Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dilmah G on May 12, 2012, 10:03:18 pm
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Stumbled upon this again, whilst procrastinating during the writing of my major essay for PolSci. (http://www.politicalcompass.org/)
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-3.12&soc=-2.56)
A bit closer down that usual...uni is taking its toll. :P
Don't see any reason why the link should go through Facebook. Fixed - Karajorama
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Move your dot about a square each up and to the right. That's my apparent alignment.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-7.25&soc=-4.41)
libslibslibslibslibs bluh bluh
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-2.88&soc=-3.54)
About the same as last time. Herp.
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I'm the Ghandi-Mendela-Lama.
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-5.62&soc=-4.51)
I find myself drifting left lately, which is hilarious because apparently I vote for my complete opposite in Canadian elections. Just goes to show how this doesn't take everything into account =)
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Holy hell. I got so far left since I last remembered!
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-8.12&soc=-6.87)
This is my girlfriend's
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-0.38&soc=-2.97)
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-8.62&soc=-9.69)
Hrmm, even more socially libertarian in my old age...
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my political views are so absurd it would take a 7 dimentional compass to graph them out.
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I got about the same as everybody else, but honestly, I couldn't imagine answering the questions in any way other than what I did.
"I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong." Considering the definition of wrong, the answer has to be disagree.
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(http://sadpanda.us/images/960165-KK8SNTX.png)
I was initially surprised how far down it put me, when I can't stand libertarian dogma... then I realized, most of the question were related to classical liberal principles, rather than libertarian concepts of self reliance and abhorrence of state. The question related to authority were also a bit disingenuous, as they all related to authority *exceeding* its bounds. There were several questions related to how far state intervention should go... looks like it relates to how far left it places you instead questions of statism/liberalism.
All in all, my biggest complaint is that the compass labels classical liberal values libertarian, which is misleading and may explain why it's so hip among the youth nowadays to ascribe to that philosophy, as they equate it with the classical freedoms that liberalism always strove for, and of which libertarianism is an offshoot off with a specific set of economic views.
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(http://i1082.photobucket.com/albums/j367/TopAceHLP/MyPoliticalCompass.jpg)
I'm pretty balanced, apparently. However, a few questions were misleading. For example this:
A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.
Of course it is; it's an axiom. If you want to ask whether the one-party system is fine, word the question accordingly.
Or my favorite, this one:
Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.
This is a semantic question. Do you mean whether it should be legally allowed or be given government funding?
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Here I go:
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=0.62&soc=-2.87)
Seems like I have moved towards libertarian axis, used to be dead in the center.
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my political views are so absurd it would take a 7 dimentional compass to graph them out.
It wouldn't just primarily need only one fiery nuclear dimension ? :)
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A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.
Of course it is; it's an axiom. If you want to ask whether the one-party system is fine, word the question accordingly.
Actually I'm pretty sure that's a lie rather than an axiom, but then again I have a significant interest in the history of one-party states and they don't.
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Eh, I think too much into the questions.. so I choose more neutral answers as I'm not sure exactly where the question is going or how it's meant...
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=0.12&soc=0.51)
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.88&soc=1.13)
I took this test a few years ago and now it seems my views are getting more polarized. I was way more centrist back then. Now I've drifted both further left and more towards Authoritarianism.
Of course some to the questions are pretty vague and open to interpretation but I feel that this tests isn't entirely meaningless like personality tests.
I didn't land exactly where I though I would land nor where I wanted to land.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-0.12&soc=-2.87)
Near the center, though somewhat on the libertarian side. That's about right.
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Economic Left/Right: 6.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.08
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=6.00&soc=-7.08)
And that's me.
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would be interesting to take the test every 3 months and graph the data over the course of several years. i bet you would see a lot of repetitive oscillations and flipfloppyness, even for those with highly polarized views.
i think i ended up at -4,-2 (left and down) on the x,y axes. i think all my "**** corporations" answeres were misinterpreted as wanting more government, which is entirely not the case. i dont trust any large group of people whether it be for money or power. my compas most definatly has a misanthropy axis. a measurement on how much you tolerate the existance of others. there most definately would be a reason-insanity axis, as i dont believe that most people are reasonable individuals, which goes against the usual assumption that people are usually reasonable. of course there would be a nuke happyness axis, of which i would be on the nuke the site from orbit end of course.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-0.88&soc=-1.59)
Well, this doesn't surprise me.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-2.88&soc=0.00)
Being on the right wing in the netherlands is apparantly still considered leftish in america
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the american left is a little rightish of the worlds left it seems.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=2.62&soc=-2.92)
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the american left is a little rightish of the worlds left it seems.
