Political Compass: Where do you stand?

[nyc_spotter]

Economic Left/Right: 2.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.23

Seems like I'm closest to Friedman.

[AC_A340-500]

Interesting site, I read it a few months back, and thought it was quite informative. As for the test itself, I think that it can among other things, quickly turn a fiscal conservative into a moderate and v.v. due to the way that the questions are formulated. There are many questions that can be easily misinterpreted, as one can view the questions in a "strictly speaking" sense vs. in a "generally speaking" sense.

For example:
Even an over-the-top patriot, interpreting the questions as striclty speaking, would have to answer the question "I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong" with "Strongly Disagree", if he acknowledged the fact that he would protest against his government if they unfairly decided to imprison his family. He may support the gov't 99.9% of the time, but the one time that he doesn't forces him to answer the question in a way that would suggest that he never does, all due to the way that the questions are formulated.

Had he interpreted the question in a generally speaking manner, he would of course have answered "strongly agree" or at least "agree", thus giving an answer more in line with his actual position on the political spectra.

There are many, many questions in the test that risk falling victim to false interpretation, if one chooses to answer them too striclty or too loosely, thus potentially skewing the results. The test would be vastly improved if terms such as "always, never, only" were replaced with "mostly, rarely, best". That would eliminate confounded results to a large degree.

The test is good at giving a general indication of where a person stands, but it's not the right tool for revealing a person's political stance with any sort of precision. However, in terms of entertainment value and background information, it get's two thumbs up!

Forgivie me if I'm splitting hairs, but I had 10 minutes with nothing better to do.

[iceman]

Interesting site, I read it a few months back, and thought it was quite informative. As for the test itself, I think that it can among other things, quickly turn a fiscal conservative into a moderate and v.v. due to the way that the questions are formulated. There are many questions that can be easily misinterpreted, as one can view the questions in a "strictly speaking" sense vs. in a "generally speaking" sense.

For example:
Even an over-the-top patriot, interpreting the questions as striclty speaking, would have to answer the question "I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong" with "Strongly Disagree", if he acknowledged the fact that he would protest against his government if they unfairly decided to imprison his family. He may support the gov't 99.9% of the time, but the one time that he doesn't forces him to answer the question in a way that would suggest that he never does, all due to the way that the questions are formulated.

Had he interpreted the question in a generally speaking manner, he would of course have answered "strongly agree" or at least "agree", thus giving an answer more in line with his actual position on the political spectra.

There are many, many questions in the test that risk falling victim to false interpretation, if one chooses to answer them too striclty or too loosely, thus potentially skewing the results. The test would be vastly improved if terms such as "always, never, only" were replaced with "mostly, rarely, best". That would eliminate confounded results to a large degree.

The test is good at giving a general indication of where a person stands, but it's not the right tool for revealing a person's political stance with any sort of precision. However, in terms of entertainment value and background information, it get's two thumbs up!

Forgivie me if I'm splitting hairs, but I had 10 minutes with nothing better to do.

But you still didn't answer the question! Where do you stand!?

[jwenting]

Of course they're quite wrong about many leftist people...
Schroeder and Blair are portrayed as being rightwing when in effect they're leftwing.
Mandela is portrayed as libertarian when he's a wannabe dictator.

But such is typical of sites wanting to make socialists look good...

[AC_A340-500]

I was actually surprised to see that I ended up VERY close to zero for both values. I would have thought myself to be further right and more authoritarian (but still moderate). However, I do remember answering many questions, that I could have just as easily answered the other way (it was easy to see which way the Q's were going). That's what pulled me to the left and down l little.

[AC_A340-500]

Of course they're quite wrong about many leftist people...
Schroeder and Blair are portrayed as being rightwing when in effect they're leftwing.
Mandela is portrayed as libertarian when he's a wannabe dictator.

Ummm not exactly. They may be further left than the graph suggests, but they certainly are not "left-wingers" (assuming the graph encompases all possible economic and social viewpoints). A real extreme left winger, would be someone utterly at odds with a free-market economy. Schroeder and Blair certainly are further left than the popular parties in the States, but they're still nowhere close to being on the left 1/4 of the spectrum.

Maybe it' all in how you phrased it. I would consider them "left of center". The graph suggests that they are "right of center".

Maybe the economics major who has been holding back in this thread thus far, can shed some light on the topic for us...

[zak]

Of course they're quite wrong about many leftist people...
Schroeder and Blair are portrayed as being rightwing when in effect they're leftwing.
Mandela is portrayed as libertarian when he's a wannabe dictator.

But such is typical of sites wanting to make socialists look good...

the test represents the whole spectrum. of course the(compared to the european majority of parties) tendency of hard right in the usa makes schröder and blair look leftists, but in general they represent the new middle that has been really popular with european public, with a goal at well balanced politics from all angles.
since the american politics are traditionally more on the "right side, the corporate side" they of course as a whole are more on the right, and the american far left is found quite in ht emiddle if seen in a global context

[Ilbap]

Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -2.72

Close to Jean Chretien

[jwenting]

Of course they're quite wrong about many leftist people...
Schroeder and Blair are portrayed as being rightwing when in effect they're leftwing.
Mandela is portrayed as libertarian when he's a wannabe dictator.

But such is typical of sites wanting to make socialists look good...

the test represents the whole spectrum. of course the(compared to the european majority of parties) tendency of hard right in the usa makes schröder and blair look leftists, but in general they represent the new middle that has been really popular with european public, with a goal at well balanced politics from all angles.
since the american politics are traditionally more on the "right side, the corporate side" they of course as a whole are more on the right, and the american far left is found quite in ht emiddle if seen in a global context

Seeing as I'm part of that European public I know where to place them and it's left off the center and not to the right as this site claims...
They're not as far left as some obviously, but certainly left of the middle. Heck, Schroeder scores about the same I do, and I'm extreme right compared to him (or rather he's extreme left compared to me).