Where are you on the political spectrum?

Sand

even people labelled right wing here are moderate?

Heh, dont think this fairly simple political analysis questionaire is required to know that.

ionapaul

Some of the questions are VERY leading. It was obviously constructed by someone to the left of the centre axis, who was unable to formulate unbiased (if that is indeed possible) questions.

According to my results, I was quite close to Gandhi...whereas compared to most posters' political leanings (as I estimate them via their posts) I would certainly be considered 'to the Right'. Then compared to many of my friends made while in the very liberal university of Berkeley and in the liberal mecca of San Francisco, I am sometimes considered 'to the Left'!

I suppose in perspective the U.S. left (the 'Democratic wing' of the Democratic party) would probably be to the right what is commonly considered the most right-leaning of Irish political parties, the PDs! Both of which are considered moderate in comparison to either the U.S. conservative movement or our own Sinn Fein. These internet calculators seem notoriously confusing!

Personally I would place my political leanings right in the centre of the majority of voters in the Western World.

AngelofFire

Economic: 5.75
Social: -2.42

A liberal in every sense of the word \0/

Maybe in the Milton Friedman sense, But many Liberal political organisations would lean towards the left, Like the LibDems in England and the Liberal party in Denmark.Liberalism is not exclusive to the economic right.

I would consider myself to be a left wing liberal

elivsvonchiaing

Economic Left/Right: -1.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.33

Looks like the bottom-left corner of the quadrant have the majority to me.

Should we join forces and form our own party perhaps? However sad it turned out to be can't be any worse that what we've got already

monument

AngelofFire wrote:

Maybe in the Milton Friedman sense, But many Liberal political organisations would lean towards the left, Like the LibDems in England and the Liberal party in Denmark.Liberalism is not exclusive to the economic right.

I would consider myself to be a left wing liberal

What I think he means is he is a both an economic liberal, and a social liberal - ie liberal in every sense of the word - unlike a left liberals.

Agent Smith

Economic Left/Right: -0.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.46


i always thought i was more left wing

TwoShedsJackson

Economic Left/Right: -5.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.49

lucernarian

Economic: -4
Social: -1.49

Syth

Economic Left/Right: -6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.87

jd

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.15

Tony Benn was previously on that chart- close to where I am.

ecksor

He was a great boxer.

Chonaic

Your(My) political compass
Economic Left/Right: 1.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 2.56

roughly the same as Blair

jd

jd wrote:

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.15

Tony Benn was previously on that chart- close to where I am.

If you want to develop your own kind of state by answering 1 or 2 questions a dayon a web site go here ->
http://www.nationstates.net/


mine is here

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=coolcotts

It would be possible to set up a boards.ie region there..

article6

jd wrote:

It would be possible to set up a boards.ie region there..

The Boardsies

Stabshauptmann

Economic Left/Right: -7.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.79

Funny, i always thought I would be more for the state than the individual.

Sand

If you want to develop your own kind of state by answering 1 or 2 questions a dayon a web site go here

I dabbled in that before. Its very tongue in cheek, as youd expect once your read the book, Jennifer Government, that its suposed to be publicising. I wouldnt use it as any serious indicator of where your political views lead you because the situations are repetitive and designed to lead to unwanted and unwarranted consequences.

Spacedog

Economic Left/Right: -4.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59

teaser

I got...
Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.90

Gordon

I am the next Dalai Lama! wh00t!

james1234

Interesting that left / libertarian are negative numbers!
Not very positive is it????

Even worse if you're both of the above and a left hander, like me, then you're also considered "sinister" (Greek word for left).

What's so negative/sinister about thinking like that and using one hand in preference over the other?

So long as our language (and nearly all others) where right also means correct, discriminates over which hand you write with (no pun intended ), there will never be equality!!!!

Hey is there a forum here for lefties, both left thinking and left handed?

Feeling lonely in a world of "correct" (yea' roigh'!!) people

jd

Sand wrote:

I dabbled in that before. Its very tongue in cheek, as youd expect once your read the book, Jennifer Government, .

I know-
but it's a bit of fun..

article6

james1234 wrote:

Interesting that left / libertarian are negative numbers!
Not very positive is it????

It's standard practice on a graph to give the left and bottom axes negative numbers. You didn't expect Leftists to be on the right-hand side of the chart, did you? Though it would make more sense if social and economic authoritarians shared the same sign (positive or negative).

De Rebel

i was in a hurry so i answered agree/disagree to every second question and got.........

Economic Left/Right: 0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.15

The red dot is shown DEAD centre, very symmetrical like...