Well you were the guys who had people pissed off about public healthcare. :P Then again, this is coming from Australia - the land where public healthcare has existed for 40 years and even my most right-wing friends would bertstare anyone who would dare propose abolishing it.
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I used to really like this tool, but more and more I find the questions are not all that well-designed or plotted. Whoever mentioned the classical liberalism v. libertarianism thing is bang on - this tool has been heavily influenced by the American notion of political ideologies, and I think that's coloring the results (particularly given the number of nationalities on HLP and where we're mostly plotting).
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Individually, it represents our ideological differences or at least willingness to accept the actions of others. The politicians mentioned are calculated far more arbitrarily so to compare politician to politician. It can't really compare us to a politician since the questions differ.
And honestly, many of the responses assume a simple left/right paradigm. There are alternatives, so allowing one thing in the test doesn't mean you're okay with opening the floodgates. There were a few times where I'd have loved to have an open response session.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-5.88&soc=-6.51)
Let me guess... the purpose of this test is to find a label for people that you disagree with so you can disregard their opinion based on your disregard for the label ? ;)
As noted earlier... the test appears to rely way too much on American stereotypes and political cliche.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-5.62&soc=-3.28)
Economic Left/Right: -5.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.28
A lot of the questions defiantly had a liberal slant with a few where i was not able to answer as i would have liked with no counter question to balance the answer with
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-5.62&soc=-6.67)
Not much to add. You kinda feel that this test is aimed at US americans though.
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i dont trust any large group of people whether it be for money or power.
There, we agree at least to some extent. I'm fine with power/authority as long as there are ample checks and balances with no conflict of interest in place sporting 5-inch fangs. ofc those also need their own checks and balances... etc.
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i dont trust any large group of people whether it be for money or power.
There, we agree at least to some extent. I'm fine with power/authority as long as there are ample checks and balances with no conflict of interest in place sporting 5-inch fangs. ofc those also need their own checks and balances... etc.
The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
That all begs the question of where to stop? I want both the size & especially the scope of the federal government to be greatly reduced.
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Right, basically, the three branches of government should watch each other, and the government collective should watch big business.
Problem is, then big business gets in bed with Congress by donating a bunch of money to support the (re)election bids of their cronies, donates a bunch of money to get their guy(s) elected President, and President selects the Supreme Court, where are we now?
Not to say the government left to its own devices would be much better, but at least they can balance each other out.
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Except the branches don't watch each other. Congress and the President are usually in bed with each other when it comes to expanding the government since they both benefit from that and the Supreme Court is typically content to sit back and watch for the most part since they're unaccountable as they're chosen for life.
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.25&soc=-5.49)
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Except the branches don't watch each other. Congress and the President are usually in bed with each other when it comes to expanding the government since they both benefit from that and the Supreme Court is typically content to sit back and watch for the most part since they're unaccountable as they're chosen for life.
The only risk a Supreme Court Justice faces is old age & assassination attempts.
The problem is that it's in politicians' best interest to delegate their powers to others. It's easier to roll heads in the EPA than it is to accept the consequences of legislation that you specifically authorized. So instead of Congress passing regulations & the President signing them into law, instead Congress passes carte blanc authorization for a 3rd party to write & enforce regulations. You end up with bureaucracies that write & enforce the equivalent of law; there are no checks & balances as the regulations never need votes & don't need to respect the authority of the courts. The EPA's been quite guilty of that one: they can declare land protected and infringe on personal property rights. They can impose fines for noncompliance that, in the span of a day, can bankrupt an individual. Meanwhile, they can prevent the sale of said land. Even if the landowner fights & wins an uphill legal battle, the EPA doesn't have to revise their decision: they can insist that the land be protected and continue to punish the landowner.
All in all, it's a massive nightmare. If something goes grossly wrong, the agency's head administrators resign and are replaced. Those authorizing their appointments rarely if ever need to answer for those votes.
