Thread: What's your Political Ideology?

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

Double standards of what though?

Everyone would love to be in a dictatorship, as long as they're the dictator. That's the kind of double-standard I'm talking about.

What's so meaningful about choosing authoritarian vs libertarian when deciding on specific issues? Some issues should be dealt with by the government, some shouldn't. You should decide which ones are which from scratch with you're own reason for each issue, deciding by virtue of this scale is ignorant in my view.

But how are these decisions to be made? Who decides which issues are in the realm of government and which are not? What sort of parameters should be set up to decide how the law should act in regard to individual cases?

There requires a basic principle of management, as far as which type of government would work best, not necessarily which particular issues should be in the hands of the government. In that regard, perhaps you'd prefer the 3 dimensional graph which takes into account the "Freedom To" and "Freedom From" axes. In any case, you have to find a way to consistently argue your political point of view. You cannot simply take a moral stance against "Freedom To" in regard to gay marriage then a hypocritical stance in regard to Divorce, or even in regard to an issue like Gun Ownership. The reason is because you don't get to choose your judge or their political ideology when it's your head on the chopping block. And there is no justice in following a law just because it's a law, without philosophical context in regard to the sustainability of the society at large.

Without a consistent foundation upon which to base your views on, there's nothing to stop you from doing what all of our presidential candidates save Ron Paul are doing, which is flip-flopping in order to garner the votes of whatever audience they're put in front of. There has to be a consistent standard from which you approach issues, a consistent belief in how the government ought to work and what sort of power it is allocated, in what sort of fashion. Over the course of centuries of Political Scientists we have slowly mapped out a matrix as far as the differences go in regard to the mechanism through which law and society can function more sustainably. There is nothing random about it.

Classical Liberal: Free markets, free people, small government.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Oh phil, you're so funny.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but you're both cute and smart so I'll just smile and nod.

At any rate, no joke. I think that defeating evolution is the only way that we're going to survive as a species.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Everyone would love to be in a dictatorship, as long as they're the dictator. That's the kind of double-standard I'm talking about.

Almost everybody. But they're all a bunch of hypocrites.

I want to live in a dictatorship where the dictator completely agrees with me on absolutely everything and I don't even need to tell him/her what to do.

Now that's what I call living.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

That first picture is weird. They put Rand farther into the corner than Mises? Hayek too?

In the first picture, I'd put myself between Hayek and Rand. In the second, I'd put myself around Rothbard. In the third, I'd put myself around in the general vicinity of the bottom right corner. All the labels there are ridiculously similar, so delineating between them all is pointless to me.

My political spectrum quiz:



My political compass results, which is really the average of two tests taken some time last year:



In the poll, I selected Libertarian Capitalist.

Good work, you beat Rothbard.

There's way too many labels for political leanings, I can't be bothered looking them all up tbh. I chose Liberal and Anarchist.
I was about to ask why there was no Communist, but then I saw it. So I chose that too.

I don't care for questionnaires.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I used the general term Anarchist for central libertarians because I'm not really sure what other position you could hold from that standpoint other than complete belief in self organization and true Darwinian economics without favor for or against any particular methods or ideologies such as private property and cooperative ownership. Sorry if you feel mislabeled. Feel free to explain your economic position more thoroughly.

Im actually not sure if anarchist is a mislable or not. I am small government, liberal on social issues and centralist on economic issues. Libertarian Centralist may be more detailed, but if you can be anarchist and still support small government then I suppose its fine.

First one:
Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.56

Second one:
Left: 5.37
Libertarian: 4.14


Looks like I end up in that third quadrant. I don't feel like I answered any of the question inconsistantly. I feel that they're weird questions that are saturated with the assumptions (mostly mainstream) of the people that made it.


So I happen to think that certain people shouldn't breed. Does that make me a statist? Did I specify (or was I given the opportunity to specify ) that it should be the state that denies them? As it stands many people aren't allowed to breed but it's members of the opposite sex that make that decision and not the state. How is one different from the other?

This whole "government" idea really needs to be moved beyond.

And this question: A person's morality is of the most personal nature; therefore government should have no involvement in moral questions or promote moral behaviors.
I chose "disagree" because I think that murder should be illegal. This is a purely moral issue. Anybody that says "agree" is saying that the government shouldn't prevent things like rape and murder.


I recommend that somebody develops a virus that replaces the genes that currently make us stupid monkeys with genes that make us magic monkeys. Then release it. So far as I'm concerned there's no moral issue with this whatsover. I feel no more need to allow a bunch of stupid hairy monkeys to make that decision than most monkeys feel the need to let cows vote on if they get slaughtered or not.

Simply consider the fact that most people will believe the person that confidently asserts a simplistic position over the person that expresses a range of possibilities and is uncertain of which is the right choice. The former normally has no clue what they're talking about. The latter generally will. This is monkey logic and it's how people like Hitler end up in power.

