388:. They are coalitions across the spectrum, but with the Democrat spectrum to the left of the Republican spectrum. So Democrats run in US parlance from center-left to center (with some particularly in the south center-right), and the Republicans center to center-right, with some (like Arnie right now) on marginally left of center. Put simply, the main block of the Democrats are slightly left of center, the main block of the Republicans slightly right of center, each with a large and small fringe (the former left, the latter right in the Ds, the former right the latter left in the Rs. And both have members who could (and on occasion
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death penalty, advocate higher taxes and social spending on pensions and social welfare. The standard US political commitment to private health care, private pension arrangements, private control of utilities are all stances that elsewhere are defined as centre-right. Internationally people are often puzzled by claims that such and such a US politician is centre-left. Elsewhere they would be seen as on the right. And the policies of the US
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denominations. In contrast to Europe, those saying they are not religious are a minority (14.1% 2001 American
Religious Identification Survey) in the United States. The actual level devotion of Americans to their faith is often debated and the ARIS Study showed a decline from 86.2% calling themselves Christian in 1990 to 76.5% doing so in 2001, still well above the 53% who are members of a Christian church.
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of centre, right wing, liberal, conservative etc have broad communal meanings, linked to specific policies and ideologies. In the US, Singapore and some other states where the central political fulcrum is not in the centre but to the right or the left of centre, those terms have different meanings. In the US the centre-point is to the right of
210:. Margaret Thatcher, undoubtedly a right-winger, was to the left of Ronald Reagan in many of her policies, eg, her refusal to propose the abolition of the National Health Service, her failure to reintroduce the death penalty, which is opposed by all by the far right wing internationally, but supported by such supposedly
392:) cross from one to the other. Hence presidents from one party can find members of the other sufficiently close to them to join their administration. So it was natural for the Ds to produce an FDR (left of center) and for the Rs to produce Reagan (right of center), though of course Reagan was once a Democrat. So simply
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Singapore is not a typical liberal democracy. Using
Singapore's definitions of politics in its article would mislead world readers who generally use different understandings for terms. In standard liberal democracies, communist, socialist, social democratic, centre left, centrist, centre right, right
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is blatently wrong. The US may think so, but this is an international encyclopædia and US definitions in these areas are regarded as weird and factually wrong in most liberal democracies. Wiki has got to use world-recognised terminology, not the ones popular in the US and only in the US. Using terms
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I was just reading through the 1st para and felt the 2nd sentence out of tune with the paragraph. It's in past tense, the sentence ideally should have been in another para. The line can be replaced by "It extends from the
Atlantic coast in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west", or something of
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How does the rewritten paragraph look? If there's one source it should be ARIS because the Census Bureau itself can't study religion in the census and is presenting a compilaton of figures from several studies. The generally lower numbers for church membership are also given in the ARIS study but I
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In 2000, 53% (Census Bureau figures, PDF file) of
Americans were members of Christian churches, with smaller Jewish (2.3%) and Muslim (0.1%) minorities. Although most American Christians are Protestant, the Catholic church is the largest Christian denomination because there are many more Protestant
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According to this argument you would be better off with only one party: that would be even more efficient. I don't see how "luring away votes" can be counted as representation: it just means hardly anyone will vote for other parties since the vote would be wasted. By representation I mean having
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The
Unabomber one is a good one! To be honest, I am less familiar with the extremes on the far left than I am the far right (when they live in your own house you have to pay more attention). Once you get so far in either direction though I don't think it matters much. You end up with dead people
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is grossly misleading. US politics is more right-wing than the norm in liberal democracies. Few mainstream politicians in the US advocate policies that are elementary centre-left standard elsewhere. In most liberal democracies, centre-left politicians advocate free health care, are opposed to the
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alone are insufficient categorisations and hide the fact that the parties have a broadbased range of support, differing in geography (north and south), class and income levels, religion and ethnic background (RC - Democrat, minority
Republican, Episcopalian - Republican, minority Democrat, etc).
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Explaining all that is outside the scope of this article. It is not implied that this "center-left" is the same "centre-left" as in Europe. Do we have to explain that "center-right" is much more centrist than in
Singapore? Where does it stop? The politics section is meant to be a summary.
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on the left? Both the so-called left and so-called right have their monsters. I say so-called, since those people are lumped in by critics on the opposing side in the simplistic one-dimensional view of political views (right vs. left). Darn, now I've opened the topic of authoritarian vs.
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So, the "center" of major candidates of either party shifts accordingly in each of those areas. Even the average Green candidate in
Pennsylvania is further right than the average Green candidate in California. Anyhow, I think this is better addressed in one or several sub-articles.
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The dominant political culture in the United States is, as a whole, somewhat to the right of the dominant political culture in
European democracies. Within the US political culture, US Republican Party is described as center-right and the US Democratic Party is described as
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A recent description of Tony Blair as a left-winger in a CBS program caused mirth in Europe, where Blair is seen as the most right wing Labour Prime
Minister in history, to the right indeed of some of the 'left' of the Tory Party. Ted Kennedy has been described in the US as
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Congratulations of removing the "strong democratic tradition" bit from the opening. Democracy in the USA is a joke compared to many other countries - a system where only two parties have any chance of representation, with rigged elections (George W), dodgy voting systems
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Religious statistics: this is a an excellent addition, but it shouldn't mix statistics from the Census and the ARIS survey because they seem to use different criteria and it's a bit confusing. Can we just use one source (I would lean towards the Census) to be clearer?
