By Kevin

I just found this interesting blog post by Swedish archaeologist and blogger, Dr Martin Rundkvist who thinks that our "entire bipartisan system maps onto the conservative half of European politics." Specific mention is made of the fact that all of the US candidates are pro death-penalty, none are strict gun control advocates, and all make frequent mention of their religious views in public. All of which would apparently be extremist views in Sweden.

In search of a more international view of the political spectrum I found The Political Compass. Apparently this is quite a popular test (even has a Facebook app!) but it was my first time coming across it. Six short pages of questions map your views onto separate economic and social axis. The four corresponding quadrants are liberal-left (Ghandi), liberal-right (Milton Friedman), authoritarian-left (Robert Mugabe), and authoritarian-right (Margaret Thatcher). Having gone through the survey and accompanying information I would tend to agree with Dr Rundkvist's assertion about our presidential hopefuls. Other than Ron Paul, who I would throw in the liberal-right quadrant, all of our candidates would seem to reside in the authoritarian-right.

High-minded political theory discussion aside, however, the real reason I loved his blog entry was this quote:

The Republican presidential candidates are really, really scary people in my view. So all of us in the world at large who live under the shadow of US political hegemony are holding our breaths, hoping that Clinton or Obama will make it into office. They're pretty bad, but the alternative would be unspeakably dreadful.

Fabulous.

On a slight tangent, does anybody know if the people working tables in the cosmetics/vitamins section at Costco are on commission? The lady handing out Ocean Mist Saline coupons got into a fight with me tonight over whether I had a cold or not!

authoritarian-right: mumble mumble mumble OCEAN MIST! mumble mumble.
me: No thanks.
authoritarian-right: I saw your red nose. It's allergies!
me: Actually I have a cold.
authoritarian-right: It's NOT a cold! It's ALLERGIES!
me: Uh... believe me, it's a cold.
authoritarian-right: No, it's allergies. mumble mumble (fades into the background noise)

Labels: meds, politics, shopping

1 Comments:

• At 2:32 PM,  Rita said…

  convincing you you have a cold
  
  hahahahaha
  
  people.
  
  reminds me of me flagging down customers for a car wash by shouting how dirty their cars are. except i was right, so it worked. ;)

   

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