The Political Bell Curve, are you following it?

This is a simple but true test in "Political Ideology".

It's a Political Bell Curve, and are you using it? It's really simple, politics fit on a Bell Curve. The issue is most people ignore it or just do not realize it.

Most people are politically neutral/center(the extremes are usually noisier, so they seem bigger). As the curve moves along, the more extreme or "far" the people get. If you can label and name people "far-right", but cannot label and name about the same amount of people as "far-left" then you are part of the problem. If you can spot and name "far-left" but cannot spot and name the "far-right" you are part of the problem.

If you can not pick out both sides of the "far" side of the bell curve, why do you think that is? Is it because you are mislabeling? Are you mislabeling others because you get your information from a crap news source? The harder one, did you mislabel yourself, which leads you to mislabel others? This isn't about right or wrong, if you have a political idea and most of your country/world thinks the opposite. Then that political view is "far" no matter how correct you, and your political circle, thinks it is

Personally, I believe if people kept "The Political Bell Curve" in mind, it will help civility.

With the propagandist slant to every poll and survey,I ask you:
WHO reliably knows what the majority of the American people are thinking and what is their position on "x".

The political spectrum is a sphere to me with obvious mobius features.

ganjoa

a reply to: SocratesJohnson

I believe the problem is to put complicated systems like people and their thoughts in simplistic categories like left and right and it doesn't necessarily add more differentiation if you call them "far" anything.
I'm anarchist and that would make me theoretically far left, but the truth is depending on the topic I'm all over this parhetic two dimensional scale.
I'm a four dimensional being and believe it or not most people are.
Culturally I'm pretty right, I do believe you're born into your tribe for a reason and people shouldn't run away but fix their problems.
Socially I'm very liberal you could marry your bike and identify as dolphin and I wouldn't give a damn.
Financially I'm conservative. And so on and so on.
I think it's time we get rid off this two dimensional thinking and embrace relativity.
Laplace not Bell.

a reply to: SocratesJohnson

Agree with Socrates and with Peeple here. From a real-world functional perspective, Socrates is spot on, in my opinion. Take it more idealistically and I can definitely get with what Peeple is saying (that sounds funny, grammatically because of the name Peeple lol.)

I notice this all the time that people have been duped by the loud-mouths and media sources into believing that most people fit in one "extreme" or the other. Unfortunately, this is starting to push more of them to the extremes.

If you talk with actual people, however, you'll realize the crazies out there are a tiny, inconsequential minority whom we should ALL be rolling our eyes at, and moving forward improving our country together.

I think the propaganda present today has turn the Bell Curve (half of a sine wave btw) into a square wave. And that extends beyond just American politics.

a reply to: Peeple

Socially I'm very liberal you could marry your bike and identify as dolphin and I wouldn't give a damn.

"Do you, Mr. Dolphin, solemnly swear, to take this...errrmmm...bike...as your lawfully wedded wife?"

"Do you, Ms., uhhhhh, Bike solemnly swear, to take this flipperless-Dolphin as your lawfully wedded mammal?

"To have and to hold, until death (how does a bike die????) due you part?"

originally posted by: SocratesJohnson
Most people are politically neutral/center(the extremes are usually noisier, so they seem bigger). As the curve moves along, the more extreme or "far" the people get. If you can label and name people "far-right", but cannot label and name about the same amount of people as "far-left" then you are part of the problem.

Sorry, but it just isn't this simple.

The whole Right vs Left thing is a false dichotomy. FAKE NEWS. It has apparently been used for centuries if not longer, to con people into believing in it.

Someone more educated in math and real political history should come up with some kind of an 3D XYZ chart, that would probably get a little closer to something realistic.

The reality is, people are not binary - haven't you heard?