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Yeah, and then the former heads of the agency immediately get jobs in a lobbying firm and start making double what they used to since they're no longer bound by federal salary restrictions.
We can't even ditch the lobbying firms since that would require politicians to actually put in some effort on their part to be informed on legislation and issues, and a politician will never put in more effort than he has to. :doubt:
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Hmm, by far the most left I've ever scored, normally I'm right in the middle. Knowing I answered most questions about the same as all the other quizzes makes me think it's slightly more left based.
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-1.88&soc=0.26)
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The fundamental problem with the American government is that it was designed by people terrified of democracy. We can't get anything done because government branches - the president included - do not have enough power.
source: canadians, my dad
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(http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.12&soc=-6.87)
Weird, I thought my answers would put me more in the authoritarian realm. Well, whatever.
A lot of the questions defiantly had a liberal slant with a few where i was not able to answer as i would have liked with no counter question to balance the answer with
From the tests' FAQ: Some of the questions are slanted
Most of them are slanted! Some right-wingers accuse us of a leftward slant. Some left-wingers accuse us of a rightward slant. But it's important to realise that this isn't a survey, and these aren't questions. They're propositions — an altogether different proposition. To question the logic of individual ones that irritate you is to miss the point. Some propositions are extreme, and some are more moderate. That's how we can show you whether you lean towards extremism or moderation on the Compass.
The propositions should not be overthought. Some of them are intentionally vague. Their purpose is to trigger buzzwords in the mind of the user, measuring feelings and prejudices rather than detailed opinions on policy.
Incidentally, our test is not another internet personality classification tool. The essence of our site is the model for political analysis. The test is simply a demonstration of it.
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I usually consider myself a socialist, liberal and is still found it liberally bias. Ah well
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Except the branches don't watch each other. Congress and the President are usually in bed with each other when it comes to expanding the government since they both benefit from that and the Supreme Court is typically content to sit back and watch for the most part since they're unaccountable as they're chosen for life.
The only risk a Supreme Court Justice faces is old age & assassination attempts.
The problem is that it's in politicians' best interest to delegate their powers to others. It's easier to roll heads in the EPA than it is to accept the consequences of legislation that you specifically authorized. So instead of Congress passing regulations & the President signing them into law, instead Congress passes carte blanc authorization for a 3rd party to write & enforce regulations. You end up with bureaucracies that write & enforce the equivalent of law; there are no checks & balances as the regulations never need votes & don't need to respect the authority of the courts. The EPA's been quite guilty of that one: they can declare land protected and infringe on personal property rights. They can impose fines for noncompliance that, in the span of a day, can bankrupt an individual. Meanwhile, they can prevent the sale of said land. Even if the landowner fights & wins an uphill legal battle, the EPA doesn't have to revise their decision: they can insist that the land be protected and continue to punish the landowner.
All in all, it's a massive nightmare. If something goes grossly wrong, the agency's head administrators resign and are replaced. Those authorizing their appointments rarely if ever need to answer for those votes.
Why does that remind me so much of the Solarian League in David Weber's later Honorverse books? That's not a flattering comparison by the way and makes me wonder, which part of the US is Frontier Security.
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Why does that remind me so much of the Solarian League in David Weber's later Honorverse books?
Because Weber modeled the Solarian League after the United States of America ? ;)
lol.
The fundamental problem with the American government is that it was designed by people terrified of democracy. We can't get anything done because government branches - the president included - do not have enough power.
source: canadians, my dad
I wouldn't say those people were scared of democracy, but rather of putting (too much) power into anyones hands. (... which incidentially would quickly lead to the end of any and all democracy if it's too much power in the wrong hands.)
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Yeah, I'd argue more a fear of government as opposed to democracy. We did your political system to some skin-depth as part of my polsci's intro to liberalism, could you elaborate on the not enough power argument, Battuta? I'm not really full-bottle on how stuff works over there, or at least, not putting it into these terms.
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The President doesn't write the bills, he can only pass them and submit them for consideration (which House/Senate have to approve, yadda yadda)
Congress doesn't enforce the bills, they can only try to pass them (which the President can veto, yadda yadda)
The Supreme Court neither write nor enforce the bills, they can only say whether they should be allowed or not.
