Your Political Compass

[Reaper]

Now then, lets see where you guys REALLY stand in on the political spectrum.

 

This is how I tested:

 

 

 

You can take the test here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/

[Reaper]

Ok, I finally managed to load up my political spectrum:

 

 

[YT2095]

 

the exact same as Gandhi!

 

and I Soooooo wanted to be a Fascist Dictator!

[PhDP]

It has already been done here. I score about -7/-7

[ed84c]

about 1,4 iirc

[Severian]

Economic Left/Right: -1.88

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74

[Pangloss]

Lol, I think I blew up their test.

 

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders. - Agree

The rich are too highly taxed. - Disagree

Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold. - Strongly disagree

It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. - Strongly disagree

 

Or this lovely pair:

A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies. - Agree

The freer the market, the freer the people. - Agree

 

If that doesn't break their little calculator I don't know what will!

 

Just how liberal ARE these people anyway. I mean come on:

"Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care." Kind of an obvious bias, isn't it? A lot of these questions ask you to make a two-tier response of degree, and yet include a superlative like "excessive" or "mostly" -- are you responding to the question, or the degree of the question? Who can say?

 

And what the heck does this mean:

"A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system."

 

If I agree do they think I am saying that a one-party state is a good thing? Who can say?

 

And what the heck is THIS about?

"Astrology accurately explains many things."

I know astrology has become somewhat identified with the right since the Reagan era, but it was identified with LIBERALS during the flower-power years. Why would it suggest one thing or the other?

 

Oh well, here's how I rated:

 

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: 1.62

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.28

 

[Sisyphus]

I never really found these tests helpful. I want essay questions.

[Dak]

Just how liberal ARE these people anyway. I mean come on:

"Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care." Kind of an obvious bias, isn't it?

 

umm... how so? there are two answres, and i know that 'yes' is 'right-wing' and 'no' is 'liberal', but i don't see any bias in the question?

 

'it's ok for the poor to die or suffer in agony, as long as those who are rich enough to pay for decent medicare can get it' would, imo, be a liberal bias.

[ecoli]

"The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist."

 

I don't like that question... Just because I'm a libertarian, doesn't mean I don't think the arts are important. Just that, if people find value in art, the artist will be compensated through non-government sponsered endevors.

 

 

 

I thought this graph was quite interesting as well:

 

I'm surprized they didn't put Ron Paul further down on the Libertarian side. It's pretty interesting to see how close all the candidates truly are to each other. Only Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich go against the fray.

It's upsetting to me to see how authoritative we've become...

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008 <- they have an interesting blurp about the spectrum of American politics, as compared to the rest of the world.

[Reaper]

Yeah, I found that I didn't like some of the questions either. Some of the ones on free markets or women's rights were very clearly biased too. Also, on every political test I take I find that the result usually vary. But, all results usually hover around the dead center, which I find interesting.

 

I'm surprized they didn't put Ron Paul further down on the Libertarian side. It's pretty interesting to see how close all the candidates truly are to each other. Only Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich go against the fray.

It's upsetting to me to see how authoritative we've become...

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008 <- they have an interesting blurp about the spectrum of American politics, as compared to the rest of the world.

 

Yes, it is very interesting. Well, it helps explain why the average American can't really differentiate between candidates:rolleyes:

[Pangloss]

It's noteworthy to me that none of the candidates fall into my (purple) zone.

 

It's also noteworthy to me that my zone is purple. The color of royalty! The ancient Roman consul's tunic border color! I rulez, others drulez. Read it and weep, kids.

 

umm... how so? there are two answres' date=' and i know that 'yes' is 'right-wing' and 'no' is 'liberal', but i don't see any bias in the question?

 

'it's ok for the poor to die or suffer in agony, as long as those who are rich enough to pay for decent medicare can get it' would, imo, be a liberal bias.[/quote']

 

I suppose that one could go either way. Take another look at some of the other quotes I posted and see if you don't agree, though, that there's a general leftist trend in the questions.

 

"Excuse me, Senator, but are you still beating your wife?"

[Dak]

yeah, but some questions are right-biased aswell: maybe that just makes it easyer to tell which way you dress (if you agree with the lefty questions and disagree with the righty ones, then you're a lefty, etc).

 

lol, dude: question number 1 from their faq:

 

1. Some of the questions are slanted

 

Most of them are slanted ! Some right-wingers accuse us of a leftward slant. Some left-wingers accuse us of a rightward slant. But it's important to realise that this isn't a survey, and these aren't questions. They're propositions - an altogether different proposition. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are more moderate. That's how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass.

 

Some of the propositions are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger buzzwords in the mind of the user, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy.

 

Incidentally, our test is not another internet personality classification tool. The essence of our site is the model for political analysis. The test is simply a demonstration of it.

 

interesting you didn't spot the right bias

 

----

 

I'm there with ghandi btw:

 

[CDarwin]

I think it got my a little too far over to the left. It asked weird questions about globalism. *pouts*

 

EDIT: Well, that was the wrong link and I closed the window.

[insane_alien]

i appear to be a communist libertarian. not sure if thats a good thing or not.-8.-8

 

though some questions i didn't understand and the lack of a 'no opinion' button influenced my descisions somewhat. some of the questions i neither agreed with nor disagreed with.

[mooeypoo]

I think mine's a bit exaggerated to the left, but I guess it's kinda representative if taking into account the questions were EXTREMELY general and sometimes annoying.

