Political Spectrum Questions

annabellee77

On a slightly different note to the other thread on here at the moment (not convinced those graphs tell us much to be honest) I was wondering can anyone here come up with a list of questions (however many) that we could/should ask while figuring out exactly where we lie on the political spectrum?

The reason I ask is I do struggle to find my "niche" (for a want of a better word) I would think I have quite conservative views on law and order - though am staunchly anti death penalty. I would be very liberal on e.g. gay marriage/civil service etc....

(hope am making some sense with this question!!!:cool:)

Joycey

annabellee77 wrote: »

On a slightly different note to the other thread on here at the moment (not convinced those graphs tell us much to be honest) I was wondering can anyone here come up with a list of questions (however many) that we could/should ask while figuring out exactly where we lie on the political spectrum?

The reason I ask is I do struggle to find my "niche" (for a want of a better word) I would think I have quite conservative views on law and order - though am staunchly anti death penalty. I would be very liberal on e.g. gay marriage/civil service etc....

(hope am making some sense with this question!!!:cool:)

Well a good way to weed out the people whos views you shouldnt really take too seriously is to ask: do you believe that the great majority of people should be ruthlessly oppressed, starved and deprived of their identities as humans in order that the best off in society may become slightly richer, but no happier?

If they answer yes then dont listen to what they say after. If not, then listen closely.


No but seriously, where you stand on the political spectrum (if there is such a thing) is something that you need to work out yourself, through reading what other people have said about various schools of thought, and by extracting a pattern from your stance on individual issues. A set of questions will very rarely lead to an accurate analysis of someones political ideology, and that political compass going around at the moment has loads of leading/badly phrased questions in it. Reading books and becoming active in local level politics is about the only way to discover and enhance your political viewpoint.

turgon

Joycey wrote: »

Well a good way to weed out the people whos views you shouldnt really take too seriously is to ask: do you believe that the great majority of people should be ruthlessly oppressed, starved and deprived of their identities as humans in order that the best off in society may become slightly richer, but no happier?

Equally if someone answers yes to "Do you believe that people should receive zero reward for innovation and ambition and that the state or state like institutions such as communes should run and coordinate all economic activity and services, despite evidence that this never works efficiently, and despite that such methods have resulted in over 130 million deaths worldwide in the past, based solely on the flawed theory of a man who lived 150 years ago?"

Two can play this game. Except, being honest, the fact that 130 million people have died in his system gives some more gravity to mine.

Joycey

turgon wrote: »

Two can play this game

I was just messing :pac:. See second part of post for actual answer to OP

turgon

Joycey wrote: »

I was just messing :pac:.

nesf

annabellee77 wrote: »

On a slightly different note to the other thread on here at the moment (not convinced those graphs tell us much to be honest) I was wondering can anyone here come up with a list of questions (however many) that we could/should ask while figuring out exactly where we lie on the political spectrum?

The reason I ask is I do struggle to find my "niche" (for a want of a better word) I would think I have quite conservative views on law and order - though am staunchly anti death penalty. I would be very liberal on e.g. gay marriage/civil service etc....

(hope am making some sense with this question!!!:cool:)

Politics is often about compromise. Do you go with the party whose views on gay marriage etc match yours but whose views on law and order don't or vice versa? You end up having to rank things in order of preference. I've a mixture of conservative and liberal social positions and am firmly on the fiscal conservative side of economic positions, no one party matches all of this so I have to figure out which positions I don't care too much about (gay marriage would be one for me, I'm for it but it doesn't really bother me) and those I view as crucial (fiscal conservative attitudes towards the budget and inclination towards lower taxation being two of mine).

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Joycey

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

But then I wouldnt be able to indoctrinate the OP into my Evil Communist Conspiracy To Erode All Individual Liberty. I try not to put all my cards on the table in my first reply

Ostrom

Just dont drag Marx into this

OP if you have access to SPSS you can take a look at the Irish Social and Political Attitudes dataset free from here for comparison

You can see the types of questions they ask, and the methodology notes should tell you how they went about the analysis. You can manipulte the data also for a general overview (sample is quite small though)

The political spectrum is quite simplistic