- Pronouns
- He/Him
Introduction
I'm political. I play NationStates for goodness sake, not being political would be a crime. However, I tend not to talk about my politics, primarily because the views I hold on certain subjects are not views that are widely appreciated in today's society. I won't delve into that for now, however. The second reason is that I'm not sure I actually know what my politics is. That's what I'm going to try and talk about, now.
First Steps into Politics
I got into politics in 2015, just before the General Election in the UK. I knew absolutely nothing about what politics was or where my politics lay, but I knew that I was deeply interested in it. Fast forward to July 2016, and this is where it all kicks off. I joined the labour party, of which I am still a member. In the same month, I joined NationStates, a game that I am somehow still playing 5 years later despite the fact that I told myself I would only last a week. NS has certainly shaped my politics, and my first brush with politics was with the left.
Evolution to the Far Left
I considered myself centre left when I joined the LCRUA, I suppose in part because I had been influenced by my family. Despite the acronym, the LCRUA was largely a leftist region, and the people I became friends with there considered themselves socialist. I spent 3 years there, and during that time I moved further left. By the time I had ended I occupied the libertarian left square of the compass. I had developed a hatred for greed and capitalism. I became infatuated with politics, and especially the left.
Raging Communist
I loved it. I loved the politics, the history, even the flags and anthems I thought vastly outplayed the anthems of the stinky USA. In 2019 I joined Europeia following the collapse of the LCRUA, and I introduced myself as a Communist. After all, that's what I had gradually moved to during the summer that year. I had decorated my room with communist and Soviet propaganda, bought communist books, and read heavily into the history and politics of communism.
Europeia
I didn't engage in political debate in Europeia, mostly because I felt like I was not intelligent enough to put my point across in a meaningful manner, and also that people like Drecq scared me. I think it's safe to advance to December 2019 now. I knew that labour would lose the election. I had spent 3 weeks campaigning and very rarely had I heard a positive word spoken about labour. When the exit poll came out I was devastated. I remember sitting on the sofa with my head in my hands thinking how in earth we could let this happen. This is where things start changing.
Authoritarianism
My hope for humanity started failing. Up unt this point I had a lot of respect for most people. I was someone who advocated for an increase in rehabilitative justice, and for a decrease in harsh drug and abortion laws. After the election, I developed an attitude of "fuck humanity." They don't know what's good for them. You can actually see where this change occurs on Nationstates. If you look at the Authoritarian stats, you'll notice that there's a huge spike in growth. I still feel this way. My respect and hope in the human race is still dramatically low.
The rhetoric which I developed meant that I migrated into the Authoritarian left quadrant of the compass. The policies which I had associated myself with before had gone. I now advocated for stricter laws on abortion, on drugs, and on immigration. My economic politics remained unchanged, however. I was a supporter of collective and state ownership, and a passionate advocate against the free market and privatisation. Then I met Darkslayer.
Advance to the Right
I had taken down all the Propaganda in my room and binned it. I knew my carers would go into my room while I was at uni, and I wasn't entirely sure they'd approve of a giant poster of Vladimir Lenin lining my wall. By the time I got to Uni, I was still an authoritarian socialist, and I became friends with people who had similar ideals to me. I spent all of the second semester at home, because of the lockdown imposed in January which meant I wasn't able to return to campus after the Christmas break. I think this is where my politics started changing drastically.
Broken Promises
With every political test I took, I seemed to be edging further right. I swore that I'd never entertain the idea of being in the right, and that I'd always loath free market capitalism. Yet, heading into March of this year it was a philosophy that I was flirting with. By March I moved into centrist category, a label which I did not stick with for long. In April, I took a political test, and I read through each question thoroughly, something which I had rarely done before. The results that followed should have shocked me, but they didn't. I appeared on the upper right quadrant, and despite my past feelings, I didn't wrestle with this new philosophy.
I accepted it, and labelled myself as capitalist. I suppose a part of me inside was vomiting profusely at this. I distanced myself from anything that remotely resembled the left, and it felt right for the most part. When I joined the labour party, I said that I'd never vote conservative, but that was another promise broken. I voted conservative in the local elections, something which I'm still not sure I regret.
Dilemma
Here, then, is the dilemma. I don't know what I am. There is absolutely a part of me that wants to be that raging communist who kissed the feet of Karl Marx every night, but then there's the part of me that tells me to be rational. Is it rational to be a supporter of greed and capitalism though? Every time I look at a Political test, I want the outcome to be me in the left quadrant, but when I think about the question, I come out as a blue, something which I'm not exactly sure I'm comfortable with. I am a floater right now, and one day I'll settle down, but it really is a stress.
