Thread: What's your Political Ideology?

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.

tests say Im a libertarian with a slight lean to the left. basically a central libertarian lol

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.

I'm an anti-evolutionist

That political compass confuses me. The one I did plotted economic values (collectivist versus individualist) against social values (restrictive and authoritarian with respect to morality versus progressive and liberal).

I don't understand how you could end up in the third quadrant with that version. Believing in economic collectivism kind of forces you to believe in governmental authoritarianism, in the real world at least.

All the people in the Left-Libertarian/Anarcho-Communist quadrant would disagree with you.

In fact Noam Chomsky argues it is state socialism which is truly a contradiction in terms.

I guess.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I'm an anti-evolutionist

Oh phil, you're so funny.

And this. This is the thread for me.

I don't really know what ideals constitute "right" but if I had to guess it would be where ever Thomas Paine's at.

I saw another chart showing Thomas Paine along the "Activist" area of the labeled chart in the OP but I didn't post it because I didn't want to overwhelm anyone with charts.

Right and Left directly denote position in regard to Private Ownership and Trading Rights; Fair Trade vs Free Trade etc.

I think scales like these are silly, issues should be dealt with individually and not grouped as one answer.

How so?

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.

Couldn't you say the same thing about colors? Categorization enables the mind to build a map, the goal is not perfect accuracy but simply greater accuracy as far as conceptualizing the components

I don't see the analogue but I don't see why there should be one. All it's doing is adding an unnecessary, bulky, and overly simplistic filter to direct reality.

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

I don't see the analogue but I don't see why there should be one. All it's doing is adding an unnecessary, bulky, and overly simplistic filter to direct reality.

Firstly you can't call it both bulky and overly simplistic at the same time.

But point is there's already an over simplistic filter on reality. The analogy with colors is that there is no line between orange and red, the difference between orange and red is an illusion. Not to say it isn't helpful to make up the illusion in order for us to more easily qualify certain colors, just that at its heart, colors are only distinctly different based on the map we have lined out for them.

There's already a distinction between left and right in this country which is even more overly simplistic than this grid. At least by adding a two dimensional map, we can more accurately qualify differences in political ideology. If you like, you can also look at 3 dimensional maps, but it makes things even bulkier.

Do you see how there are no actual issues here though? Issues should come first, you can be placed in scales for fun afterword.

Right where expected.

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

Do you see how there are no actual issues here though? Issues should come first, you can be placed in scales for fun afterword.

It's like any other personality test. There are certain types of methods people use to process data, and these methods have been mapped out on scales extrovert-introvert, intuitive-sensory, feeling-thinking and perceiving-judging. This doesn't mean because I'm an INFP that I'm locked into some arbitrary classification, it means that compared to someone who's closer to INTP, I utilize a more emotional process for decision making.

In the same way, there are ideological spectrums in regard to how government should run. These don't classify people perfectly but they allow people to compare themselves to the ideological spectrums of others. To claim these spectrums are irrelevant and focus on issues individually without regard to their political context is to invite unregulated hypocrisy into the system. Just like how so many so-called libertarians can't deal with gay marriage.

It's only hypocrisy if you lock yourself into these simplistic categories, otherwise it's just called your independent view of balance.

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

It's only hypocrisy if you lock yourself into these simplistic categories, otherwise it's just called your independent view of balance.

What balance comes from having a political ideology ripe with double standards? How can a system function in a healthy manner if it cannot maintain a consistent rule of law?

Double standards of what though? What's so meaningful about the scale of 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.

Here ya go