The Political Compass Reveals All About British Party Politics

This is the webpage I have been sharing with the internet all day.

The political compass is a personal test one can take to see how their views are defined in the political lingo, and how they compare with people they know and various political figures throughout history. It is based on two scales: the left-right scale (which indicates how much control a government should have over economics) and the libertarian-authoritarian scale (which indicates how much control a government should have socially). Your result places you into one of four quadrants: libertarian-right (lower economic control, lower social control) libertarian-left (higher economic control, lower social control) authoritarian right (lower economic control, higher social control) and authoritarian-left (higher economic control, higher social control).

The site managers have run the policies of each of the British political parties through the quiz, to see where they stand.  As you can see from the results, both Labour and the Conservatives are in the authoritarian-right quadrant, and the Lib Dems are in the libertarian-right quadrant. This means several things:

• The majority of people who take the test end up in the libertarian-left quadrant, or near the inner edges of the libertarian-right or authoritarian-left quadrant. This means that the platforms of the major parties are very much at odds with what the public want.
• Labour and the Conservatives have very similar ideologies in real life, despite how much they bicker. This confirms what many people are saying; that the major parties are becoming almost indistinguishable, and that we are essentially choosing between two shades of conservative when we vote.
• Labour in particular are in the complete opposite quadrant to where they were when the party was founded, and to where they traditionally present themselves. Which is the reason the Labour party annoys me so much. 
• All of the big three are firmly in the right, which means none of them will do what nearly everyone agrees in necessary and take on the banks to prevent another financial crisis like that of 2007 onwards. None of them are likely to reduce inequality, either, or put more investment in jobs and poorer communities. 
• However much the Tories criticise Labour for supporting the "nanny state", and however much Labour call the Conservative party socially regressive, both parties are authoritarian, and both are likely to place constraints on your personal life. 

The Green party are the only all-UK party in the libertarian-left quadrant of the continuum. Which means just one thing:

• Everyone should vote Green.

So in summary, if you take the test and find yourself to be an authoritarian-right guy or gal, then vote for anyone you like, and enjoy being able to laugh heartily at the rest of us.
Otherwise, vote Green. (Or possibly Lib Dem if you feel optimistic.)
      

100th Blog Post!

Hooray! I have officially posted a century of internet-based opinionated rambles and/or rants about the world! *opens champagne* *plays Cliff Richard*
I hope you've enjoyed the experience more the same as or more than I have. Not that this is the end of my blogging exploits or anything...


IN UNRELATED NEWS: The UN has passed their first-ever resolution to defend the rights of LGBTers. This is a huge step forward, largely because the international community tend to keep a lot more quiet than they should in regard to the abuse of the human rights of gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Africa and the Middle East. There is a lot of progress to be made all over the world, but this is a clear indication that we are moving in the right direction. Full story here.

Bye for now! 

Christianity and Me

I am a Christian.

Recently, it's become strangely difficult for me to utter that simple phrase. I've become increasingly aware, primarily though LGBT blogs, of the kind of thing "Christian" means to a lot of people. More and more, Christianity is associated with bigotry, oppression and right-wing lunacy. As such, I have shied away from labeling myself with the aforesaid term.
But this last week, thanks to the grace of the people working at the two churches I attend, my Christian best friends, and that of God Himself, I am reconciling myself with my Christian identity.

When someone says they are a Christian, all they are saying is that they follow Christ. And why would I have any qualms about declaring such a thing, when his teachings have done so much for me, and for those I love?

Christ's message is one of love. It is one of reconciliation. It is one that admits that all humans are sinners, and none can rightly enter the presence of God. It is, above all, the message the God loves all humans and is willing to make a way for us to be with him, despite the sin we are so saturated in.

It is not the religion of shame. It is the religion of freedom from shame. I know no place which provides such a wonderful opportunity for self-acceptance and self-forgiveness as the Church.

So when I tell you I'm a Christian, I am not saying I am better than you. I am not saying you should  change yourself to be more like me. I am saying that I follow one who loves the both of us equally and was/is willing to suffer to reach both me and you.

