Prometheus 6   

I can't emphasize how much it pains me to see that the Governator is now one of the "most prominent Republicans" in the U.S. Nor can I express how frustrating it is to see the new Governor blatantly ask for political favors from the president.

So much for government for the people.

The only ones who should be upset that Arnold is governor are the conservative &/or libertarian republicans. Look at where he stands on issues. He is much more in line with the thinking of the Democratic Party than any other. Economically he seems to be just right of the line, but not by that much.
In effect his win moved the Republican Party farther left than they have been, & they've been so close that without the letter beside their names, it's hard for me to tell Republican from Democrat. But now the Republican Party sees a moderate candidate (read Democrat with an 'R' beside their name) as a more viable option in tight races.
So actually for the Democrat Party & all those who lean leftward, Arnold winning is better in the long run. For those on the right it's not a good thing.
& I'm not sure where the disparaging of government by the people is coming from. He did win an election by popular vote. You'll have to blame the people of Cali for that one.
But I would agree that either main party is more affected by the needs of the party rather than the needs of the people.

Publicola, you think that the Republican party has moved to the left? I would personally say that the two major parties are indistinguishable at times because the Democratic party has moved to the right.

More, I'd say the leftward motion that Arnod represents is about as real as that represented by Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

Did anyone click on the link?

I clicked on the link. Heh.

I think if you look at both parties over, say the last 30 years or so you'll see the major shift has been to the left, not the right. Perhaps because of the expanded acceptability of far left positions it seems the Dems have moved to the right, but I think they have stayed about the same & the scale has moved.
In a very general sense, the major difference between the two parties has been that the Republicans have wanted less government in order to solve socio/economic problems, while the Deomcrats have wanted mroe goverment to solve those same socio/econoic problems (remember, this is a generalization). Currently the Democrats still think more govenrment will solve the problems, while the Republicans feel that slightly less government than the Democrats want, will solve the problems.
So if we look at that as the major differentiation between the Democrats on the left & the Republicans on the right, then it's more plausible to say that the Republicans have shifted left while the Democrats have remained static & the left/right scale has expanded with the extreme left positions being more acceptable than the extreme right.
There are some issues where there isn't much difference between the parties of 30 years ago & the parties of today, & possibly some where the Democrats have shifted slightly to the right, but on the whole I think my observation is correct.
But the whole left/right thing is flawed conceptually because it mainly deals with economic idealogies & the social idealogies do not necessarily correspond.
It probably can be more accurately represented by two lines, one horizontal (economic) & the other vertical (sociological).
Here's a very small quiz that gives a more acurate understanding (although because of it's brevity it's probably not a 100% accurate assesment of your views) of the relationships & differences in social & economic politics. Unfortunately this type of scale doesn't make sound-bytes as snappy as the other, less accurate one.

http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html

& yes, i clicked on the link. It was amusing.

Ah, here's a slightly more in depth quiz similar to the one I linked to above.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

On social issues, I would agree that the move has been to the left but on economic and other issues the move seems to have been to the right.

Of course, if you define big government as THE leftist political idea, then Bush must be a flaming leftist. The ridiculousness of that suggestion suggests to me that that is not a very good definition.

Actually a lot of my problems with Bush do come from his big government position. Ditto for the Republican Party. & likewise for the Democratic Party. But at east the Democratic Party isn't going back on one of its fundamental positions when it advocates big government.

Ya see, Bush's desire for big government is a good example of how the Republican Party is moving to the left. 30 years ago a Republican President who moved to expand the government as much as Bush has would have lost Party support in a hurry. Now it's acceptable within the Party, so long as it's slightly less or in slightly different areas than a Democrat would want.

On the economic side of things, the far left out of necessity needs a big government to accomplish it's goals. Similarly out of necessity the far right needs a small government to accomplish it's goals.
On the social side of things the authoritarians need big government while libertarians need small government.
While most consider the Republicans to be for less government all around (this is because that was a traditional way of defining them)in actuality they're starting, as a Party to want more government both on the social & economic sides. Hence the resemblance to the traditional Democrat Party.
So it is not quite so ridiculous to compare Bush with someone on the far left. They both want a bigger government, just under different pretenses.

No sound-byte worthy system of identifying politics is perfect & there are some flaws with a big government vs. a small government analysis. But as a general indicator it isn't so bad as to be useless.

We did the Political Compass thing here, but I meant to add the post discussing it to the Best Of box. It's just that there are a couple of associated posts and I want to associate them so they're accessible from a single link.

Anyway, Al-M is right to say your finding Republican big government to be a leftist this is ridiculous…sorry dude, but that's the "right" word. And if you called our crew by its correct names, being either liberal or progressive, you'd see that yourself.

Big goverment as an attribute is neither conservative nor liberal. It's the natural result of an expanding frame of reference. As more things come into being that MUST be dealt with, the thing that deals with it will get bigger.

Conservative and liberal deal are expressions of HOW these new things are dealt with.

The political compass has two axes, but Publicola's vision seems to be one-dimensional. You can call it authoritarian and libertarian, or you can call it statist and anarchist, but there is at least this other dimension. The far left in the U.S. generally tend to be anarchists rather than statists, in my experience.

Yeah. That's why I pointed to the Political Metadimensions post, to show how a one dimensional analysis will make present people who are totally different when seen in two or more dimensions seem to hold the same position.

