On the Nolan Chart, I tend to be on the border of Libertarian and Liberal.

In other words, I support everything from the Constitution, as well as the ideas of the founding fathers, but especially Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, as well as their influences like John Locke.

I also look at their philisophical descendents, such as Mikhail Bakunin, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Noam Chomsky, Ludwig Von Mises, etc. I can get along with both the libertarian left and the libertarian right, because they do not force their ideas on people. It is the pro-authority types that piss me off.

The terms liberal and conservative, left and right, and I suppose to a large degree progressive are, IMO, functionally useless in describing an individuals political views and/or philosophy.

I am on the Progressive Bloggers role because I do not fit in with the Conservatives or conservatives, the Liberals or the liberals, the NDP, or the Greens – the PB, and Blogging Alliance of Non Partisan Canadians, blog rolls provide linkage to a wider audience that is (at least theoretically) non-partisan in nature. That is important because I firmly believe that the party system we are suffering under is a greater problem than solution.

I am not married to either of the blog rolls, or how they describe themselves. If I see (as in Rachels case) what I believe to be wrong I am under no compulsion to go easy or tread lightly because I happen to be blog roll mates with the individual – indeed, were that the case I would be on neither list within seconds of being told that I should .

If you are looking for me on a left/right political line I really don’t know where I would fit in, somewhere to the left of centre, but that’s not very useful when the centre keeps redefining itself depending on which self-described left of centre / right of centre political party happens to be in power is it?

And being linear in nature the generally accepted political spectrum doesn’t deal at all with authoritarian issues which, I believe, are just as important as the (possibly) once descriptive left/right labels.

Hitler was a rightie, Stalin was a leftie – without adding into the equation that both were very authoritarian you end up lumping Hitler and Harper into the same group labeled “rightie” don’t you?

– not very useful at all.

A better place to look for me would be on the political quadrant, I’m in the lower left corner. A non-authoritarian with socialist tendencies? A minarchist? A Libertarian with a social conscience? Somebody who thinks we should look after the disadvantaged, the helpless, and the needy, without the necessity of government regulating who falls into those categories and how they should be helped?

If you find a label that describes that philosophy let me know.

Given this long history of failure in regards to state action with these people, does it make any sense to use more state action?

There and here mad dog, there and here.

State sponsored imposed solutions are not solutions, they are the problem.

I suppose you are right (not right wing, ha ha). I think it is more of an issue of ‘Libertarian vs. Authoritarian’.

Oh, good. Unfortunately, some people, despite their leftist leanings (or maybe it’s because of their leftist leanings), have the silly notion that Howard is right in these matters:

http://fstdt.com/forums/thread.asp?p=48190#48190

I consider it inhuman to brutalize people already so brutalized by Australian governments year after year for more nearly 200 years. We know this latest intrusion won’t solve anything because we’ve seen the results of similar actions here in Canada.

The report used as an excuse for this latest intrusion condemned the lack of reliable, steady and sufficient government funding for family support programs. It did not recommend sending in the cops and the army.

Nope. That’s what everyone here is saying.

Although one thing that I would like to bring up that no one else has seemed to. The Austrailian Government has a long history of atrocities with these people. Someone said to me that up until 1980, one was legally allowed to kidnap them. They have barged in on them in numerous other ways before.

Given this long history of failure in regards to state action with these people, does it make any sense to use more state action?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

Thanks, we agree. Apparently Rachel and the Australian Government don’t.

Racism as a public policy is not worth discussing so much as it is worth denouncing and protesting over. There is simply no good reason to have racist public policy.