You don't have to believe me. In fact, I don't see it as very important whether you do or not. God is big enough to reach humans without needing the likes of me to file them into churches. But understand that my faith has taught me to love you for who you are, no less than I love myself. I don't do that perfectly, obviously. But when I fail to love you, it is because of human imperfection, not because of my religion.

Also understand that as I accept your right to be an atheist, or agnostic, or Muslim, or Sikh, or Wiccan, or anything else, I expect the same for me. I expect to be able to say what I believe without you turning into a giant squid of anger. Intellectual discussion and debate is fine; healthy, even. Blind condemnation is not.

I hope, hypothetical non-Christian person, that we understand each other better as a result of this ramble.

I won't say God bless.

But I will say, good luck. In everything you are doing post-bored-internet-surfing.  

Rapid Outpouring (on Islam in Britain)

So, I just finished reading "We are a Muslim, please" by Zaiba Malik, and I have to say, I think it's one of the most important books I've ever read.

The book describes the early to early-ish life of the now-renowned journalist, Malik, as both a Brit and a Muslim. How she had to deal with two apparently completely separate identities. How she had to straddle two communities which were just beginning to hate each other.

I've said quite a lot about Islamophobia in the West during the course of this blogging melarkey. But I haven't said enough. In fact, I don't think you can ever say enough to condemn the blind hatred which is bouncing back and forth between the white and Muslim extremists in Britain, Europe and the West.

I tend to focus on anti-Muslim sentiment, and that's the sentiment which comes from my side of the rift, so I feel the most responsible for it, in a way. But I do acknowledge that there is a lot of bile streaming from the other side, as well. I'm not going to go into the details, because you all know them. But what I am going to do is make it clear that no one demographic group is responsible for the horrific violence we have witnessed in recent years between religious and ethnic groups.

The enemy of the West is not Islam, and the enemy of Islam is not the West. The enemy of both Islam and the West, of all of humanity, is the stubborn hatred and refusal to understand in regard to anything different.
For as long as we respond to hatred with hatred, nothing will be solved. The problem will only escalate.
For as long as we respond to the invasion of Muslim nations by bombing Western cities, those invasions will become more inflamed and gather more support.
For as long as we respond to the burning of anti-Muslim books with petrol bombs of our own, the more common the book-burning Muslim will become.

We have to stop using aggression and violence to divide the different ethnic and religious sections of British society. We have to stop viewing everything different from us as a threat to what we are. In the words of the Koran- "to you be your religion, and to me, mine".

I am tired, as I'm sure so many of us are, of the argument that because the other side are hateful and intolerant, we get the right to be hateful and intolerant towards them. Sure. If you want to encourage them in the activities you despise to much, if you want to alienate people for generations to come, if you want to see more and more bombings of innocent people everywhere, you go right ahead. But if you actually want to change what's going on, you might want to try a different tack. Here's a lesson from the real world: fighting fire with fire only leads to, well, more fire. That's the simple truth.

The segregation between whites and blacks, Juedo-Christians/secularists and Muslims, Westerners and Asians does not exist simply because [X-party] are such very bad people. It exists because there are people from every side who refuse to co-operate, and are ruining it for all those who do. Please, don't join in.

That's about all I have for now. Except that I really, really recommend that book.

Turrah! 

Egotism: an Exploration

So a conclusion about people that I've sort of dredged up over the span of this blog is that everyone needs to be liked/appreciated, and a substantial amount of human behavior stems from this need.
There are times when this need is intensified by deep-rooted insecurity, or stupid hormonal pride, and the result is egotism.

Egotism, when used here, is an individual's all-consuming obsession with making him or herself believe that people like or respect them. It results in the individual's "status" being the most important thing to them, at the unhealthy expense of other, more wholesome parts of life.

The interesting part is the different ways in which egotism manifests itself. From what I've seen, you can either be a "dominant egotist" or a "submissive egotist".