P6,
What I said was that the Republican Party in general has shifted to the left. Not that it was leftist. Perhaps I should clarify that when I say it's shifted to the left I do not necessarily mean to the left of the centerpoint, but shifted left relative to where they were. Although there are some cases where they do cross the line, in general they are probably still on the right, just not nearly as far right as previously, & possibly just to the right of the line.
Again, this is if we rely soley on the economic line to define left/right.
& big government was/is a staple of the Democratic Party, just as small government was a staple of the Republican Party. Desired size of government was often used as a single generalization to explain the differences between the parties. I don't think it's that applicable now because of the Republicans' shift in what they consider an acceptable level of government.

& I was speaking in terms of the politcal parties on a one dimensional (left/right) line. I didn't mean to take into account the varying degrees of left or right. I was merely trying to point out overall trends in the two parties, not specific points along the line.

The Liberal &/or Progressive thing...names are names & generally I don't get all worked up over them, unless a specifc name is required to differentiate a specific position that because of the naming or misnaming could be confused with another position. So if we discuss the specific distinctions between ideaologies on the left side of center, then if you wish I'll try to use the terms Liberal & Progressive.
One thing I do have a little discomfort with is the use of the word Liberal. This is solely because, like most things, over time it's meaning has changed. A Liberal by today's definition would bear only superficial resemblance to a Liberal 200 years ago. & since a lot of political discussion do tend to involve people who confuse the two, I always thought the potential for misunderstanding was great. A lot of people distinguish the two by calling the older version a Classical Liberal & for the most part this is enough to avoid confusion.
But for the sake of clarification what, in your mind, defines Liberal?

& for the record, I'm increasingly having the same problem with Consevative as it's modern incarnation is changing from it's historic one.

"Big goverment as an attribute is neither conservative nor liberal. It's the natural result of an expanding frame of reference. As more things come into being that MUST be dealt with, the thing that deals with it will get bigger."

That sounds like an explanation coming from one who accepts bigger government as a viable, & perhaps the only solution.
But I disagree. At least historically the right side of the political spectrum, which would include conservatives, has in general seen bigger government as a negative. This has been changing over the last few decades so it may no longer be valid as a distinction between the two parties as Republicans drift away from that idea, but does serve to illustrate my point that the Republican party has moved to the left of where it was.

& of course I disagree with yuor assertion that big government is a natural consequence of dealing with issues that come up as society expands. It's a natural consequence of human nature, a natural consequence of the desire for power & perhaps a natural consequence of a society that wishes to emphasize the collective. But it is not the natural solution to problems that must be dealt with.
There are some that, because they have a hammer in their hand, see every problem as a nail. The solution is either to pry it out or hammer it in. Similarly there are many that see every problem that presents itself as something capable of being handled only by big government. & just like a hammer, government is force. It can only act by force or threat of force. Many times it can create a solution, but not usually the ideal solution & many times the solution is worse than the cure.

For example, look at the Homeland Security thing:
We're attacked by a small group of people determined to cause as much damage as possible even at the expense of their own lives. They were successful & 19 or so people caused the deaths of around 3,000. Our response? We created a very large bureaucracy called the Dept. of Homeland Security. We also started stripping down octogenarians & confiscating finger nail clippers from those who wish to fly. We stepped up the sky marshall program & the TSA instuted a costly program for arming pilots. I'd estimate the cost of all this in the high 100's of millions to low billions.
That's the government solution. Costly, ineffecient (people still get past security with weapons) & obtrusive (ever heard of the 4th amendment?).
A non-government solution would have been less economically burdensome, more effecient & less obtrusive. The solution I'm talking about? Simply not stopping the people who wish to fly from exercising their Right to Arms. Zero dollars implementing it, guaranteed effecient as at least a few people per flight will be armed to some degree, & we do away with the 'need' for searching every person that attempts to board a plane. Downside? The govenrment acknowledges that people are responsible for their own safety & it cannot protect them if they don't protect themselves. Oh, & states like Cali won't be able to sell confiscated Swiss Army knives on E-bay anymore.

But government, in & of itself, is not the only, or most effecient, or most desirable solution to most of our problems.

Al-Muhajabah,
I admitted that my left/right analysis was one dimensional & not as precise as the two dimensional models I pointed out. The one dimensional line is not ideal as a specific identifier, but is the commonly accepted one. Just look at any newspaper or news broadcast. They merely distinguish between left & right, & this is mainly on the economic spectrum. So most people relate better to the one dimensional model because that's the only one they're familiar with. I agree that a two dimensional line is more accurate.

Now this is strictly perceptual, but in my experience the far left has been more authoritarian than you have perceived it. This is mainly due to the desire for govenrment intervention in economics. While on the social issues the far left may seem to want less government (arguments about affirmitive action, social security & other similar social programs aside) this desire is negated by requiring the government involvement on the political end. You can't have a government big enough to regulate the economy w/o having the government big enough to meddle with civil liberties. The same is true of the far right, in that a government big enough to keep men from kissing men in public is big enough to meddle in economics. To accomplish one it is almost a necessity to accomplish the other. & it is naivety to think that you can restrain a large government from interfering with one if it's big enough to interfere with the other.

But keep in mind this comes from a rather wordy guy who could have simply said "big government bad - small government good" :)