Political Compass Test

I found this interesting site that gets you to do a test and tells you where in the political spectrum you fall into. They believe the left-right dynamic is too simplistic and breaks it down into left-right authoritarian and left-right libertarian or anti-authoritarian. The results have sometimes been interesting because some people who for instance thought of themselves as being right-wing end up being left-wing authoritarian for example and it's broken down into a graph. I'm glad to be down there next to Ghandi, on the left-wing anti-authoritarian quarter of the graph.

Anyways, if your interested in this then the post for the test is at politicalcompass.org...

It doesn't take very long to do. People at ATS are definately all across the board. I figure we're pretty much pre-determined where we are politically largely due to our personality types and I'm not sure that any amount of arguing can change that, though I could be wrong as people continue to wake up to the onslaught ofbrainwashing we are subjected to.

lol im right in the middle of everything

I'm a conservative libertarian.

I think the next big test for all to take especially Congress would be a Moral Compass Test. Our nation is on a fast track to moral collapse.

I am also in the lower left.

I did this test ages ago (and repeatedly again over the years), and I noticed something interesting...the test seems to consistently put you lefter and lower than you are, so I'd say for a more "balanced" view, you should probably shift the whole thing a bit up and right.

Odd forum to place this test, though, no?

Lower left here too.

I'm a left-leaning Libertarian. I'll never live this down.

I think their quiz might be a little skewed. I think they've made the mistake of thinking religious=conservative, when quite the opposite is true. Conservative means less govt intrusion, which often means de-criminalizing things and lifting bans on things like gay marriage and abortion.

This quiz has fallen into the religious trap that gets so many.

The "Political Compass" should get it's own forum or stickied mega-thread given how many times it shows up.

This test is obviously not very accurate. It tagged me as Center-Left and I know that my politics are Far-right. Perhaps it is because they classify skepticism of capitalism, disdain of corporations, and government support for cultural institutions as Left-wing and not also a value held by those on the Far-right.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Sorry to inform you but your view on Conservatism is 100% wrong. How people can propagate the idea that Classical Liberalism is actually Conservatism is beyond me. The conservative philosophy has absolutely nothing at all to do with ‘free-market economics’, ‘constitutions’, ‘civil liberties’, ‘secularism’, ‘merit’, and ‘individualism’, all those are ideas invented by 18th and 19th century Liberals from the Enlightenment.

Conservatism is about preserving a specific people, in a specific place, at a specific time based on transcendent order, hierarchy, tradition, natural law, classicism, agrarianism, and aristocracy over meritocracy. People can call Conservatism whatever they want, that does not make it true. 70% of American Conservatives are not actually Conservative they are Classical Liberals who are religious, the true continuation of the bourgeois Whig ideology.

"[Conservatism] describes a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting spheres of loyalty." - Conservatism

"Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets." - Classical Liberalism

Originally posted by Misoir
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

"[Conservatism] describes a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting spheres of loyalty." - Conservatism

"Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets." - Classical Liberalism

So, then, by your definitions (and you seem much more educated on it than I am), where do I lie if my beliefs are:
Natural law, transcendent moral order, tradition, organic unity, limited government, due process, freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets?

I don't believe in "rule of law," I believe in a more natural law, and where rule of law is absolutely necessary, I believe there should be "due process" to ensure "organic unity" and "moral order."

I believe our original system, "constitutionalism" was set up to make that happen. We have judges to ensure process, and we have juries of our peers to ensure the "spirit" of law is followed. The juries are supposed to figure out what is justifiable and what is not. The juries are supposed to be the "organic" part of our legal system.

By a very strict view of our Constitution and the powers and processes it allays to the government, and by living according to "natural law," we naturally obtain all the other values in both of the above definitions.

So, what do a I call myself?

reply to post by getreadyalready


I think you call yourself a human being....

I ended up beside ghandi, the dali lama, and nelson mandela, so I am in good company.

I'm about 3 left, 3 down.

Thanks for sharing... In reality I don't adhere to one side, left or right.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I would recommend you check out the Federalist Party from the early days of the Republic. Overall they believed the same thing you just stated that you believe. They were constitutionalists and conservatives, which at the time usually meant they were in the middle for their time. These were the same types of people as conservative icon Edmund Burke, in the United Kingdom. Overall Conservative but held many Liberal points of view, thus not complete conservatives like the Tories and the Loyalists.

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” – Edmund Burke

“We have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

Those are two types of men whom I would assume you agree with overall. The Federalist Party, as I mentioned earlier, was the home for American Conservatives.

“As Samuel Eliot Morison explained, They believed that liberty is inseparable from union, that men are essentially unequal, that vox populi [voice of the people] is seldom if ever vox Dei [the voice of God], and that sinister outside influences are busy undermining American integrity. Historian Patrick Allitt concludes that Federalists promoted many positions that would form the baseline for later American conservatism, including the rule of law under the Constitution, republican government, peaceful change through elections, judicial supremacy, stable national finances, credible and active diplomacy, and protection of wealth.” – Federalist Party

Now there is a much more hard-line part of Conservatism, what I showed to you earlier is the more liberalized version of it. I think it can be broken into two parts; Liberalized Conservatism like Burke, Adams, Hamilton, etc… and the Hardline Conservatism like de Maistre and Bonald. I in no way shape or form expect you to like de Maistre but he does provide an interesting take, like him or not.

"Thus, from the maggot up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living things is unceasingly fulfilled. The entire earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be immolated without end, without restraint, without respite, until the consummation of the world...." – Joseph de Maistre

You can read more about the true Conservatives here.

It shows me slightly left libertarian.

But i noted that there was no questions covering guns and the questions had a left tilt.

little search finds it was written in the UK.
rationalwiki.org...

There left right are a little different then in the US

reply to post by ANNED


I noticed that too! Some of the questions had a certain tone that seemed to try and lead the answer.

That test does have some interesting questions on it. I do not subscribe to the political labeling thing, I hardly ever fit into one category. But I like to see the questions. I am almost always in the "left" area when it comes to these tests. I scored in the lower green left/libertarian box, nearly right next to where they put Gandhi.
I do question the accuracy of these types of tests but see it as mostly something to do for fun.

I'm a slightly right leaning libertarian - pretty much where I thought I would be. Well, I thought I would be a little more right leaning. Per the test results I'm 0.75 to the right - but still pretty close for a fun little test.

Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.62

Just barely to the right, and half way down from the middle. Pretty much where I expected to be. I've taken it several times before, and it's kinda interesting to see a visual representation of how my leanings have changed over time.

Originally posted by KingAtlas
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

I think you call yourself a human being....

I ended up beside ghandi, the dali lama, and nelson mandela, so I am in good company.

That's where I ended up too and felt the same way lol.