[Marco1]

Pretty drawn out evolutionary process I think. I am not one to follow the herd without good reason. Despite who I would vote for these days, I have come to believe that all political ideologies cannot measure up to their claims. I find flag-waving Party supporters at election rallies a bit of a frightning animal.

[Teaddict]

A mixture of gut instinct and research.

[Rakas21]

For me it has been obvious since about the age of 12 (when i first took an interest in current events) that i was a Tory, generally greedy and competitive and so when i actually did a little research in the run up to election 05, it simply cemented my views. With that said i have become increasingly liberal socially over the years and so will likely end up as a Tory Libertarian.

Thinking about i suspect that my upbringing has influenced this as i come from a benefits family and have seen my sister just a year younger declare that she wants to 'chill on benefits', i find the notion that people can sit on their behind making no contribution to society appalling and violently oppose anything more than a safety net so in a way my upbringing has caused me to go the opposite way to most people in the lower classes.

Learning about economics in more detail also had an effect in pinpointing some of my beliefs (i am a neoclassical monetarist).

My parents never really held strong political views and if anything my political activity has encouraged them somewhat but they are raging lefties.

[Rainbow Stalin]

Experience

[JacobW]

Whoops, double post.

[JacobW]

(Original post by Fynch101)
You can lose your patronising tone before you realise you haven't read what I said properly.

Ideological debates are too far removed from the real world. I don't quite know what you mean by fundamental, but yes, by analysing data, we can make clear decisions on important influences on society - interest rates, minimum wages, educational variables like the ratio between students and teachers, health variables like investment in new machinery/drugs, the list goes on. Yet people profess to think political ideology will solve problems? Problems are subjective in themselves, and will therefore never be solved.

Of course data can inform decisions, but it can't remove the need for moral principles to guide us in making these decisions. As I'm sure you'll agree, empirical research tells us how the world is, not how it ought to be; we need to know both to be able to make political judgements. I'm not sure how to interpret your claim that debates about matters beyond empirical investigation are subjective and insoluble. Either you hold that claiming insight into truths about politics and society beyond those that science and experiment can reveal is unjustifiable, in which case I'd agree with you; or that claiming understanding of moral principles is unjustifiable, in which case a voter who follows your advice knows just as little about whom they ought to vote for than one who ignores you.

(Original post by Fynch101)
Economics 101: the economy as a black box. Get more advanced and you learn the economy is dynamic, i.e. changes with time. This time inconsistency makes it impossible to 'answer' 'fundamental' questions, but it gives us a good idea of their best response.

I don't neccessarily disagree, but it doesn't follow that analysing data alone can answer political questions.

(Original post by Fynch101)
You sound very biased towards the arts - Philosophers have an influence on the way we approach decisions, but with social sciences having the accuracy they have these days, they triumph over the pithy party politics which exists today. The only reason you might disagree with that is because the media do not make light of such developments, or you would see sociologists, statisticians, economists etc running the country. They are just here to satisfy democracy, which is necessary, but somewhat of an illusion. There are many, many decisions, which truly affect our day-to-day lives, which are just made by civil servants, because to argue with the data would always turn out to be political suicide. That is how powerful figures are.

Do you genuinely believe that the social ‘sciences’ are sufficiently advanced to afford us the level of certainty we would need to rely exclusively on them in formulating policy? I find that claim wildly implausible. Just consider how many variables determine human behaviour, how complex their relationships with one another are, how near-impossible most of them are to measure let alone control. I don’t see how any kind of scientific knowledge of the impact of policy changes is possible at all.

[Jack22031994]

Have no idea, as they are different to my parents


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[LETSJaM]

A combination of how I was brought up and what I believe is fair.

<3 x