Political Identity Crisis

I wouldn't know where to begin to sort it out but I think you're right that there's something very wrong with their definitions. I suspect they lean Left and have the usual distorted view of the Right.

What you say here makes no sense.Did you respond to the questions as Percy indicated? If you did, then you would inevitably have received the same score Percy did. If you responded differently, then we have no way to compare your score with Percy's or anyone else's.I speculated that Ted Cruz's answers were similar to Percy's. So your example of your own score is not relevant.

Did Percy put those markers for the Republican candidates on the chart he posted? Trump, Rubio, Cruz, Bush in the far upper right corner of the chart? I thought those were part of the test-makers illustration of the test.I just went back and read Percy's post, and clearly he is trying to find out what they would have had to have done on the test to get those scores, so the scores were already given.That's what I'm talking about. My own scores are at 1 and .1, far from those in the upper right corner. If Percy placed those markers, then I apologize, I misunderstood, but it doesn't read to me as if he did.So those scores were presented as fairly representing those four candidates, and not by Percy. So when you said you agreed that Cruz would score as presented on that chart, you were agreeing with the makers of the test, and my point was that if that score fairly represented Cruz then I should have scored up there with him. Or even if you were agreeing with Percy's assessment of Cruz if it were correct my score should have been up there with his.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Did pretty much the same test, though I did not record my answers. I did put "strongly disagree" on the astrology question.Economic Left/Right: 10.0
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 8.62So you got higher Authoritarian and I got higher(est) Economic Right.Maybe some answers need to have no opinion (don't matter one way or the other)?It is also interesting to see how they graded the historical figures It seems that the only thing that differentiates our GOP candidates from Stalin and Hitler is their economic grades, and Hitler is a little surprising there, perhaps due to government control of business (the state more important than the business)?

quote:

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... Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today's Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.

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That seems to explain it somewhat. He could not have been totally government hands-off business though.I'll try for a wacked-out liberal next ...[abe] ... using the opposite answers (except #7 which I should change for WOC) I got:Economic Left/Right: -7.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.51For the whacked-out liberal (WOL) ... either it is harder to be WOL or I am missing something.[abe2] ... flipped #7 for WOC and gotEconomic Left/Right: 10.0
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 9.08This is the Faux Noise Nutwerk being okay to broadcast false information ...Enjoy

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Answers:

1. If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. -- Strongly disagree
2. I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong. -- Strongly agree
3. No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it. -- Strongly disagree
4. Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races. -- Strongly agree
5. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. -- Strongly agree
6. Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified. -- Strongly agree
7. There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment. -- Strongly agree
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8. People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality. -- Strongly disagree
9. Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment. -- Strongly agree
10. Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation. -- Strongly disagree
11. "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a fundamentally good idea. -- Strongly disagree
12. It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product. -- Strongly disagree
13. Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold. -- Strongly disagree
14. It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. -- Strongly disagree
15. Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade. -- Strongly disagree
16. The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders. -- Strongly agree
17. The rich are too highly taxed. -- Strongly agree
18. Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care. -- Strongly agree
19. Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public. -- Strongly disagree
20. A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies. -- Strongly disagree
21. The freer the market, the freer the people. -- Strongly agree
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22. Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal. -- Strongly agree
23. All authority should be questioned. -- Strongly disagree
24. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. -- Strongly agree
25. Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theatres or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis. -- Strongly agree
26. Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory. -- Strongly disagree
27. All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind. -- Strongly agree
28. Good parents sometimes have to spank their children. -- Strongly agree
29. It's natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents. -- Strongly disagree
30. Possessing marijuana for personal use should not be a criminal offence. -- Strongly disagree
31. The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs. -- Strongly agree
32. People with serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce. -- Strongly agree
33. The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline. -- Strongly agree
34. There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures. -- Strongly disagree
35. Those who are able to work, and refuse the opportunity, should not expect society's support. -- Strongly agree
36. When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things. -- Strongly agree
37. First-generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country. -- Strongly agree
38. What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us. -- Strongly agree
39. No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding. -- Strongly agree
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40. Our civil liberties are being excessively curbed in the name of counter-terrorism. -- Strongly disagree
41. A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system. -- Strongly agree
42. Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried. -- Strongly agree
43. The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes. -- Strongly agree
44. In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded. -- Strongly agree
45. Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all. -- Strongly agree
46. In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation. -- Strongly agree
47. It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals. -- Strongly agree
48. The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist. -- Strongly agree
49. Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers. -- Strongly agree
50. Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing countries. -- Strongly disagree
51. Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity. -- Strongly agree
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52. Astrology accurately explains many things. -- Strongly disagree
53. You cannot be moral without being religious. -- Strongly agree
54. Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged. -- Strongly agree
55. Some people are naturally unlucky. -- Strongly disagree
56. It is important that my child's school instills religious values. -- Strongly agree
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57. Sex outside marriage is usually immoral. -- Strongly agree
58. A same sex couple in a stable, loving relationship should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption. -- Strongly disagree
59. Pornography, depicting consenting adults, should be legal for the adult population. -- Strongly disagree
60. What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state. -- Strongly disagree
61. No one can feel naturally homosexual. -- Strongly agree
62. These days openness about sex has gone too far. -- Strongly agree