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which the inherited from the British Empire; I'm not sure if this owes anything to the USA. Other countries use proportional representation models which don't seem to derive from the USA. Are there many clear examples where the USA has exported its system?
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And Howard Dean is seen as "unelectable" by many for being "too left wing" and certainly on the left of the Democrats. Yet his views would be mainstream centre-left and he would be seen as certainly electable in other states. His case is a classic example.
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I apologize for making so many changes in a row, I should have just reverted to the last reasonable version. I compared the current against some older versions that were used as reversion points by multiple people and the changes appear to be good now.
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Also, I think the culture section on this page needs a lot of work. Hard to summarize American culture, I know, but it's been done for the other sections. At the moment it's primarily an ugly and not particularly helpful list of links. Any ideas?
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Uh, no. Other political groups tend to get representation by luring away votes in presidential elections. It would be inefficient if there were about twenty political parties vying for seats in the government. Israel uses the Knesset system, yet
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article and the inclusion of the European comparison is somewhat Euro-centric. Now, someone else will want to list that the US center is somewhat left of various other regions/countries, then we'll start debating why that's the case, etc.
202:, whereas in Britain, France, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Italy,New Zealand, etc he would be seen at best as moderate left of centre, ie social democratic. And George W. Bush's policies would never be described as
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Some Sociologists believe that the wealthy and elite rule the U.S. Others believe interest groups rule the U.S. One indiciation that the men being elected are from a predominant group in U.S. society stems from low voter turnout.
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when their policies would not remotely be categorised that way anywhere else in liberal democracies. Because of no strong socialist or social democratic tradition, the central fulcrum of US politics is to the right of elsewhere.
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What does this "elsewhere" mean? It seems more like just Europe, and not most of the world. I would leave this statement out. We should just be concerned about the US's relative spectrum, especially since this is only a summary.
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I've blocked the vandal's IP address for about 2 minutes as a warning. I cannot block permamently as its an AOL addy. As this guy seems to like vandalizing this page, I'm going to protect it the next time that happens.
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Comparing these terms is not going to resolve this I'm afraid. Compared to Hitler or Tim McVeigh most of us can be called leftist. Compared to Lenin most of us can be called rightist. The path to take might
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is simply misleading where the centre point in US politics is right of centre by international definition, in the absence of the standard left of centre socialist and social democratic traditions in the US.
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I have a modified map which I will upload today some time. I'll try fixing the Alaska green, too. The map isn't that much of an improvement but it'll do till something better can be put together.
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are described simply as right wing elsewhere. In the absence of any strong left of centre party in the US, centrist politicians tend to be discribed, to the amusement of the rest of the world, as
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The Democratic Party has and should be described as center-left , and to describe it otherwise would be quite against common practice in the US. Besides, you say center-left politics favor
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These systems are also pretty bad. I think most European countries have some form of proportional representation and it's easy to consider them as more democratic than the USA.
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Yes, the small map needs to be fixed. The green could also be darker in Alaska. Hawaii is at least shown as part of the U.S. on the larger map in the Geography section.
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left of centre. In Sweden, Dean would positively be seen as right wing, while Dean would be to the left of Blair, to the moderate left in the Irish Labour Party, etc.
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don't like to give just one study for a subject as controversial as religion. Hopefully the revised wording clarifies the reason for the difference in the figures.
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I'm going to put the sentence back as "The country was founded under a tradition of having the rule come from the people under the republic form of democracy. The
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I meant to add in one change. Both the Democrats and Republicans are catch all parties, so they cannot simply be said to be center-left or center-right
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and plenty of Democrats advocate these positions. Perhaps a compromise is to make the distinction between "centre-left" and "center-left." :)
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I can live with that version as factual, thanks Ark30inf and Jtdirl. However, I think it is still somewhat long-winded for the top-level
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I think both articles should use the full names. There's no linking problem since the abbreviations can redirect.
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My definition of a modern democracy is a system which the people have the absolute final say in the government.
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The "Bush rigged the election" idea IS DISPUTED. I'm not saying that the U.S. democracy is perfect, however.
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seats in parliament, i.e., the people who voted for these parties actually get some representation under the
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I agree that it could be better, but changes to Culture seem to attract various POV insertions. Good luck.
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I added it. It ain't beautiful, but it shows Hawaii. Alaska looks a little bloated, but it's a darker green.
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though in the US, the center point in politics is more to the right than in most liberal democracies; US
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Granted, its a bit tortured, but some wordsmith could probably reword it. Anyway, you get the idea.
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liberal democracies, producing unelectable left-wingers like Dean that elsewhere would be seen as
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Besides, before one goes saying "The U.S. has a weak democracy.", he or she should define it.
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model used by the United States was exported and is now in use around the world."
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I think these differences are largely geographical. From left to right, roughly:
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The background is a little pinkish too. Can't someone just generate a new one?
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Yes, there are a number, although "export" is not the word I would use.
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OK, if it's actually true (I don't know the history well enough, and the
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Bad analogy. Changing this page's name would be more like renaming
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US politicians as Al Gore and Bill Clinton, who also championed
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Also, Canada and the UK also have two dominant parties.
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