Actually, I'm exceedingly conservative in many notable respects, and also a Roman Catholic, if you find that interesting, though the full depths of my politics and views are complex (they contain both real and imaginary components, heh). Also, Mindspillage remarks of this page, "I'm a libertarian, for crying out loud."
Regarding appointments: All arbitrators were initially elected. Then some of them quit, so some were appointed to interim terms (pretty much the runners up from the election). Another election is imminent. Maybe the Arbcom suffers from some sort of left-wing volunteer bias... I dunno. Don't try to accuse Wales of subverting democracy and justice and all that, though
I'm not entirely sure that your characterization of the Arbcom as 'second-tier' is a complete representation of the picture. The Arbcom is roughly tantamount to the juducial branch - of the English Wikipedia only, mind you- not entirely like the Supreme Court per se, in that it handles more mundane cases, but it is still more... reactive than anything else. Also, it explicitly stays out of article content disputes, and engages only in user behaviour disputes.
Administrators: There are hundreds of administrators, not just dozens. Non-administrators participate in the nomination and election process for administrators in the same manner that administrators do. Administrators are generally prohibited from using administrative powers to deal with article content disputes with which they are engaged.
Finally, you left out the all-important fourth tier- general users. Don't forget them. They can't block people or protect pages, true, but they can still revert pages (with a slightly less trivial effort) and participate in all non-judicial decisions on a level equal to that of administrators.
Now, Wikipedia left-wing? The whole Internet leans a little left, in my opinion, and Wikipedia (especially at the fourth tier, which is the group which does most of the article editing) is no exception. But 'VERY left-wing'? I dunno. That's sort of pushing it. And an 'Action Alert'? Don't let's be silly, now. :) But... any steps you can take towards providing Wikipedia articles with a more neutral point of view (review our policies and documentation on that) are quite welcome, provided you conduct yourself properly and try to follow the rules and guidelines... anyway.
I'm rambling, aren't I? It's almost 2 in the morning and I really should be getting to sleep. Good night.
Assuming you are accurately presenting your views that makes, what? 1 conservative out of 10? Also, libertarian is a far cry from being conservative in the case of Mindspillage. Libertarian = agrees with us half the time (economic issues), opposes us the other half (moral issues) and self described atheist/agnostic types tend to emphasize the latter.
Regarding appointments, I don't accuse Wales of subverting anything...yet. It is a matter of fact though that Wales has personally selected half of the current arbitration committee including 2 of the most partisan liberal members.
I do have an issue with one thing you state though - "Also, it explicitly stays out of article content disputes, and engages only in user behaviour disputes." This is true in policy, but it's worth as much as the paper it's written on. In practice the arbitration committee frequently shows favor and disfavor toward different sides in content disputes because a large number of the cases it takes are fundamentally the product of a heated content dispute. What you produce in return are a bunch of cloaked rulings that penalize conservative editors by subjectively calling their content contributions "POV" while letting the favored opinion (read: the liberal one) stand.
As for your claim that "Administrators are generally prohibited from using administrative powers to deal with article content disputes with which they are engaged," again it's worth about as much as the paper it's written on. So yeah, administrators are prohibited from abusing their power. But does that mean they never abuse it? No, and in fact some...no, many administrators abuse it all the time. Wikipedia Administrators are the WORST revert warriors on that whole wretched site and if you go to almost any given article on well known conservative political topics you will find one or more left wing administrators constantly reverting and censoring and controlling all the edits anyone else makes. Just look at the histories and the names go back weeks and months and even years, such as a few of the examples named above by me and other freepers here.
And does this type of censorship and unruly administrator behavior mean they get slapped down by...oh...say...YOU when they abuse their power? Not likely, because the current Arbitration committee gives administrators free passes and only punishes them when the evidence of wrongdoing is so intense and so well known (i.e. the recent Ed Poor case) that not doing anything would embarass the arbitration committee itself.
Also don't try to obscure the leftist bias and arbitrator/administrator problems at wikipedia under the non-english portions of the site. Wikipedia's english portion is by far the most developed part of wikipedia and is the sole subject of this discussion and complaint.