 

For example, the question "Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care." is something I found utterly annoying.. it seemed to be waaaay too general for my taste and I didn't really think that whatever I choose would truly represent my views. I think, for instance, that everyone should get opportunity for equal necessary basic medical insurance regardless of their income, but I don't think it's bad that someone with more money purchase more "advantages" (like... private rooms in private hospitals, or whatever else)... it seemed the question as it is worded gave too little 'play' on the issue..

 

But i answered as truthfully as I possibly could. So, here's mine:

 

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-5.50&soc=-4.21

 

 

It's kinda funny btw.. in social/ethical matters I guess I'm a libertarian but in Security/Military I think I would be more (uhm.. I guess quite significantly more) to the right. So I am not sure how they do that calculation. But if we take these graph in a more "moderate" sense (like.. assume that whatever the algorithm, it's probably exaggerating) it's kinda cool.

 

How do you add the picture itself btw?

 

~moo

 

 

p.s: errrrr damnit how do you add the image itself?

[Dak]

i think because you're not linking to an image per se, but rather to a php script that dynamically creates an image (check the url) you can't imbed it in your post without copying the picture and uploading it somewhere.

[Pangloss]

Right, you can save the image with a right-click, and then you have to host it yourself somewhere.

 

yeah, but some questions are right-biased aswell

 

Maybe so, but that's hardly evidence of their objectivity. I've seen people here post that John Edwards is too far to the right for them to vote on. And more to the point, the questions could easily be weighted, and done so in such a way as to reflect a specific ideology.

 

And that's quite useful to special interest groups trying to make a specific point with lawmakers. After all, society is supposed to protect minorities from the will of the mob, right? All the better, then, if you can show the mob banging away at the door.

 

At any rate, I still want to know what the deal is with that question about astrology. What direction does a belief in astrology suggest? And why?

[Dak]

i'm sorry, but you've lost me on both the special interests/door banging bit, and the weighting questions bit?

 

At any rate, I still want to know what the deal is with that question about astrology. What direction does a belief in astrology suggest? And why?

 

from their FAQ:

 

10. Why don't you include a scale for religion?

 

Amongst the western democracies for which The Political Compass is a universal tool, it is only in the US that religion plays a significant role in politics. Had the test been some kind of questionnaire or survey profiling a particular personality it might have a place, but for a purpose such as ours it has little relevance.

 

Even in the US religion reflects the whole gamut of political opinion - from Quakers, Unitarians and, to some extent Episcopalians, who support gay marriage, the right to choose etc. and oppose, for example, capital punishment and the invasion of Iraq. At the other end of the religious spectrum, there are fundamentalists who hold opposite beliefs. Our social scale already covers these political/social attitudes, whether or not the individual belongs to a religious organisation that reinforces them.

 

More significant for our purposes is whether or not the individual believes in mystical determinants of fate, hence the astrology proposition. There is a psychological linkage between determinism and authoritarianism . The astrology believer may hold very liberal social views in other areas, but this does not alter this more authoritarian aspect within his or her cluster of attitudes.

[timo]

At any rate, I still want to know what the deal is with that question about astrology. What direction does a belief in astrology suggest? And why?

The first question is a pretty strange one when coming from a moderator of a science forum. Checking it out takes about 5 minutes and yields the results:

- Strongly disagree all, strongly disagree on the astro question: 0/-4.36

- Strongly disagree all, strongly agree on the astro question: 0/-3.9

- Strongly agree all, strongly disagree on the astro question: 0/3.9

- Strongly agree all, strongly agree on the astro question: 0/4.36

 

2nd part was covered (ok, "touched" is probably a better term) in the part of the FAQ Dak gave.

[Saryctos]

Couldn't they have just asked if you believed in fate or destiny? Why use astrology to get this answer?

[mooeypoo]

Couldn't they have just asked if you believed in fate or destiny? Why use astrology to get this answer?

 

Because if they asked you "Do you believe in pseudoscience" most people who should answer "YES" don't know what the word means.

 

~moo

[Pangloss]

The first question is a pretty strange one when coming from a moderator of a science forum. Checking it out takes about 5 minutes and yields the results

 

If by "strange" you mean why I didn't immediately leap to the assumption that I would find information about an astrology question in a section titled "religion", I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps this is another example of how politically incorrect I am around here, or perhaps it's just an observation that I didn't think to open the FAQ, hit Control-F, type "astrology" and hit enter. Either way consider me appropriately chastised, which of course is absolutely necessary when responding to an insufficiently comforming atheist such as myself, so I quite understand the use of pejorative. And thank you (and Dak) for answering my question.

 

And, by the way, proving my point about that question.

[Reaper]

Couldn't they have just asked if you believed in fate or destiny? Why use astrology to get this answer?

 

Though astrology does suggest that there is fate or destiny, the idea of fate or destiny itself does not necessarily come from, or is associated with, astrology.

[Saryctos]

Though astrology does suggest that there is fate or destiny, the idea of fate or destiny itself does not necessarily come from, or is associated with, astrology.

 

That's exactly what the FAQ states the use of astrology in the question was for.

More significant for our purposes is whether or not the individual believes in mystical determinants of fate, hence the astrology proposition. There is a psychological linkage between determinism and authoritarianism . The astrology believer may hold very liberal social views in other areas, but this does not alter this more authoritarian aspect within his or her cluster of attitudes.