Consider: How might ideological labels both help and hurt our democracy?

Homework: Assignment 3 for tomorrow

Political Ideology

…or, Where One Stands, Depends On Where One Sits

Unit 2

What Is a Political Ideology?

“The coherent set of values and beliefs people hold about the purpose and scope of government”

Four functions of ideologies: Explanation- provides reasons why social and economic

conditions are the way they are (North Korea) Evaluation – standards for evaluating social conditions and

political institutions and events. Orientation – provide a direction for individuals on issues and a

way of seeing the world Political program – help people make political choices, such as

voting

1.6

Origin of Left and Right

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.

What do the terms “liberal” and “conservative” mean?

These terms refer to a somewhat consistent set of beliefs about the role of government Political Ideology▪ They cannot describe every person, nor apply to

every person in the same way US 20th century – begin in economic

terms Liberal – government intervention in

economy, Conservative – free market proponents

Though these applications are inexact, we can draw broad outlines of what they mean….

Scared to be a liberal?

Scared to be a liberal?

http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/political-attitudes/political-ideology/

Problems with Ideological Labels Is left-to-right the only direction? Economic versus personal liberties Statists Libertarians

1.6

Populist - Authoritarian

Economic Line

Less

con

trol

Soci

al L

ine

Less control

Libertarian

Mor

e co

ntro

l

More control

Pure Liberal

Pure Conservative

Socia

l Con

trol i

ncre

ases

Economic Freedom increases

Where one stands… “Over the last 30 odd years, Democrats have moved to

the right and the right has moved into a mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby... That's the Democrats.

And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? Please. He's not even a liberal.” Bill Maher

The Political Test.net

The Political Test.net

More political tests…

www.isidewith.com/ http://www.politicaltest.net/