How Do You Classify Yourself? Radical Left or Moderate Centrist

[DistressedAmerican]

Poll question: How Do You Classify Yourself? Radical Left or Moderate Centrist

As people note, The democratic party has a large tent. The same can certainly be said of DU.

I would certainly self identify as hard, radical left. If it was the 60's I'd be a yippie. My posts and graphics definitely reflect those views. I tend to reject any move toward compromise with the right.

As with most threads here, I get a wide range of reaction to my posts. Many cheer my pushing the envelope toward the more radical (admittedly a bit too far on occasion). Others say things like my posts make them uncomfortable and urge restraint in my rhetoric.

Often these philosophical divisions within the DU community lead to the outbreak of flamefests and allegations of either freeperism or selling out.

So, I've been wondering what the demographic make up of the DU community really is.

If you had to pick, how would you describe your political views on the whole?





On Edit: Just so you know, I resisted calling this poll "Democratic Underground Or Democratic Middleground?"

[UdoKier]

1. A traditional liberal (which is now called "radical leftist")

at least by the corporate media. I would be a centrist, if the center in this country wasn't moved so far to the extreme right.

[nonconformist]

2. Ditto. nt

[Protagoras]

34. Same...feel pretty moderate...get labelled

very radical.

Can't see how I'm advocating that freakish...just let people go to school, treat labor fairly...don't deny people healthcare...provide a honest vote for everyone...don't bankrupt the economy with debt...don't let Robber Baron's reinstitute Company Towns...but still find some room to promote enterprise and business ownership...

real wild...

And for it I'm compared to Mao and Lenin...

[AuntiBush]

41. Really. We have few choices now.

[LittleClarkie]

3. Other

depends on who I'm standing next to. Here I am a moderate to liberal. In my freeper city, I am a flaming lefty.

[Mythsaje]

4. I used to joke

that I was a radical moderate.

I want moderation NOW!

These days, I'm sitting left of where the middle is right now thinking..."ah, crap."

[merh]

5. tree huggin, civil rights loving, left wing liberal!

I guess that makes me radical left :shrug:

Love that image! :patriot:

[KaliTracy]

15. me too! *grin*

:hi:

[merh]

30. Good to meet ya!

Hugged any good trees lately :rofl:

:patriot:

[KaliTracy]

31. i used to have a pix of that somewhere.... but it's been awhile

*grin*

[AX10]

6. Economically, I'm a European Liberal (Adam Smith).

A free market with the balance of responsibility and a safety net for the down times. Today, that makes me a "left winger" which I am not. The middle in this country has moved to the right since Reagan. I am centrist (on average).

[Just Me]

7. I am a radical advocate for the best interests of humanity.

How does that fit in your poll?

:shrug:

[DistressedAmerican]

16. Well ,That Depends What You Think The best Interests Of humanity

are.

Everyone and their mother want what's best for humanity. Freepers and Radicals alike...

You sound like a flag burning crazed Anarcho-commie yipster to me!:evilgrin:

[More Than A Feeling]

23. That's not true

Many people want just what's best for themselves (understood in a very narrow and shallow way. They don't understand interdependence at all), and everyone else can go take a flying leap. Such people scare me.

[DistressedAmerican]

37. True...

[Walt Starr]

8. It depends upon the issue

Death Penalty, law enforcement, gun control, I consider myself moderate.

Reproductive Freedom, Religious freedom, Healthcare I'm probably a radical leftist.

[TahitiNut]

9. Again, here's the DU topography on the Political Compass ...

:eyes:

[More Than A Feeling]

24. Where did these numbers come from? n/t

[TahitiNut]

28. A DU Poll last year, where about 180 DUers took the test.

It's in the archives somewhere. :shrug:

I was wrong. It was July 2003. Here ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=18357

[AntiCoup2K4]

48. As I thought.....

...before the "invasion".

Wonder what a more recent (honest) sampling would look like.

[TahitiNut]

50. You're welcome to do the work.

:shrug: I've done it - and I'm not one claiming it's changed. I've seen the same bullshit DU rhetoric about 'centrism' since the days of Carlos.

[LoZoccolo]

10. These sorts of polls are completely useless and vain.

The fact that people spend so much time on DU going back and forth in arguments with people outside of their tribe basically shows you that a lot of people are in it for the label or sense of belonging, rather than having compelling positions they can share articulately.

[TahitiNut]

12. Yep. Even in Detroit, people that call themselves "Tigers" aren't.

:shrug: A LOT of people like to wear labels. They're mostly meaningless and have nothing to do with what they are.

[Maple]

11. You missed

Radical Centrist...so I voted 'other'

[Up2Late]

13. I said Leftist, but I don't like that term, I prefer...

...Bleeding Heart Liberal over Leftist. Leftist has Negative connotations.

[liberaltrucker]

14. Radical left by 60's standards

But I consider myself a Trotskyite.

[stillcool]

17. from apolitical...

to rabid liberal in 5 long years.

[Sugarbleus]

18. Human rights, civil rights, labor, civil liberties

Not into environmental movement=not radical left. Just LEFT..more like Democratic Socialist..or Old School Democrat of FDR traditions..

But, I AM radical in my moods these days. I am angry as hell about what is happening to this country and would do what ever it takes to bring it back into balance.

[patricia92243]

19. On a personal level, I am very, very conservative. Politically, I am just

a plain ol' tree hugging liberal. The fact that I am a Democrat at all surprises my friends and family. And that I can be a Christian AND a Democrat is beyond their scope of thinking. (Republican hype, of course.)

So, I think I am moderate and my friends think I am a flaming liberal - go figure!

[Warpy]

20. Pinko

which means the red of my early teens has been diluted with pragmatism.

