The Political Compass Rates US 2004 Candidates

Economic Left/Right: 1.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.28
� but I have some serious disagreement with the way a few of the questions a phrased.
My property rights attitude would be closer to a 5 but for some of the more naive semantics.

As previously noted:

Originally posted by koji_K

Originally posted by slank
Some of the questions are so skewed like: 'punishment' or rehabilitation for convicted criminals. The reason you lock people up to keep society reasonably safe, it has nothing to do with morality (punishment), and society is under no particular obligation to 'rehabilitate' people.

the statement i think you mean is: "In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation." i wouldn't call it skewed because all you have to do is agree or disagree!

That the thing works as well as it does seem almost a miracle,
� given how so many people barely understand what 'punishment' is.
There are other examples, but this will do:

Punishment has absolutely nothing to do with morality.
Punishment is mere ego gratification, something performed upon a prisoner
� to make the prosecution feel better. Ask any convict.
That is the basis of all the gory details of Abu Graib -
� all that occurred there was simply gratifying ego,
� performed in the name of extracting crucial intelligence.
Punishment is marketed as somehow 'improving' criminals, when in reality
� all it accomplishes is reinforcing a strong urge to avoid future capture.
The old 'eye for an eye...' confuses the separation between
� the concepts of retribution and punishment.
Retribution is an effective deterrent
� (How to Stop Crime Before It Starts)
� whereas punishment is merely vengeance legalized.
Retribution and punishment are two different concepts offered as deterrence.

Rehabilitation is curently a nice 'feel-good' concept, which, on occasion,
� can be coaxed into working on those not too seriously fixed into crime.
Hopefully the art of rehabilitation will improve, becoming a science someday.
Until society gets a new attitude, unfortunately, that day lies far into the Sci-Fi realm,
The only other alternative to repairing/retraining a criminal psyche
� is exile, be that by death penalty, incarceration, or actual exile.
Exile (of any type) and rehabilitation are two different concepts
� for preventing a criminal from again claiming more victims.
Incarceration is exile from society, wastefully expensive and hopelessly optimistic.
The death penalty is a permanent exile from society,
� occasionally wrongly executed,� and a clumsy deterrent.
(No, I don't support death penalties or prisons, except in unusual cases.)
A more properly phrased question then might be:
� "In criminal justice, retribution should be more important than rehabilitation."

On the other hand, maybe the test designers correct scores for this bias.

Nice idea, anyway, a tip of the hat to koji_K as well as a wink to slank.

...X...

I�ll postulate that the reason ATS has so few authoritarians in its midst is due to their being too busy running the world out there while we spend all our time complaining about it here.