The bottom line is that until people learn how to think, there is no hope for the human species. We will destroy ourselves. But one has to know how to think before one recognizes how stupid most people actually are. So there's a catch-22.

The funny thing is that although both of these polls placed me as a libertarian, I'm not. People are way too stupid for democracy to be an effective form of government.

I want a philosopher king. I see no other way.

I got these results the first time I took the test and I disputed them at the time, because I felt more authoritarian for reasons of environmental regulation. Now I've grown more into where the test placed me. I'll accept classification as a Chomsky-ite now (if classified I must be).

Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.77

For fucks sake! I didn't want to be a stinking socialist!



Blearg! Well I guess I have a label. The test was annoying, many of the questions prompted more complex answers then within the narrow band of responses I had to work with.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

First one:
Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.56

Second one:
Left: 5.37
Libertarian: 4.14


Looks like I end up in that third quadrant. I don't feel like I answered any of the question inconsistantly. I feel that they're weird questions that are saturated with the assumptions (mostly mainstream) of the people that made it.


So I happen to think that certain people shouldn't breed. Does that make me a statist? Did I specify (or was I given the opportunity to specify ) that it should be the state that denies them? As it stands many people aren't allowed to breed but it's members of the opposite sex that make that decision and not the state. How is one different from the other?

This whole "government" idea really needs to be moved beyond.

And this question: A person's morality is of the most personal nature; therefore government should have no involvement in moral questions or promote moral behaviors.
I chose "disagree" because I think that murder should be illegal. This is a purely moral issue. Anybody that says "agree" is saying that the government shouldn't prevent things like rape and murder.


I recommend that somebody develops a virus that replaces the genes that currently make us stupid monkeys with genes that make us magic monkeys. Then release it. So far as I'm concerned there's no moral issue with this whatsover. I feel no more need to allow a bunch of stupid hairy monkeys to make that decision than most monkeys feel the need to let cows vote on if they get slaughtered or not.

Simply consider the fact that most people will believe the person that confidently asserts a simplistic position over the person that expresses a range of possibilities and is uncertain of which is the right choice. The former normally has no clue what they're talking about. The latter generally will. This is monkey logic and it's how people like Hitler end up in power.

The bottom line is that until people learn how to think, there is no hope for the human species. We will destroy ourselves. But one has to know how to think before one recognizes how stupid most people actually are. So there's a catch-22.

The funny thing is that although both of these polls placed me as a libertarian, I'm not. People are way too stupid for democracy to be an effective form of government.

I want a philosopher king. I see no other way.

Man I have to say that I agree with PhilosopherStoned on this one. I think democracy is flawed inherently because of the flawed assumptions it makes about people. While I certainly wouldn't be arrogant enough to say that I have a solution, I think it lies in compartmentising the election process. For example, in decisions relating to road works, create a council of people that are related to this field. If a decision passes the election process, its made public to people for at least 30 days prior to the carrying out of thd decision. During these 30 days, anyone from the general public can bring forward an issue with the plan and the council will investigate it. If found to be valid, the plan will either be altered to resolve the issue or if inreconciliable will be dropped. This same approach will be used in all aspects of society. Also this process should be as localised as possible. Every area should have its own councils on matters that relate to their own area. The goverment at large has NO say in these local decisions UNLESS if during the prior to execution phase, they find something that negativly affects them. The same process as above is done in this situation. Of course this approach has its own faults but I think it will make decisiom making quicker without having to turn to facism and I like how decentralized it is.

This would be me, then.

Both of those quiz test things are largely for Americans. Anyhow, personally I consider myself a liberal person, looking at my own country. The right word for it really, is probably liberal socialist. I like the ideas of liberalism, but I also promote the idea of everyone contributing, to keep up a standard of living for everyone in the country, allowing everyone to do what they want, regardless of their family background and so on.

Fun fact, Denmark is the country with the highest taxes in the world.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Both of those quiz test things are largely for Americans. Anyhow, personally I consider myself a liberal person, looking at my own country. The right word for it really, is probably liberal socialist. I like the ideas of liberalism, but I also promote the idea of everyone contributing, to keep up a standard of living for everyone in the country, allowing everyone to do what they want, regardless of their family background and so on.

Yeah, but they still give an idea.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Fun fact, Denmark is the country with the highest taxes in the world.

Really? You'd think it was us, the way people are complaining

So what does this make me? lol

Originally Posted by khh

Yeah, but they still give an idea.


Really? You'd think it was us, the way people are complaining

I think we're probably around even, Denmark and Norway.

And nah, not really, there are a lot of expressions in the quizzes that I don't even know what mean.

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

I'm just not convinced that these groupings are accurate to the complexity of the issues. Their danger of acting as prisons of independent thought seem to outweigh their benefit.

While I sort of agree with this, I decided to play just for kicks.

Okay, I think this is me.

And I'm just fine with it, though most of those questions were wickedly narrow, and the choices just as much so.