Edited by RAZD, : addedEdited by RAZD, : added WOC2

I don't believe it is possible to answer the questions Percy selected in a way consistent with what Ted Cruz says and still get a (1, 0.1). Your claim is that you are just like the Republican candidates and thus the test is wrong. I'm saying that such a thing is impossible. The Republican candidates are not even all alike.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What you are saying is so absurd I haven't a clue where you are getting it. I'll try one more time to explain it. OF COURSE NOT. What an absurd idea. Why would you think I meant anything like that? NO THAT IS NOT MY CLAIM. My "claim" was, which wasn't a "claim" anyway, is that I'd have expected to score much closer to them than I did because I thought I shared most of their views. BUT THAT DOESN'T CALL THE TEST INTO QUESTION, it only calls into question the guesses as to where they would have scored by whoever made up the test.The conclusion would be that in reality THEY WOULD HAVE SCORED CLOSER TO THE SCORES I GOT, not the other way around. And if anything calls the test into question that does. OF COURSE THEY AREN'T BUT IF THE TEST MAKERS GUESSED AT THOSE SCORES FOR THEM rather than Percy's having produced them from his test of the test, then SOMEBODY thinks they reflect their views.Didn't YOU say that you think Cruz's score in the upper right hand corner is probably accurate for him? No matter who put it there or guessed it there or whatever? You guessed it would be a pretty accurate reflection of his views and how he would score on the test? Didn't you say that?That being the case, and since I would expect to have scored much closer to Cruz and the other Republicans than is reflected on the chart, which some consider to be a good guess at their true positions, doesn't that show that the guesses must be wrong whoever made them? Whether the test inventors put them there or Percy did and you agreed at least about where Cruz's was placed?Unless you see the truth of what I am saying here PLEASE DO NOT ANSWER. I'm tired of getting an ulcer from your weird ways of misconstruing my posts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I said two things. I first said that the answers Percy gave probably did reflect Cruz very well and that his score was probably correct. However I also suggested that those answers might not do a good job of indicating anything and that they likely don't explain why Hilary was plotted where she was.In any event, what I am challenging is your expectation to come up just like Cruz, without giving answers that reflect Cruz's stated positions and obvious tendencies. See below: Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I'm surely not going to respect that request.

The chart comes from the test's website, RAZD included it one of his posts, too: The Political CompassWithout commenting on the test's validity or accuracy, I think the website's creators have skewed all the candidates results upward and to the right. It you read the text on the page, they even challenge Bernie Sanders credentials as politically left and Libertarian. My guess is that they never tried to approximate how the various candidates would have answered their test questions, but that they just plopped the candidates down on their chart where they felt they belonged.Or to put it another way, when one is to the left of Karl Marx and more Libertarian than Howard Stern, everyone looks conservative. --PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo: "enough" => "another"

Thank you very much. That is what I thought and I don't know why NoNukes keeps imputing the scores on the chart to you, or questioning why I think those scores imputed to the Republicans must be wrong because I would expect to have scored closer to them than I did.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I did not impute the scores to Percy. Percy is only responsible for posting the chart and of course the example questions and reported score associated with them. I don't believe I said anything different from that.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

OK and I apologized many posts ago if I had misunderstood you on that. But the main point is that if the test makers made up those scores for the Republicans then their guess was wrong as shown by my not scoring anywhere near them -- because I know my beliefs are compatible with many of them and at least Cruz's. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So you keep saying. I think Cruz has been placed firmly in the correct quadrant, although his distance from the origin seems exaggerated. I also believe that the answers to the questions Percy posted are a reasonable approximation of Cruz. Cruz could never achieve your score on that test.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The way they define left and right is not particularly strange or unorthodox, they just seem so from an American perspective. Defining the left/right divide in primarily economic terms is fairly standard in the study of politics in Europe (it gets confusing, of course, since 'far right' is agreed by convention to mean racist nationalism, which in some instances is not very economically right at all).

Mostly from the conservative side I'm sure. Meaning Marxist terms. Agreed by LIBERAL convention I would say, in other words by the procrustean and oppressive standards of political correctness.