A better chart.
I don’t know what makes anyone a “libertarian” if they are okay with heavy state interference… How do you distinguish them with a typical neoliberal conservative, spanning everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Bill Clinton? I think libertarians are precisely distinguished by their reputation as the leading promoters of laissez-faire in the political and economic discourse.
If that is actually the case, you would be correct. However, if money was an issue, there are a plenty of human rights principles to violate to ‘save money’. That logic prevailed during Victorian England, but that’s impossible today now that we have mass politics and democracy. While I do understand your stance, I don’t agree from a conservative standpoint that basic rights that were won by popular activism throughout the past two centuries should not be denied in the name of fiscal responsibility.
The effective tax rate doesn’t reflect what the rich are actually paying in that country. As I said, there are multiple ‘tools’ that they have to evade these systems.
If I increase the income tax to the point so I almost get Brain Drain and/or Tax Avoidance or any tax until it shows significant negative effects it’s basically free money, the popularity lost is far smaller then the popularity won by spending the money.
Greg Mankiw and Friedman are libertarians and both believed in monetary policy and Mankiw also in fiscal policy.
Flogging would give the prisoners the freedoms to get a job or education, take care of their families and walk freely. Why should flogging be a no-go but keeping them locked up ok?
Only one in four have a pay less then most americans.
Corporal punishment in schools is an issue that has some debate but judical corporal punishment is not even close to a debate in real life. Corporal punishment in schools should be low on the “things to add list” and judical corporal punishment not to exist on such a list.
I’m tremendously unconvinced that corporal punishment is a good idea.
The essential reason for this is that it leaves the person in the same position that lead them to crime in the first place. If I steal something and I get flogged, an hour later I’m still in the same place in my life where I felt I needed to steal, but now I’m in pain. Also, I have criminal record, which makes getting a job harder, but nothing to improve my chances. Why am I not going to not go back to stealing, and just try harder (successful or not) not to get caught? There’s a reason I’m stealing and this hasn’t done anything to touch the root causes.
Prison, on the other hand, is a contained, controlled space where I can get some education or work experience or (if necessary) councilling, and when I leave I am not in the same place I was where I started and I have a better chance at contributing to society.
Now, prisons aren’t always good at doing that, but that’s an argument for better prisons, not for corporal punishment.
The only situation I see corporal punishment being really effective at changing behaviour is if it is severe enough to cause trauma. Then, yes, I could see the fear being properly behaviour altering. But traumatising people isn’t a good way to make people more productive or helpful members of society, it’s an incredibly blunt instrument.
This kind of corporal punishment works by making people scared of their government, it instills a raw, instinctual fear. That is not healthy for a democracy or a fair and equal society. It’s good for a dictatorial police state.
-El
That’s America.
But anyway regardless off what people think of it I think of it, it should not be on a list of things to add.
I definitely don’t think America is perfect, and I wouldn’t even really want to live there, but if you think it is a dictatorial police state, or even close to one, then you have no sense of perspective.
-El
But you would be less likely to steal because it would create a disincentive to commit the crime in the first place.
You would getting less work experience then on the outside.
Rehabilitation only works for those that want to be rehabilitated.
Incentives matter.
That arguement calls for anarchy. Answer this question: why do people pay taxes?
-Conlex
A fellow reactionary 
NSA spying, high taxes paying for useless wars, agricultural subsides to agribussines, civils rights act, torture and detention without trial.
I don’t pay my taxes because I’m scared of my government, which I think is what you’re implying. I pay them because I like having roads and schools and hospitals, and I like everyone else having those things too, including those less able to pay for them than me. I like those things for selfish reasons, too, because I recognise other people being well educated and healthy makes my life better. I recognise that having a police force and a judicial system and a military makes me safer. I pay my taxes because I don’t want anarchy.
And on the police state issue, you have the protected right to criticise your government. You can complain about all of those things and you can also say things like President Obama is an idiot and you can stand against him in elections. You can do all of these things without fear of the government arresting you or killing you for it. Again, America has more than its fair share of problems, but it is not a police state. Words have meanings, and throwing around terms like police state just destroys any chance of having a constructive debate.
