Political Compass

[Porkopolis]

I started a thread on another board about The Political Compass. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the test and have taken it before. It seeks to place politcal ideology on a two axis scale rather than the traditional left/right one axis spectrum. I'd love to see where the posters here fall on the spectrum. I like is below. And I'll post my results in another post; I'd love it if everyone did the same. We all have a pretty good idea of the leanings of other posters but it is enlightening to see a visual representation.

The Political Compass (http://www.politicalcompass.org/)

[Porkopolis]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-9.75&soc=-7.03

[BBC 08]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif

[BBC 08]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.75&soc=-4.92

[BBC 08]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/bothaxes.gif

[muskienick]

I wind up with a score of:
Econ: -3.38
Social: -2.41

Which seems to make me slightly-left-of-center economically and slightly Libertarian on the social scale..

[GoMuskies]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=2.88&soc=-1.23

[MCXU]

Call me Milton Freidman. Damn, I knew I liked that guy for a reason.

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.18

[xudash]

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.82

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=1.25&soc=0.72

[XUglow]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-0.88&soc=-1.74

[xudash]

I'm putting my graph on the separate page for printing, and then copying the URL into the picture link feature, but it won't come up. How are guys getting your graphs to print? Thanks.

[GoMuskies]

Right click on the graph, choose properties and copy and paste that into the image link.

[chico]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-0.25&soc=-1.44

[bobbiemcgee]

http://www.math.wichita.edu/~richardson/mathematics/magic%20squares/images/7x7ms-0.gifX


Snipe

[DC Muskie]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-3.38&soc=-2.10

[vee4xu]

The needle on my compass is broken and I have been wandering aimlessly in the political desert for years.

[xeus]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=2.25&soc=-2.10

[Snipe]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif

http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/uscandidates2008.png

Notice that Hitler is to the left of Obama. You could also claim that every mainstream Republican is to the right of Hitler.

I wonder about some of these rankings though. Obama likes state control of Health Care and Energy. People on the left like Big Government and state control of huge sectors of the economy, like health and education. I would say that state control is authoritarian in my opinion. I think small government conservatives are substantially less authoritarian.

I would think if we had an accurate predictor of the political compass the Tea Party would look pretty mainstream while the people at OWS would be pretty far from the conventional left.

I personally see bias in everything, and I don't like the questions. Part of my problem is I see a distinction between private belief and what the State should have jurisdiction to govern. I think that all people make value judgements, but that the State shouldn't enforce all of those collective judgements.

Does support of capital punishment make one more authoritarian and less libertarian? Libertarians think that everything should be allowed as long as you aren't hurting anyone. Once you hurt someone though, I don't think that they have an official stance on capital punishment. Jailing people for being gay, using drugs or for prostitution is a bad idea to libertarians. Having the state enforce punishment for people who rape and kill is not a bad idea for most everyone.

Sex outside marriage? I don't think the government should have a position on sex outside marriage. The government should not be in people's bedrooms in my opinion. But when you ask if it is immoral that is a different question. What parent encourages their children to have sex outside of marriage? Anyone? I thought so. So in the public sphere I am libertarian, but in the private family sphere I am more like Hitler, except that Hitler actually encouraged sex outside of marriage to produce more German babies at his youth camps.

I would like to see the answers that they gave for Hitler, or George W. Bush, or Barrack H. Obama by the way. I wouldn't be surprised if this test is biased and skewed to make the right look more authoritarian and the left look less like Hitler. Hitler was after all a socialist and that is fact that history time and time conveniently forgets.

I am without a doubt on the lower right block of the sphere, but I am not sure that these questions are a good gauge of it. Astrology? Abstract Art? Eye for an eye? "Genetic Plant resource exploitation (what is that?).

I am definitely a right-libertarian when it comes to the Federal Government, but I am actually quite the socialist when it comes to local issues. Give me a park levy or a zoo levy and a ballot and watch me do the work. We have great Fire and Police departments, and excellent system of City and County parks. Look at all the affordable and wonderful golf courses that you have in the city and county. Many cities don't have that. Our library system and the Cincinnati Zoo are both world class. Many cities don't have that either.

Yesterday they announced that Washington DC surpassed every other American city in terms of income. That is what I hate. Those OWS people have the wrong target. We don't need a bloated Washington, we need a strong Cincinnati.

It is impossible to put a numerical value on a person's political beliefs. I think this is entertaining by flawed. I also don't think that I am to the left of George W. Bush, so I refuse to post my graph.

Here is a shorter version of a political test that I like better:

World's Smallest Political Quiz (http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz)

[smileyy]

Page 4 is fun. It's the "Are you a fascist?" page.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-4.50&soc=-5.54

Economically leftist liberatarian, somewhere around the Dalai Lama and Gandhi. That's pretty much what how I picture myself. We should have the freedoms to do many things; by and large it makes the world a much better place to take care of one another, and build structures to do so.

[smileyy]

Obama likes state control of Health Care


You sure about that? Maybe, if you include health care (and other) corporations as a part of government, which one should probably think of them as.



Once you hurt someone though, I don't think that they have an official stance on capital punishment.


I think the opposition tends to come from executing the innocent, and systematic biases that lead to that result. The system cannot be perfect; innocent people will always be executed if capital punishment exists.



"Genetic Plant resource exploitation (what is that?).


Astra-Zeneca goes to the Amazon rain forest, finds a mushroom that cures cancer, and patents the chemicals they extract. One extreme is that all those results should be public domain. The other extreme is that no one should be able to eat one of those mushrooms to cure cancer without paying Astra-Zeneca royalties. Its a fuzzy issue of "natural ownership" vs. invested research.



We don't need a bloated Washington, we need a strong Cincinnati.


Having just recently decided to live somewhere, long-term, I agree with this sentiment. Everything important starts locally.

[Pete Delkus]

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 6.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.10


http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=6.12&soc=-0.10

[kinger2314]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.50&soc=-2.51

Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.51

[powerofX]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=6.25&soc=-0.67

[xnatic03]

Economic Left/Right: 2.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.54

about where I thought I would be.

[TJMuskie06]

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.62

[smileyy]

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.62

Get out of Hamilton. There are so many better places for you to be....

[stophorseabuse]

I am in the exact location as Ghandi.

[HuskyMuskie]

http://i54.tinypic.com/xvfy1.png

Interesting. Figured I would be more libertarian. Thanks for sharing this.

[mohr5150]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.38&soc=-4.87http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-4.38&soc=-4.87

Here is mine, for what it's worth. Not surprised.

[MCXU]

I am in the exact location as Ghandi.

This, in conjunction with your signature, needs to be awarded the Post of the Month.

I just had a small amount of brew shoot up my nose.

[xu95]

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=3.38&soc=0.10

I really expected to be further right.

[boozehound]

I came out almost exactly in the middle (although slightly to the right economically), which kind of suprised me. I thought I would be further right and more libertarian.

[Emp]

I dislike labels, but Im a sucker for any self evaluation test.

-6.25/-4.31. I'm out there with Mandela and the Dali Lama.

The scale is expressed in terms of negatives and positives, rather than a L-R index and and A/L index. Disabuse me of how this isn't judgmental. A number of the questions are loaded to economic values, as if that is the most important set of values we have; and very few questions about women's and gender issues, and religion, that more accurately reflect American's opinions and beliefs on important and controversial social issues.

[xu2006]

Economic Left/Right: 4.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.26

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=4.38&soc=0.26