Argue about the Political Compass and other political orientation tests here

I meant civil libertarianism. Also, most of those things are unrecognized by the survey with the result that a lot of us seem more left-lib than just-plain-lib.

Oh, and also -- I demand satisfaction for such grave insult!

Swords at dawn!

I realize the institution of duelling probably makes sense to rugged individualists like you but society just can't afford to condone it.

Eh, not really:
- Those questions are loaded.
- Libertarianism is explicitly equated with Anarchy, so there's no confusion.
- I'm not sure I've ever met an actual Civil Libertarian. Every one claiming the title I've talked to turned out to be run of the mill Republicans, and when push came to shove (e.g. Patriot Act, Homeland Security, Immigration, etc.) weren't particularly for civil liberties, and they certainly weren't in the ACLU. Civil Liberties are at best only nominally part of actual Libertarianism.

Easy with the capital letters. AFAIK you get more offended by President Obama's poor civil liberties and due process record (mostly with respect to the war on terror) than do other liberals here. I realize (and have said myself) that the quiz and its axis (and its author) are unreliable, but I think most people take a strong concern with the aforementioned dimensions of Obama's policies as a 'left-lib' perspective with a bit of emphasis on the lib. YMMV.

Honestly, I find the small l vs. Big L Libetarian distinction ridiculous, and think the whole idea is over blown. Libertarianism is succinctly described by the Libertarian party itself (counting actions as well as words), and I have no problem with the apparent paradox that those who appreciate things like the ACLU are not generally Libertarians despite "civil liberties" being in the name. Maybe some actual small-l "libertarian" somewhere is offended that they've lost control of what their name means, kind of like I'm still put off by anyone calling the internet "cyberspace", but that boat has sailed -- tough shit.

I take Obama to task because I voted for him. To be blunt, this being the Sanctorum, Libertarians largely didn't vote for Obama because he's black or "Socialist" and merely use civil liberties as a smoke screen. Perhaps I would take a different view if they had generally opposed civil liberty violations when Bush was a president -- but they didn't.

So no, I'm not a Libertarian. Really, it's about the most perjorative term I can think of in US politics.

It's a bit strange, as I am generally opposite policy-wise from my Republican friends, but I can understand them and at least get along with them. One of the things that unites us is loathing (for different reasons no doubt!) Libertarians.

I think this may be a US thing. I'm not an American, so for me the term can either evoke "libertarians," those guys we hate, or "a concern with the rights and autonomy of individuals," to due process, to privacy, to a variety of things that can be in tension with collective needs or the state. IE, a basket of quite important things, a lot of them bound up with our idea of social liberalism in contrast to hierachical, "morally" normative social conservatism.

If we're all Libetarians why do all the Libertarian candidates seem like creepy nutburgers to us

Self loathing?

That's funny that Bill would say that in the middle of the Jill Stein 2016 HQ.

I think it's an unhelpful FAQ generally, but that question does obey a pretty simple mental checklist for context.

Data as of 9AM this morning.

Can you make a version of this that shows the poster's name when you mouse over their dot?

Man! Not only did you scoop me, your graph is way prettier.

Maybe it's because I read this thread first, but I didn't find the test all that unclear or bad (though the wording is undeniably poor on the one-party question).

It's probably because I'm a decent and moral human being, but the questions seemed very much to lead respondents toward left/lib answers. "Should the government sodomize non-Christians for their lack of faith?" SEE YOU ARE A SECULAR HUMANIST TOO

It's definitely your own bias, I think, at least in large part. For almost anything on there that you could point to and think it would be impossible for anyone to answer the opposite of the way you answered, I've talked to someone who would have done so. Only the "are dictatorships pretty cool?" one stands out as something I haven't really seen any Americans answer the insane way.

I'll see what I can do, but I need to actually work for a few hours :)

Hah, it's one of the default templates in Excel 2013.