I also particularly enjoyed the inclusion of agriculture subsidies in the list, a well known feature of police states. Even better is the inclusion of anti-discrimination legislation, given how police states tend towards increasing rather than decreasing the whole discrimination thing. Not going to find a civil rights act in North Korea.
-El
There are clear deficits in democracy in the United States, but you cannot equate it to North Korea or Stalinist Russia. While the US and the USSR had many similar characteristics, and the differences must not be exaggerated too much because calling America a “democracy” or Soviet Russia “communist” is wrong in many ways, but there are marked differences between the two.
Why are agricultural subsides a form of government corruption?
To reiterate, and get the discussion back on topic…
I do feel the game is Socialist biased(easier to be socialist). And I’m a socialist, that’s the world I wish to see come to pass! but the game only allows you really to play a socialistic policy, or it makes it very much easier to.
The Equality parameter, apparently based on the Gini coefficient, is gratuitous.
The Gini coefficient is nothing but a perverted abstraction, that says very little about equality, fairness or justice in a society. Some examples:
- During the last recession in southern Europe, the Gini coefficient dropped. That’s because the middle class was hit harder than those who were already poor. Still, hardly anyone would say that the recession made these countries more equal.
- A cold wave or an epidemic that kills several poor people, decreases the Gini coefficient.
- The Gini coefficient is indifferent to equality before the law. The poor can be subjected to forced sterilization, racial profiling, and police brutality, with no impact on the Gini coefficient as long as their income is decent.
Inequality is said to cause Class Warfare. Is that situation realistic? Has there ever been any such situation in the Western world past 1945? Riots do happen, but when poor people riot, they don’t have a socialist agenda. And when socialists incite riots, they are typically middle-class.
We need a mod which redefines the Equality concept.
You make for an interesting point but it would probably more efficient to make a new subject about that specific issue rather than reviving this rant-based topic.
I keep playing as USA, I am a hardcore Socialist Liberal, and the game I keep getting stuck as a Capitalist Liberal, because at some point certain things “Just make sense” Budget being a key difference here, and with the game any time I have a debt or a running deficit, I increase Income at a 2:1 ratio then New Income:New expenses which makes me fiscally conservative. I have other issue tweaks but I feel what you are saying but as said by others its the policies you set, how they view you at the start is a preset regardless. Play with the Start screen sliders a bit… Innate socialism and innate liberalism…look at it this was the more Capiltalist lower the socialism, the more conservative lower the liberalism slider.
As far as my other tweaks which has more to do with some of the mods, I fixed a few small things like with the Gun tax law, that shouldn’t upset liberals, same thing with the gun laws they like those things and the mod has a few things backwords so easy fixs though.
Final point its only as biased as you make it…
Yep, remember of course that conservatives, the religious, and capitalists have been having, in nearly every country, a pessimistic experience in the last century or so.
The Religious: it used to be that, even in country’s with freedom of religion, religion had a much tighter grip and science didn’t conflict as much with it. Also, science didn’t know as much back then and couldn’t really explain, say, where genes are or when exactly life arose on Earth.
Capitalists: The last “captains of industry” died about a century ago. 2 centuries ago, the U.S. didn’t have an income tax and there was no public school, healthcare, etc to take away their hard-earned cash and redistribute it to other people.
Conservatives: times have been changing. FAST. What used to be common understanding and decency is now being challenged as amoral by the left wing.
If you imagine the world of the future, regardless of your disposition, it’s hard to imagine the U.S., for example, getting more religious over time. It’s hard to imagine that our culture will ever go back to what it was before the 1960s. it’s hard to imagine, short of a catastrophe, the government actually cutting citizen-aid programs like schools, road-building, healthcare, etc.
Therefore, it is reasonable for them to be pessimistic unless they see these things actually happening. They are translating that pessimism to you.
Also, some policies can only really appease voters. Regardless of what your disposition is, it is hard to imagine that teaching only creationism would actually make any other factor better. It certainly doesn’t lead to scientific investigation, even if it is (were) correct. The only thing good that it does for you is appease the religious voters.
By comparison, teaching evolution makes interest in science. If creation is accurate, it doesn’t hurt but it still makes interest in science. Science helps productivity and technology.
Same thing with gun laws in the game, except they don’t even effect anything on either side. It is basically a choice of whether we want more liberals and whether we want liberal and patriot support or do we want parental support.