Louisville Restaurants Forum

I'm just over in the purple....the pot smoking porn watching quadrant!

Nimbus Couzin wrote:I'm in Gandhi's quadrant, just more extreme....

It pegs me as a leftist libertarian.

You came out almost exactly where I do when I take the test, Nimbus. I run through it every six months or so because they sometimes update the questions to reflect current events, but within a point or two you land right where I do. Great minds, etc.

Matthew D wrote:My results returned an error message. It read: "Our charts do not go far enough left to account for your answers."

Oh yeah? Can you beat mine?

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.85

I came out quite Ghandiesque, just a bit more Libertarian.

If you're left, how can you be anything other than libertarian left when the alternative is authoritarian left with Stalin as the exemplar? Let's see Gandhi or Stalin? Gandhi or Stalin? Give me some time to think . . .

-7.5, -9.33. Slightly surprised by the Libertarian angle, but the not the Economic Left. So Robin, I think we are living in the same neighborhood.

Charles W. wrote:If you're left, how can you be anything other than libertarian left when the alternative is authoritarian left with Stalin as the exemplar? Let's see Gandhi or Stalin? Gandhi or Stalin? Give me some time to think . . .

Just guessing here, but perhaps a leftover paternalistic New Deal liberal?

Robin Garr wrote:

Paul Mick wrote:Libertarians are conservative (politically right) on social issues but liberal (political left) on social issues. We pick the best of both worlds, and pretty much just want the government to leave us alone.

Paul, I've always argued that libertarians are just conservatives who want to smoke pot and look at porn.

Whelp, guess I know where I stand!

I'm thinking that there's something not right about the vertical axis. It should rightly be something like statist vs. libertarian instead of authoritarian vs. libertarian.

Because many folks here advocating bans on cigarettes, trans fats and supporting statist polices like nationalized health care and wage/price regulation are reporting that they are scoring as libertarians on this axis. There's no way any of these polices can remotely be considered libertarian.

Another issue is that one can be a libertarian in the sense of governing and and be staunchly conservative personally. I don't think the questions really get at that dynamic at all.

I scored a 3,-1, putting me in the lower right quadrant. I'm a registered Democrat, always have been. I'm getting the feeling that this will not continue much longer, though I don't see a home for me on the Republican side either. Alas, I must report that with respect to Mr. Couzin, well... does a cold day in Hades ring a bell?

As an Independent, I've become relegated to a child game's while voting; even discussing politics.

"Pick a side, any side."

Robin Garr wrote:

Charles W. wrote:If you're left, how can you be anything other than libertarian left when the alternative is authoritarian left with Stalin as the exemplar? Let's see Gandhi or Stalin? Gandhi or Stalin? Give me some time to think . . .

Just guessing here, but perhaps a leftover paternalistic New Deal liberal?

Steve H wrote:I'm thinking that there's something not right about the vertical axis. It should rightly be something like statist vs. libertarian instead of authoritarian vs. libertarian.

Because many folks here advocating bans on cigarettes, trans fats and supporting statist polices like nationalized health care and wage/price regulation are reporting that they are scoring as libertarians on this axis. There's no way any of these polices can remotely be considered libertarian.

I have issues with the authoritarian label as well, and I have been considering which answers to which questions would land someone on that end of the axis. Seems like the examples Steve gives fall much more in line with Roger's term "paternalistic." When I first read Charles' comments, I immediately thought "well there are a good number of liberal politicians in Congress who I wouldn't say have a hard libertarian streak in them." For me, one of the strongest arguments against the "left/liberal agenda" is that the masterminds of the agenda craft it in such a way to make the less powerful dependent on these very masterminds. On on hand, power is inherent to the system. On the other hand, it does seem overly paternalistic for some of our leaders to find purpose by making other people dependent to/on them.

Obviously a true left agenda would emanate from the people themselves, not from a select few. Alas, one of the drawbacks of a representative democracy is that significant power is invested in those who have the ability to represent, often at the cost of democracy.

Matthew D wrote:For me, one of the strongest arguments against the "left/liberal agenda" is that the masterminds of the agenda craft it in such a way to make the less powerful dependent on these very masterminds. On on hand, power is inherent to the system. On the other hand, it does seem overly paternalistic for some of our leaders to find purpose by making other people dependent to/on them.

This is interesting. You've tagged yourself as being off-the-scale left, but you recognize that government solutions might not actually help those it claims to be helping, at least in the sense of being free and independent.

Matthew D wrote:Obviously a true left agenda would emanate from the people themselves, not from a select few. Alas, one of the drawbacks of a representative democracy is that significant power is invested in those who have the ability to represent, often at the cost of democracy.

This is also interesting. You are describing a left agenda as arising from the people themselves. This seems close to an anarchist outlook; which I'd place further out on the libertarian extreme, definitely not something on the left. What is the role of the central government in your view?

I find it interesting this test makes people decide on every issue. While I strongly disagree on some of the questions ( or agree ) , there are those I fell on the fence. But, I assume this defeats the purpose of the test. To measure one's true political scale.

I was going to do the quiz thingy but stopped after it tried to get me to agree to a $14.95 a month charge for a security program . When I refused that I had to jump through a dozen more hoops refusing all kinds of 'free' stuff and was finally refused to continue because I would agree to at least one spam program.
So which coloered block does that put me into?

Carla G wrote:I was going to do the quiz thingy but stopped after it tried to get me to agree to a $14.95 a month charge for a security program . When I refused that I had to jump through a dozen more hoops refusing all kinds of 'free' stuff and was finally refused to continue because I would agree to at least one spam program.
So which coloered block does that put me into?

I went to the site http://www.politicalcompass.org/ using two different browsers and got no ads whatsoever. Did you maybe go to politicalcompass.com by mistake, Carla?