Victor

A plot of people that have indicated their position on this thread (I haven't gone looking in the old threads).

Very definite trend (the trend line is guess, not properly calculated).

elivsvonchiaing

I have actually opened this and come to the conclusion that I'm sexully frustated Too.


Give a little, it will help a lot There are 250,000 sexually frustated males in Irleland but fcuk I thought of this first The sexually needy may need you

redspider

elivsvonchiaing wrote:

Looks like the bottom-left corner of the quadrant have the majority to me. Should we join forces and form our own party perhaps? However sad it turned out to be can't be any worse that what we've got already

Forming a new political party is something that I and no doubt many of us have thought about at some time or another, and usually none of us ever get around to acting on it. I dont have the time to follow this forum regularly so has the discussion of a new party/movement ever taken place?

I've done the political compass in the past, although I forget where I was exactly. No doubt closer to the Dalai Lama, and not Maggie or Stalin!

Another interesting site to view is www.stemwijzer.nl . Whats interesting about the latter is that it asks 30 questions with a choice of 4 answers. The Dutch parties must publish their answers too for each election, and from that each voter can judge which party they are closest too.

Now, it is clear mathematically that say in a country like ours with 6 main parties (FF, FG, Lab, PD, SF, GP) that there is no way that most voters will match a party exactly (its the same in NL), and this leads into my hypothesis:

the current political system does not represent the views of the voters for 99% of the time .... in other words, the so-called democratic systems of the west are NOT really democratic at all!

How could one vote to one candidate in one party express all of my opinions on 30 issues, or even 1000 issues that may be of interest in the 5 year term of government. Its impossible. Essentially, the system is flawed.

Proposal: a new party that reflects the thoughts of its voters in parliament exactly - EXACTLY. This will be done by using modern communcations with the voters on every issue, on every vote in the Dail, on every policy matter, etc.

Is it possible? opinions welcome ....

sceptre

james1234 wrote:

Even worse if you're both of the above and a left hander, like me, then you're also considered "sinister" (Greek word for left).

What's so negative/sinister about thinking like that and using one hand in preference over the other?

<cough> Latin - sinister is Latin for on the left (dexter is on the right). As you might guess from this the word was used for "left" before it was used for anything derogatory (though if I remember rightly the Romans were quick in after with the term "left handed whore" as a euphemism for masturbation). I'd suggest the After Hours board for the inevitable rant or even the English board for a discussion of how the terms became intertwined (we can do "southpaw" along the way too before mentioning that pretty much all the Muppets seem to be left-handed (there's a good reason for this)). Ever so slightly off-topic here though.

As for the negative number associated with the left on the graph, article6 has done an excellent job of explaining that one.

GospelGroupie

Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.36

Surely the closer to the centre the more compassionate and understanding you would be of all views? Draw concentric circles from the centre and see who is most moderate.

Schroder, Martin, John Paul II & Tony Blair would be the most tolerant, while Mandela is no more extreme than Bush, in oposite directions obviously.

Me, I'm surprised to be below the horizontal line..... what does it take to be scoring into the socially-right/economically-left (top left) quadrant? Pro-life and would smack my child (in controlled and balanced manner), and yet I'm regarded a lefty? I'm disappointed.

The_Conductor

GospelGroupie - I was feeling a little lonely on or near the "0" line for authoritarian/libertarian.

Similarly I hit a negative for Economic left.......

Curious mixture!

S.

Sand

Proposal: a new party that reflects the thoughts of its voters in parliament exactly - EXACTLY. This will be done by using modern communcations with the voters on every issue, on every vote in the Dail, on every policy matter, etc.

Is it possible? opinions welcome ....

Is it even desirable? Political parties in the west have been employing pollsters, running surveys, trying to plot voting trends since WW2 and peoples respect for the political process has been plummeting alongside that. Its not just corruption - corruption has been here as long as theres been politics, Its not just sex scandals - Parnell had his own back in the 1880s.

Bluntly put, people want leaders - thats why they elect them. They dont want bureacrats grovelling before the altar of *extremely fickle* public opinion. If the best form of government was mob rule then we wouldnt need a representitive government at all. Sometimes the best course of action is not the populist course of action.

See what direct democracy has done to California. Gov Arnie has inherited a state where 85% of the budget is already allotted. If Arnie decides it would be better for 35% of the Cali budget to be spent on education instead of 40% so that a bit more can be spent on the Cali infrastructure to stop those damn powercuts, too bad - its 40% full stop. Californians demand that their politicians deliver on various objectives, but through populist democracy theyve emasculated their elected leaders powers to achieve those goals.