There was a study done on this not too long ago where they found that most of the political narrative of how divided we are and this tumultuous political landscape we find ourselves in is basically being controlled by a noisy 8% on the left and a noisy 6% on the right. Which is all being exacerbated by the media for little more than to generate revenue or perhaps the occasional ideological zealot and then moderate types slowly and surely start to slide one way or the other until we are at the point of blood in the streets for no good reason other than we're all either too lazy or too busy with our everyday lives to step outside of ourselves and look at the big picture.

I believe it is the job of the moderate or center on either side to keep their own side in line which is why I spent the majority of my time railing against the far-left. And also because I believe that there is nothing really in place to keep the far-left in check in our society outside of what is supposed to be the conservative party. However, if you were paying attention in 2016 Donald Trump, with support from the DNC as a pied-piper candidate, ran roughshod through the republican primaries even though literally none of their power base wanted him. If someone on the left that has been radicalized in opposition to a Trump presidency and adopted an authoritarian temperament in the coming election or the next does anyone truly believe that there will be anything in place to check and balance them? I sure don't and that worries me. Even as someone who leans center-left. Because I believe that application and a balance of temperament matters otherwise we end up in a very bad place.

For all that I disagree with on Trump the most appealing thing to him being in the Oval Office right now is that I know that he isn't going to get away with anything and will be held accountable -- which is what we should be doing with all of our presidents, but for some reason ideological blindness sets in and these people get away with bloody murder. That is what I would like to see come to an end regardless of party affiliation. I personally think people today put way too much faith and power into the office of the presidency instead of putting a little more into themselves and their loved ones.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Are you assuming that bike's gender??

a reply to: tanstaafl
It has existed for a long time. However most people can't think of things in anything more than 1 dimension. This is why even though this option is more accurate, it doesn't catch on. Then you start getting people arguing over what the Z axis is or should be, and the discussion on this topic goes down the toilet.

edit to include image of one.

originally posted by: dubiousatworst
a reply to: tanstaafl
It has existed for a long time. However most people can't think of things in anything more than 1 dimension. This is why even though this option is more accurate, it doesn't catch on.

Or, it doesn't catch on because it is impossible to decipher.

First, everyone would have to agree on the definitions of each and every 'form of government' listed (Monarchism, Oligarchism, Republicanism, etc), which will never happen, so this is a non-starter.

What I'd like to see is a long list of very simple yes/no questions, similar to this:

Do you believe that a business owner should have the Right to refuse business to anyone, for any reason whatsoever, even to the point of putting a sign on the front window saying 'We do not serve 'xyz protected class' here"?

Then have an algorithm that determines your placement on a graph of some kind.

As I said, I'm not able to even properly describe it, so someone much better versed in math, political philosophy and statistics would have to do it.

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: SocratesJohnson

I believe the problem is to put complicated systems like people and their thoughts in simplistic categories like left and right and it doesn't necessarily add more differentiation if you call them "far" anything.
I'm anarchist and that would make me theoretically far left, but the truth is depending on the topic I'm all over this parhetic two dimensional scale.
I'm a four dimensional being and believe it or not most people are.
Culturally I'm pretty right, I do believe you're born into your tribe for a reason and people shouldn't run away but fix their problems.
Socially I'm very liberal you could marry your bike and identify as dolphin and I wouldn't give a damn.
Financially I'm conservative. And so on and so on.
I think it's time we get rid off this two dimensional thinking and embrace relativity.
Laplace not Bell.

This sounds more libertarian than “anarchist” to me.

Now, if you’re a member of the far left you’d find the notion of a libertarian very unsavory.

I’m not pointing the following at you but you raised an interesting point. In many ways, people are way more conservative than the media would let you believe. What gets people to shy away from the right side of the curve - from my experience at least - is the religious/church/stuffy/anti-lgbtq/racist factions on the right.

To the point of the OP, it’s definitely a political spectrum and there’s far more overlap than the media would lead you to believe.

That point, and the demos interesting and turning farther left, is why they won’t win in 2020 - the country just isn’t that extreme in its views in either direction.