Allusions to traditions needing protection neither constitutes a demonstrable harm, nor a valid argument (appeal to tradition fallacy). So in my view, the state has no business discriminating on said basis.

What demonstrable harm is posed by school girls wearing a hijab of their own volition? Or children wearing a crucifix for that matter? Or taking a bible to school? None.
As for at least first trimester abortions, the same is true to me as it is of the use of embryonic stems cells for research and therapeutic cloning in general. No reasonably demonstrable harm.

So who should I vote for?

As mentioned, GetUp! have a calculator for the parties you should allegedly vote for (in what order) based on a few questions in discreet policy areas. It does break it down electorate by electorate (although it seems to be missing some postcodes) , but for those candidates or parties that have not submitted policy statements, it ranks them behind the others in a random order. Not very accurate. Also, the scope of questions isn’t very good.

Thanks go then to Ninglun, who has found what I think is a much better calculator; it takes a larger and broader sample of data, reports back on your political position (allowing you to more easily assess its accuracy), weighing you against a number of parties.

Political identities

So what did it say about my inclinations?

I’ll start off by saying that I don’t like the term left, moreover when it is used in lieu of positions on particular issues.  At least in this test, it’s splayed over three axis; economic, social and tradition.

Economically, I fall just to the centre side of centre-left, so I’m probably a bit more economically conservative than say Jeremy over at An Onymous Lefty. I dare say Crikey! couldn’t have given me too many Marxes on their (broken) blog-meter. Fair enough. I’m not a Marxist (I’m wondering how far left of me on economics one can become before they are).
On social issues, I’m apparently plain old left. It says “you believe the state should, on more issues than not, intervene in the social lives of its citizens as a force for good” although it does say that intervention is on the grounds of the alleviation of harm. Given that I’m a little “l” liberal on social issues, I’m not sure I should have scored this high on intervention. Conversely, I think Mal Brough and numerous others, through their (unqualified) support of “The Great Intervention” would be somewhat left leaning according to this criteria (whereas I think the intervention should be more little “l” liberal).

Our current Government is very much a grandfather state which is one of my beefs with it.

On tradition, I’m far-left. This seems a little odd to me. Not being left, but rather being so very left. I can think of people more likely to overturn tradition, importantly those who use the appeal to novelty fallacy (opposite of appeal to tradition.) I’ve seen appeal to novelty used (overseas) in attempts to justify human cloning (not the tissue, the whole human). I’ve never bought that line of reasoning (on the grounds of its obvious logical invalidity – underwater poo-eating is novel so are we supposed to all do it because it’s the new thing?)

Now either these novelty fallacy lovers are in the last 20.1% (which would be odd considering that at 79.9% I have very deep seated differences with them) or they are just plain off the chart. That is to say that 100% left on an Australian continuum of tradition may fall short of appeal to novelty, while appeal to tradition falls well within the right side of the continuum. This has some pretty stark consequences; intelligence tests are heavily weighted for logic and the avoidance of invalid logic (and formal logical fallacies).

If the above continuum on tradition holds true for Australians, it would follow that at least on matters of tradition, Australian conservatives have an innate intellectual handicap. Given the commonplace tactic of appeal to tradition (indeed it is a mainstream argument against gay marriage), this would seem to suggest that the intelligent, valid position on tradition is far to the progressive end of the spectrum, while most of the conservative end languishes in abject idiocy. Suggest that is. I’m not necessarily saying that it’s true.

The political parties

But what party to vote for? Who do I match up with?

Australian Democrats first eh? Well supposedly they are social liberals, so it figures that I may match up with them. OzPolitics makes a relevant caveat about their calculator.

“People choose to vote for a political party for many reasons, not just because their ideas and ideals align with those of their chosen party. In addition to a party’s philosophical position, many voters are also interested in the experience of the candidates, and the party’s leadership style and management capability. This tool did not test such factors.”

(OzPolitics, 2007)

Meg Lees… Liberal Party offshoot… Not union friendly enough back during the days of Peter Reith… Impending electoral doom… Actually, I’ll make a caveat and a retraction on these last two points. During one of the rallies against the waves of IR reforms in the 90s, Mike Elliot (then Democrat leader in S.A. Parliament) gave one of the best speeches I have heard at a rally, or indeed by a politician. Ever. I was deeply impressed. As for electoral doom, I really don’t want this for the Democrats. I’ll be putting them (closely) before Labor in my senate vote.

Which brings us to the Greens. I’m thinking of putting Labor right behind the Greens on both cards (but behind the Democrats – I don’t see the Greens as the new Democrats as they aren’t little “l” liberal enough). Sending a message and all that. Still, I get too much sanctimonious dogma from too many Greens members to be a member myself. Not to say that I have a general problem with the Greens, I don’t. I have a number of Greens I get on well with, politically and socially. It’s just that the occasional environmental dogmatist gets up the nose of one environmental scientist.

The ALP. My own party. On the third rung. Why am I a member? Not entirely for the philosophy. The ALP is supposed to be a social democratic party, which at least is true of the left faction. As a social liberal, not a Marxist of any persuasion, I should be marginally to the right of the ALP centre. I’m either slightly, or vastly to its left depending on the particular policy. There is no way on Earth that I’d join the Labor right (although after a faux pas with the SDA and a couple of its Young Labor sycophants, I’ve probably burnt a couple of bridges to that island so as to make it about as pragmatic as I find it desirable.)

Oh well. I have friends in the Liberal party who consider themselves to the left of the ALP (and who will be voting for the ALP in this election).

Family First fourth? Oh well, there weren’t many church-state questions now were there. Being epistemologically inclined and recognising the importance of accountability in democracy, how a party justifies it’s policies is of great interest to me. Recognising the reasoning of a party is important, as it tells you what contribution to public debate a party will make as well as auguring what policies they may push for not mentioned during an election.

I also have to question just how Family First faired on issues like industrial relations as far as their profile for this calculator went. If I didn’t have to consider people’s confidentiality, I could tell you a thing or two about Family First and IR.

The Libs are next. What can I say? I know. WHY AREN’T YOU CLOWNS SCORED BETTER THAN FAMILY FIRST!?!?! I can remember when you weren’t 100% crazy! It must be Alex Hawke’s doing.

Nationals. Filled to the eyeballs with corruption and not just the occasional bad apple. Instrumentalist reasoning. Down with the homies. The calculator didn’t account for any of this.

One Nation… Well, I won’t put One Nation or the United Australia Party high up on my vote. But… I have to say that Len Harris was a better senator than a few I can mention. Again, a case of other factors not included in the calculator.

Conclusion

So try the calculators out. Especially Oz Politics’ calculator. If you have the time (after my waffling) please come back and post your thoughts in the comments. Oh, and take heed, the Oz Politics calculator is in beta testing and comes with this final warning;

“This page was designed for fun. If you are unhappy with the results, do not worry about it too much. The instrument has not been validated scientifically and the results could be misleading.

Do not use this test to decide how to vote at an election.”

(OzPolitics, 2007)

Doubly true if it tells you the Libs are high up on your preferences!

Bruce