Conservative vs. Liberal Position List & Commentary

So basically I thought it might be useful to post the comprehensive base-game list of positions on various issues between Conservatives vs. Liberals and add my commentary… this came off of the back of claims that the game has a Liberal bias…

Conservatives vs. Liberals
Anti-Abortions vs. Pro-Freedom to Abortion
Pro Ban-Divorce vs. Pro-Freedom to Divorce
Pro Ban-Homosexuality vs. Pro-Freedom to Homosexuality
Pro Ban-Women-From-Driving vs. Pro-Freedom for Women to Drive
For CCTV Cameras vs Against CCTV Cameras
For Death Penalty vs. Against Death Penalty
For Drone Strikes vs. Against Drone Strikes
Against Family Planning vs. For Family Planning
For Gated Communities vs. Anti Gated Communities
Against Gender Equality vs. For Gender Equality
Against Gender Transition vs. For Gender Transition
For General Media Censorship vs. Against General Media Censorship
Against Banning Genital Mutilation vs. For Banning Genital Mutilation
For ID Cards vs. Against ID Cards
For Internet Censorship vs. Against Internet Censorship
Against Prostiution vs. For Prostitution
For Mandatory Microchips vs. Against Mandatory Microships
Outlaw Narcotics vs. Allow Narcotics
For National Service vs. Against National Service
Against Needle Exchange Programme vs. For Needle Exchange Programme
Harsh Prison regime vs. Gentle Prison regime
Against Prisoner Voting vs. for Prisoner voting
Against Race Protections vs. For Race Protections
Against Righ to Die vs. For Right to Die
For Selective Schooling vs. Against Selective Schooling
For Torture by Secret Service vs. Against Torture by Secret Service

Conservatives & Liberals
Private Prisons

Conservative only
Against Human Cloning
Against Inheritance Tax
For Married Tax Allowance
For Police Force
Against Stem Cell Research
For Welfare Fraud Dept

Liberals only
For Art Subsidies
Against Armed Police
Against banning Cryptocurrency
Against banning Foreign Church Service
Against banning Sunday shopping
Against banning tobacco
Against border controls
Against border navy
Against Border wall
Against Curfews
Against Detension without trial
Against high executive term length
Against high executive term limit
Against banning firemarms
For Food Standard Agency
Against Force Military Political Religious Oath
For unrestricted gambling
For gay marriage
Against Intelligence Services
For Judicial Independence
For Jury Trial
For Legal Aid
Against Military Spending
Against Nuclear Weapon
Against One Child Policy
For PRess Freedom
Against Prisoner Tagging
For good quality prisons
Against public religious broadcasts
Against public tax returns
Against racial profiling
For a generous refugee policy
Against religious taxes
Against religious bank notes
For the Right to Privacy
Against Rubber Bullets
Against School Prayers
Against Secret Courts
Love Atheist Schooling hate Religious Schooling
Against State Religion
Against Tasers
Against Tear Gas
Against unexplaiend wealth orders
Against water cannons
Against wire tapping

So my opinion after thinking about it this is how the game works:
Liberals hate the religious imposing on them, hate anything that smells even slightly authoritarianism, they’re for gender equality, they’re for racial equality, they are are pro-LGBT & pro-gender transition, they hate the military, they want open borders to their country & they want comfortable well-invested prisons and are against censorship.
Taken as a whole (radical) they’re basically drug-smoking hippies that want everyone to have equal rights & protections by separating the church from the state & outlawing discrimination.

Conservatives have sympathies with the religious, prefer a stronger police-like state, are against gender equality, against racial equality, are anti-LGBT and anti-gender transition, they want harsh unpleasant prisons & are for censorship.
Taken as a whole (radical) they’re basically ‘regressives’ who want crime to be crushed and criminals to be punished harshly so that they can live in a safe society where people don’t dare commit crime, they don’t mind if the state puts some restrictions in place if it means preventing society causing the collapse of ‘traditional’ family values and everyone becoming drug-addicts.

Honestly I think the game is pretty fair. The Conservatives align with the religious / patriots, whilst the Liberals? Their commitment to an Atheist State with lots of freedoms pisses off the religious a lot and their commitment to open borders pisses off the patriots a lot whilst their positions on lots of things tends to irritate the Conservatives too. In other words Liberals are hard to please.