The capitalist system has been pretty good at providing THINGS, but only when they're heavily regulated. They degrade service in all areas, though, so it's annoying in a Walmart, fatal in healthcare.

Some things belong in the socialist sphere, Federal standards set and the programs managed locally, like health care, schools, fire and police protection and probably most utilities.

The capitalist system continues to churn out lots of things, but without regulation and worker protection, they're finding there is little market left for much of them. Their entry into health care (previously nonprofit) has been an unmitigated disaster. They system is moving toward parallel monopolies at an accelerated pace, meaning less choice, less competition, fewer jobs, and higher prices.

Only a mixed system can be truly competitive and truly humane, and only a well regulated system can cope with the lazy and the greedy.

[understandinglife]

21. American Citizen.

Who cares deeply about travesties like this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3797148

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - We have all the evidence of mendacity and illegal war-making we need to indict and prosecute Bush, Blair and every other neoconster scum-bag on the planet having any involvement in the Bush's illegal war on Iraq and all the torture and other atrocities that have been committed since August 2002.

[meow2u3]

22. Radical centrist (formerly known as Old School Liberal)

I'm one of those who get flamed because I stand a bit to the right of center on certain hot-button issues which I shall not name; but I'm a flaming lefty when it comes to economic issues and a moderate liberal on civil rights issues.

What the hell do you think StopThePendulum means? It means that if the political pendulum won't stop swinging wildly, we should force it to stop swinging!

[Ksec]

25. Im a Labor Democrat

Not sure where Id fit in there.

[toddaa]

26. Leftist Libertarian

Seriously. Think Noam Chomsky, not Murray Rothbard.

Actually, a better term would be moderate anarchist.

[in_cog_ni_to]

27. Radical, far left, bleeding heart LIBERAL.

and PROUD OF IT! So there! :P

[AlienGirl]

29. Civil rights radical, economic pinko, and basically pro-gun. n/t

[saltpoint]

32. I'm kind of a health care & oak trees Democrat with a heavy --

-- blend of pro-education, pro-labor, pro-science, & pro-civil rights spices.

I'm in the camp that holds that science, history, music, painting, sculpture, dance, poetry, literature, and film can affect significant and permanent reform in societies, and that leaders in constitutional democracies must use these realms as frames of reference for our relationship to each other, domestically and internationally.

John F. Kennedy honored men and women in these arenas of accomplishment at formal White House dinners -- a very official acknowledgment of their genius and their contribution to the modern world.

For Dubya, it's Toby Keith.

[JDPriestly]

33. Used to be considered moderate liberal.

Although old enough and although always a Democrat, I was too conservative to join in the demonstrations against the Viet Nam war because, while I did not approve of Johnson's lying to go to war, I felt the North Vietnamese were vicious, brutal Communists. I still think they were. I don't know to what extent they still are.

But, now, I'm considered to be very liberal. I'm not the one that changed. Right-wing fanatics assassinated the most prominent and best leaders of the liberal movement -- Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Bob Kennedy just to begin the list. That left a void, and the Republicans moved way to the radical right and pulled the country in their direction. We have to pull it back to the middle of the road again. By middle of the road, I mean a place where there is a proper (not necessarily equal) balance between the rights of the community and the rights of the individual and where the personal rights of the individual and the broad rights of the community are both more important than the rights of corporations and other institutions that are controlled by an elite oligarchy.

[TreasonousBastard]

35. Other....

because personally I could be called a democratic libertarian socialist, if such a thing exists.

Everything exists to ultimately support the individual-- society, government, business, religion...

But, for any of these to function, the individual has to understand the reciprocal responsibilities involved. And, government is the last, and possibly only, resort for the individual to have his voice heard and his concerns dealt with. Government is us.

How I vote is another issue entirely. I usually vote straight Democratic for a number of reasons, but rarely simply because I agree best with that candidate. Personally, I prefer centrist candidates because they usually have the combined advantages of being able to win and being able to deal with the necessary compromises that have to be made.

[Pithlet]

36. A leftist, to be sure.

Radical may be a matter of perspective. I'm sure many on the right would think I am, but I do not view my opinions as all that radical.

[kodi]

38. working class liberal

.

[Guaranteed]

39. LOL I don't even know anymore. nt

[AuntiBush]

40. It's past being "passive!" They're "RADICAL!" Time to fight fire w/fire!

[Poiuyt]

42. Used to be a moderate, Bush has pushed me to the left

I took one of those surveys to see where you are on the political spectrum about 8-10 years ago. I was just slightly to the left of center, right around where Clinton was. I took the same test about a year ago and found that I had moved considerably to the left.

[DistressedAmerican]

43. Morning Kick! Expand The Sample Size...

[sweetheart]

44. Buddhist

It translates to non-violence, no war, no drugs wars, no police state,
total liberty, no corporate congress, no money ruling elections and
congress, counting ALL votes, no racism, treating all human beings with
inalienable rights and realizing that all of life is sacred.

It is hardly radical... its about as centrist as you get.

[NoPasaran]

45. Radical Centrist

[leesa]

46. I don't. Why do you?

[DistressedAmerican]

47. Kick

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

49. Anarchist. "Power corrupts.."

Whether it's military, political, economic, or anything else that makes for the powerful to prey on the weak.

[DistressedAmerican]

51. Kicker!

[scarlet_owl]

52. I'm as left wing as it gets. My heart bleeds and I hug trees.

[Douglas Carpenter]

53. What is radical leftist in today's America would almost be a centrist

:nopity:

For those who have traveled to other western democracies like say Canada or practically anywhere in Western Europe know that even "conservatives" in other democracies would hold views that no politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders would publicly advocate here in the U.S.; at least not in Bush's America.