Dominant egotists are the ones most people associate with the concept of ego, because they're the most easy to spot. Dominant egotists (domegos) feed their ego by trying to obtain adoration from a following of passive/submissive types; weedier friends, young/impressionable girlfriends, etc. These are people who fit naturally into leadership roles, and could be very good at leading people; but ego takes over, and the domego sees leadership as a way of drawing egofuel from their friends. They find security through being in a dominant position.

Submissive egotists (subegos) are found among sidekicks, hanger-ons, co-dependents. Subegos fuel their ego from the appreciation of people they see as stronger and more dominant. Generally, this is the kind of egotism fueled by insecurity, which means they need a leader, someone to look after them. Whereas domegos draw ego-fuel from a large group of people, subegos tend to focus their efforts on one person they see as "ideal", or possibly a few more.

It's important to remember that no kind of egotism is an innate/permanent/natural characteristic. It's a phase. Something created by certain environmental conditions which the egotist must work to overcome, and will overcome, nearly all of the time. I'm inclined to believe that pretty everyone goes through a time when they could be considered an egotist.

And, yeah, that's it.  

Desire part II: Materialism

We live in a world in which owning things for the sake of owning things is promoted as part of the ideal way of life. By the time we own one thing, there is a newer, shinier, more cool thing to own that we must have instead.

Flagrant displays of wealth such as "look at my new car!" "My iPhone is bigger than your iPhone!" have ingrained themselves thoroughly into our culture. Most of the time, we don't even want what we want for the sake of the thing itself. We want it because of the social implication of owning such a toy. We want it because it makes us look cool. In other words, we are attracted to the concept of owning, not the item itself.

And, yes, I have to think this is almost entirely down to social conditioning.

Every day, we are bombarded with advertising for every useless flashy product under the sun. And how do advertisers convince us to buy this stuff? By claiming it will cause us to have more social status. It appeals to the part of your mind which thinks "owning things = good".

But why is this bad? Because we are using up resources at a rate of knots in a world where resources are finite, As a species, we are destroying more forest, digging up more minerals and creating more pollution than ever before. And its all because we hold the belief that the more we consume, somehow, the better our lives will be.

Is there a solution? Yes. But it comes down to changing our whole attitude towards consumption.
Don't by a new phone or computer just because your model isn't the very newest any more. Wait until the one you have now stops working completely. When your contract runs out on your phone, opt to renew the contract with the same phone, rather than getting the new one. Don't buy loads of clothes on impulse, buy just as much as you need- and buy ones which will last, rather than ones which are going to fall apart in three days. This is how we make a difference to all the environmental problems we keep seeing in the news, and it will have a substantial impact on the humanitarian problems, as well. We need to start seeing consumption as an occasional necessity, rather than a mass recreational activity.

And yes, unfortunately, we need to get our preachy modes on. Blog, campaign, nag friends, try to get as many people as you can to stop consuming unnecessarily. A social change occurs when enough individuals change themselves.

That's all for now, kids!

Hold on, what?

I will post the second "desire" installment today, but I wanted to alert everyone to someone I found on BBC news.

The story is that somebody broke into a park in Manchester and beheaded eighteen birds, speared a frog, poisoned all the fish in a lake, and smashed a load of windows. It's pretty sickening the kind of disregard these people apparently had for non-human life. But that's not what I'm going to angstily blog about.

I'm angstily blogging because if you scroll down to the external links bit in the story, you will find that the headline from the Manchester Evening News reads "yobs behead birds (etc)". Similarly, the Metro declares the crime was committed by "thugs". As if the police have already found evidence that the crime was committed by late teenage/young adult males.

What makes journalists think they can accuse a particular demographic group of a crime without even any suspects whatsoever? Is this how society is now; that any act of vandalism or casual cruelty is instantly put down to teenage males?

You probably think I'm overreacting. And to be honest, you're probably right. It just frustrates me that we are this judgmental, and that media consumers are willing to let presumptiousness like this slide. Something to work on, I feel...