So, the President can't do anything on his own, the Congress can't do anything on its own, and the Supreme Court can probably do the least on its own, but it's very good at saying "no" to the other branches.
That adds up to none of them having enough power to really get things booking in any one direction.
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And that would be to prevent a runaway train. Basically, it is to say, Adolph Hitler/Neo-Nazi party/ what-have-you, you are not welcome here. You may do some harm, but you will not ruin this country without managing to get around the legislative branch and the supreme court as well.
As to how well that functions... Well, probably, if he had made his debut here, he would have just wowed the legislative branch into following, and bribed/threatened/'disappeared' the Supreme Court justices he could not replace. Although there is the two-term limit on Presidents... Nah, I bet he would've gotten around that too.
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And that would be to prevent a runaway train. Basically, it is to say, Adolph Hitler/Neo-Nazi party/ what-have-you, you are not welcome here. You may do some harm, but you will not ruin this country without managing to get around the legislative branch and the supreme court as well.
It is not this exactly. It had a lot more to do with concerns the Founders had with state vs. federal power and the notion of democracy than it had to do with concerns about an entire notion (nationalism) that wouldn't come around for decades and decades.
I'm not saying the entire notion of checks and balances is dumb, I'm just saying that our government stands out from most Western democracies in how absolutely untrusting its founders were in their voters.
Although there is the two-term limit on Presidents... Nah, I bet he would've gotten around that too.
The two-term limit wasn't even implemented until after World War II. :blah: Do you know how many terms FDR was elected to?
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I knew it was added on, wasn't sure when, have happily forgotten that. Something like four? I forget.
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The President doesn't write the bills, he can only pass them and submit them for consideration (which House/Senate have to approve, yadda yadda)
Congress doesn't enforce the bills, they can only try to pass them (which the President can veto, yadda yadda)
The Supreme Court neither write nor enforce the bills, they can only say whether they should be allowed or not.
So, the President can't do anything on his own, the Congress can't do anything on its own, and the Supreme Court can probably do the least on its own, but it's very good at saying "no" to the other branches.
That adds up to none of them having enough power to really get things booking in any one direction.
I see. You guys vote for the President separately to Congressional members, don't you?
If you abolished Presidential Elections (never gonna happen, but IF) and only voted for Congressional members, with the leader of the party holding the majority becoming the President, then at least Pres/Congress would be able to fight as a bloc and he/she wouldn't be stonewalled by Congress all the time.
So what you're saying is that the arms of government possess such diluted power that the only way to get stuff done is for at least 2 of the 3 to cooperate? And therefore the Executive is lacking in coercive power over the Legislature to get stuff done?
Am somewhat biased because over here the division between Exec/Legislature is really only nominal - they function more or less together and it's only in cases such as our current hung parliament that **** doesn't happen. I should probably read up about your system a little more...
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Many of the unique characteristics of the American system are simple game theory consequences of the fact that we use winner-take-all rather than proportional elections. Ironically, although our political system was founded without any consideration for political parties, it's set up in such a way that game theory drives everything towards a two-party system.
You don't even have to know the traits of the party; you can simply model them as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' and have most of the information you need.
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I see. Well things like Duverger's law illustrate how first past le post creates a climate in which two-party systems thrive, and I'm guessing game theory would describe the principle of it.
May read up on it and dominate the next tutorial. :P
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One concern that has arisen in recent years is the possibility that the traits of one US party are departing from the simple game theory model I mentioned above. The Republicans have swung further right than the Democrats have swung left - by, I believe, quite a significant margin.
This is remarkable because there are normally very few differences between the two political parties. They agree on 95% of issues (number pulled out of my ass), then select the remaining 5% and make a huge noise about them so that they can attract votes away from the other party. If one party has changed strategies to 'if the other party tries it, we oppose it', that may signal a shift in the game.
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I think you're probably about spot on with 95%. Over here it's 97% of legislation that goes through uncontested and only 3% that kick up a public stink.
But yes, I wasn't aware of that disparity in shifts toward their respective extremities, though I did have a brief discussion about that change in strategy the other day with regards to Obama. Has the Republican game-plan been successful in the run-up? I would've thought that that divergence would've cost them voters and picking up on whoever the Dems manage to alienate.
