America's Ideology

[Frodo]

The American people have been described as being on the whole 'moderately conservative' or 'moderately liberal' depending on whom you talk to.

How would you describe the general public, ideologically?

[Frodo]

Angus,

By 'educated', I don't mean necessarilly in a public school setting, but more informally.  For instance, Philip and Emsworth are each 'educated' on constitutional law, and may have even have had classes on the subject, but they by and large educated themselves on the subject.  Al is similarly 'educated' on labor history.  StatesRights on the Civil War. 

So what I really mean by 'educated' is to assume that the populace at large is 'informed' on the issues, aware of and familiar with various arguments pro and con, and come to their own conclusions based on their own experience and background.

Secondly, regarding ideology:

No, I am not asking whether the populace will lean to 'true libertarianism' or 'true liberalism' or whatever.  I assume everyone here is aware that the general public is in the middle, but I want to know in which direction ideologically they lean towards as centrists.  So if they lean towards libertarianism, it doesn't mean that they suddenly become orthodox libertarians -they simply become libertarian-leaning moderates.  The same goes for all the other ideologies I have listed.

Hope this clears it up for you.

[Frodo]

But herein lies another mind-boggling paradox:  you cannot have both true libertarianism and one-hundred percent voter participation simultaneously.  The former implies complete freedom, including for those who don't care to vote, while the latter implies a form of authoritarianism.  Once again, any society that accepts this sort of demand will necessarily be more inclined to socialism and other forms of authoritarianism than ours.  Thus the question simply cannot be answered if by "America" you mean the United States of America in its presently-understood incarnation.

does this assumption not preclude at least one of your choices?

Who is to say in a libertarian society that one hundred percent of all eligible (educated/informed) voters cannot somehow participate freely in an election, as opposed to being coerced by law?  I remind you that this is a hypothetical situation.   Everything about this poll is hypothetical. 

[Frodo]

This poll is meant as a snapshot of where the United States is ideologically at the moment in the run-up to the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections -I apologize for having not made any of this more clear and apparent earlier.