Quick and dirty - you can at least see the heret...outliers on this version. Data is also up to date as of 10:05PST



Hover is not something excel does natively, I can do it via a Macro but then everyone has to download the excel to see it. Maybe flash? Then I have to host it. Blargh. I'll figure it out, probably.

What's a left libertarian to do these days, anyway? The "do whatever drugs you want while screwing who you want, but please give me universal health care, regulate the corporations and save the whales too, if possible" political market seems under-served.

Haha, that graph.

Judging from the graph and the state of US politics: post on Broken Forum about how disappointed you are with most of the things your country does. :/

Vote Green?

HIVEMIND STATUS: CONFIRMED

Whatever chance there was of that ended when Elizabeth May joined the "wifi will cook your brain, save the kids!" bandwagon.

Yeah I agree with this, libertarians are hardly ever civil.

Now you just need to go in and label the axis =) Maybe go with the horizontal axis: "Things that smell strongly" and a vertical axis of "Smells good"

Ah, yes. I remember when the campus libertarian group representative sneered at me as a "single issue voter" when I said I didn't like Ron Paul's stance on reproductive freedom.

But really, it weirds me out that this test rates me as that libertarian. I wonder if it's really asking the right sorts of questions, because I think I have a rather embarrassing tendency towards authoritarianism a lot of the time. I want the government to control, oversee, regulate, own, encourage, or repress all sorts of things! But the test didn't really ask a lot of questions about things like drug testing, consumer protection, building codes, utility control and management, highway maintenance, higher education funding, or health care. I have a hard time seeing how my beliefs on astrology have a damn thing to do with my political stance when none of my opinions on the things above apparently do, by this test.

Well remember that these types of charts only use the words "libertarian" and "authoritarian" to describe stances on social issues. So most of the things that you consider yourself authoritarian on are things that are actually moving you toward the "liberal" side (or things that aren't represented at all).

Really none of the labels on the chart really correspond to the way people actually use those words.

I like that chart because it has me on it :)

Wow, the person the ended up closest to me on that test was... Juste? That's surprising. You're not American, are you Juste?

Nope, Norwegian. Why does that surprise you MatthewF ?

Because it probably means I'm a Norwegian sleeper and just haven't been activated yet.

Yeah, this is more or less how I feel as well. I think of my self as a Big Government Socialist most of the time, so it always feels kind of strange to me to be as far down the Y axis as I always seem to be on these. I have a feeling things like being strongly opposed to the death penalty move me down the list, even though I'm happily in favor of life without parole as an alternative, and I just don't really see that as a TAKE THAT, AUTHORITY viewpoint at all.

Me and my wife's ( Ktbug) scores:

Mine:
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.49

Hers:
Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.18

Pretty close match, I think.

Exactly. It leaves out many of the angles that define Libertarians, and many of the angles where I'm actually pretty authoritarian.

I guess you can sort of explain it by noting that Libertarians often aren't socially libertarian, and their axe falls more on the left/right axis of this graph, but that's still unsatisfying. Ultimately two axis is just crap at defining politics, even if it is better than one.

Woo Hoo, I win!

Also, I vote to stake Flowers.

Another thing is I have a feeling going full atheist on the religion questions moves you way down the Y axis as well, despite having nothing in particular to do with one's overall feelings about government control of stuff.

Oh, and another thing. I get the impression that the vast majority of us came out on the same side of each question, and where we end up on the graph is mostly a factor of subjective interpretations of "agree" vs. "strongly agree".

Take the first 6 questions for example:
- If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.
- I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong.
- No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.
- Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.
- The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.
- There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.

I'm guessing there are many here who think economic globization should serve the interests of zaibatsus, always support their country, and consciously avow racism?

Really, the interesting part isn't "agree vs. strongly agree", but "agree vs. disagree" -- which is entirely covered up because they cancel each other out. There's a big difference in viewpoint between someone who mildly agrees on everything, and someone who strongly agrees on some things but disagrees on others.

My results seemed wrong - and rather than believing that the test is accurate, I believe the test scores somehow skew leftist and libertarian. Perhaps there are some weighting issues.