My roommate from last year sent me this link today:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/index
One answers a list of perhaps 60 questions with either 1) Strongly Disagree, 2) Disagree, 3) Agree, or 4) Strongly Agree.
One is then placed on a typical two-dimensional chart. Mine is below:
The problem with many questions, however, is that they ask about things that have nothing to do with what I think government's involvement in my life should be. For example:
- People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality.
- "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fundamentally good idea.
- An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
- Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory.
- All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
- Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
- It's natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents.
- The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs.
- The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline.
- There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures.
- Those who are able to work, and refuse the opportunity, should not expect society's support.
- When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
- First-generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country.
- In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.
- Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.
- The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
- Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers.
- Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity.
- Astrology accurately explains many things.
- You cannot be moral without being religious.
- Some people are naturally unlucky.
- It is important that my child's school instills religious values.
- Sex outside marriage is usually immoral.No one can feel naturally homosexual.
- These days openness about sex has gone too far.
...And I'm sure there's a few I missed. So out of 60-some questions (62 if I counted correctly), some 24 or 30 of them are simply personal preferences that have absolutely nothing to do with the state. And this is supposed to determine where I am on the political scale? Please. Now, I'm not going to take the time to do the experiment, but I'm sure if I answered the above questions in a wholely different manner, my political results would also be quite different. This wouldn't make sense however, as one's political beliefs are simply of which areas of human interaction the state has the right to insert itself. The people who put this little survey together really are statists who just don't understand what libertarianism is all about.