I think that the Conservative position is actually hard to define and the game has done its best… although it definitely does lean towards a “Western Christian” side of things I think Cliff has done his best to overcome this with all the overrides he has used in countries like South Korea & Japan.

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The curse of being human is that everything can be made with subjectivity, not that is a bad thing, we ain’t robots.

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My personal view on conservative v. liberals split can be summarized as “realism v. idealism” in crude terms. And the biggest reason this game is said to have a liberal bias is the absence of challenges that could have forced liberals to compromise their ideals. In other words, the game is so easy that all those heavy-handed measures are just unnecessary.

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I do feel the liberal bias here, I don’t think the creator is a “centrist” or something to equalize every point of view…

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Well, I would defer with regards to your statement of it being pro-liberal. Legalizing lots of drugs leads to a negative situation, not controlling alcohol consumption leads to alcohol abuse, high gambling leads to organized crime, upsetting the religious leads to radicality, one place where there isn’t a negative outcome to liberal policies is not present is in the legalization of prostitution, while the merits of legalizing prostitution are some, such as easier access to healthcare, increased safety for sex workers, better oversight by the state (there isn’t a corresponding increase in health by legalizing prostitution), the drawbacks are not shown, such as increased illegal trade in humans (intra-border and cross-border).

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This game does not have a liberal bias. That may be unintentional.

I’m not sure that’s something worth necroposting a 3-month-old post. Also, you can check political compass in the main menu and see global statistics on this matter. I don’t think the developers have intentionally made conservative policies bad but imo the game is rather easy to the extent of not needing any heavy-handed law & order measures. Imagine what would have happened if managing balanced budget or debt was far more easy to make the game more accessible for newcomers. Someone must be saying that the game favors public spending & socialism.

The game correctly delineates between “capitalist/socialist” and “conservative/liberal”.

I don’t find having zero crime rates without significant efforts in policing to be realistic. For example, prisoner tagging or electronic tagging is quite widespread in real world but there’s no reason to use it in the game since you can eradicate violent & non-violent crimes without such.

How did you reduce crime without any policing?

Take some time to read carefully. I said “no significant efforts.” I don’t really need that much policing measures which are bad for my approval. Maxed Police, Prison, Intelligence Service, and Community Policing are usually all you need. You might need more if you have high poverty but even capitalist governments don’t have hard time dealing with it.

Well, how hard have you found it to reduce crime with conservative policies?

As I have mentioned many times above, the problem is I don’t need them in the first place. That’s what you need to see.

There’s zero reason to get along with the conservative policies when crimes have already been eradicated. What prisoner tagging gives me are just higher bureaucracy & lower approval.

+I’m reaaaally curious how can u interpret my comments as “conservative law & order policies are weak”

I didn’t interpret them as such, but the game can’t be faulted for your preference for liberal anti-crime policies. Because if you take the liberal route, you’ll have lower approval amongst conservatives (there’s always an offset). That could be offset by the lower numbers of conservatives in Western countries in game.

South Korea may play differently due to their higher number of conservatives.

You are still not getting the point. There’s no point of having other routes when the most effective one is enough at solving the problem and has no drawback. Tell me any incentive that can make players enact prisoner tagging, police drones, or racial profiling when they have already achieved zero crime without losing approval.

If you have understood my points correctly, you should bring a case where more lax & liberal policing measures achieved zero crime. Not just “zeRo cRiMe is PoSsiBle”

Well, simply because they wish to placate the conservatives, or they are conservatives themselves and they don’t want to enact liberal policies. Plus armed police costs less than regular police and other authoritarian measures combined probably cost less than the $21 billion per quarter value for fully funded police. Maybe they want to cut the budget deficit, so they will drop private prisons, prison regime and prison funding low. I can’t answer your question fully, but these seem plausible reasons why.

None of policies mentioned in my last comment has a positive approval effect. They just piss off the liberals that’s all.

Also, police force is really cost-efficient considering its crime prevention & positive approval. The same goes for prison/private prison.

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