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The Forum > Article Comments > With our own 'counterfeit' democracy how can we possibly export it? > Comments

With our own 'counterfeit' democracy how can we possibly export it? : Comments

By Tim Anderson, published 14/2/2005

Tim Anderson argues that Australia is not a democracy.

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Sorry bozzie, I can't let it go, because this is not pedantry or nitpicking, but an observation that this left/right wing stuff is a glaring example of lazy thinking, aided and abetted by lazy listening.

I have now given you two glaring, high-profile examples where the labels patently don't fit, and you still insist that "most people understand".

As trade215 pointed out, the reality is that people use terms like these as weapons, to divide and to intimidate. By tolerating this continuing abuse of the language, we are aiding and abetting tyrants.

OK, so maybe that tyrant bit was over the top, but I'm sure you get my drift.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 14 February 2005 10:10:08 PM
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Pericles,

Forgive my ignorance (and sorry to butt in), but how would you classify Castro and Bush on a political spectrum. Are you saying that it is no longer a two-dimensional measuring stick, and that we need to think in other dimensions? Is there a political modelling tool that neatly identifies all known persuasions?
Posted by Seeker, Monday, 14 February 2005 10:43:03 PM
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A cross shaped graph, called a multi-axis model is much more acurate but harder for the average person to articlate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum)

Using the Bush example of right wing politics and left wing economics, or Communist China with comumist politics and capitalist economics, it seems that politics and economics don't have to come from the same area of the political spectrum anyway.

I think most people who understand the concepts of left and right wing also understand their limitations, so it still comunicates the point well enough.
Posted by jcl, Monday, 14 February 2005 11:21:42 PM
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Maybe a simpler system could be to look at politics as a circle, with the stating point at the bottom.

You can go to the left or right. You can go to the far left, or the far right. You can go to the far, far left, or the far, far right. But eventually if you go too far to the left, or too far to the right, then you go in a circle, and end up where you started from.

This is why the extreme left can appear very similar at times to the extreme right, because they are about to cross over.
Posted by Timkins, Tuesday, 15 February 2005 12:03:09 AM
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They wear different colours but play the same game.
A spectrum, a matrix, a circle all seem to narrow or place a political ideology. l like the circle as the least limiting because you can bounce around in measured or chaotic shifts, whatever strikes your fancy. However they all constrain or maybe navigate political conciousness, making it easy to be lazy. The less you do, the less your want to do.
Posted by trade215, Tuesday, 15 February 2005 1:27:23 AM
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Seeker, you wrote "Forgive my ignorance (and sorry to butt in), but how would you classify Castro and Bush on a political spectrum."

Sorry, I thought I had been clear on this point. I find the classifications meaningless, so I don't use them. But out of interest, where would you place them?
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 15 February 2005 8:02:01 AM
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