Sorry for my brevity here, I'm out of my depth when it comes to US politics - more keen on learning as much from here as I can, though.
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Obama's chances of reelection basically depend on how unemployment numbers look in the next few months. But the Republican strategy during his time in office has basically been to stonewall everything, and from a legislative rather than electoral perspective that's been pretty effective.
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The Republican party of the 1990s & early 00s had its fiscal conservationism strain effectively cut out. There was backlash over McCain's nomination and abject failure. The Ron Paul 2008 campaign started the idea of a Tea Party--throwing out components of big government. That idea & some groups were hijacked, which has led to a growing influx of libertarian Republicans. Many caucuses & state conventions have been hijacked by minority activists, become brush fires for the Romney campaign and RNC--rules about binding delegates be damned.
Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign. If he continues running simply as an anti-Obama, he'll pick up more steam than McCain but will be unable to convince the Republican base to turnout--especially now about the swathes of Ron Paul supporters contemplate staying home or voting 3rd party. But Gary Johnson is very right about the Libertarian party--though I disagree with his campaign. He focuses too much on drug legalization, which pins Libertarians as a bunch of potheads. That versus how Ron Paul framed the question: ending the War on Drugs means returning control over the drug problem to the 50 states to decide.
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Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign.
Nope, campaigns are mostly irrelevant. You can ignore them entirely and simply treat the two candidates as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' with no additional information, and safely predict the election based on just a few key objective variables. By Labor Day the election outcome will be more or less known. The importance of campaigns is mostly a media myth, though exactly why is still a matter of debate (some people think that campaigns are important but that they generally nullify each other).
This assumes both candidates don't do anything crazy like murder a baby or anything.
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whoops, uh, labor day, not memorial day
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Obama's reelection will depend far more on Romney's campaign than exact unemployment numbers. So far, Romney has finished the primaries with a largely content-free campaign.
Nope, campaigns are mostly irrelevant. You can ignore them entirely and simply treat the two candidates as 'incumbent' and 'challenger' with no additional information, and safely predict the election based on just a few key objective variables. By Labor Day the election outcome will be more or less known. The importance of campaigns is mostly a media myth, though exactly why is .
This assumes both candidates don't do anything crazy like murder a baby or anything.
Or heavily alienate their own party.
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Huh, I just read this description of a simple rule of thumb model that's worked for 15 of the past 16 presidential elections:
If national unemployment is NOT lower in June than it was in March, the incumbent will lose.
The exception was Eisenhower, who was reelected despite a .01% rise in second quarter unemployment.
I've never heard it boiled down to anything that simple; most fundamentals models try to predict exact vote share more than they look for simple 'winner/loser'. I'm a little suspicious of speaking this as gospel truth. But at the very least it's a good conversation starter whenever anyone starts playing horse race with political campaigns.
The common wisdom seems to be that 'the economy, incumbency, and big wars' are the only factors that actually explain elections. But the question remains why this is. Do campaigns matter, but cancel each other out? Does money win elections or is it just a correlate?
I don't think anybody has good answers to these questions yet.
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Hide your kids, hide your wife. I'm posting in this bread.
The common wisdom seems to be that 'the economy, incumbency, and big wars' are the only factors that actually explain elections. But the question remains why this is. Do campaigns matter, but cancel each other out? Does money win elections or is it just a correlate?
Sure they matter. Parties have to spend campaign donations to remain visible and attract donors. Use your noggin. Look at how campaign spending attracts more campaign donations and see why parties actually need to spend the money they receive rather than sit on it. Then consider why the Greens or Libertarians never get any media attention while the parties with big war chests do.
I don't think anybody has good answers to these questions yet.
I think I do. Pick me! Pick me!
Obama badly mistimed his stimulus and created fiscal drag during an election year. There's a 1-2% drag on GDP growth this year as the deficit spending is withdrawn. Had he just agreed with the Republicans to keep the budget balanced, unemployment would be higher in past years, but employment growth would be much higher this year.
Because he did something instead of nothing, Obama is likely lose. I think it's going to be close, but 1.7% GDP growth this quarter isn't a good sign.
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hi new user
good post
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Thank you.
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took the test, not posting results because they were incorrect. i'm quite certain i know my own political ideals better than an internet test. i withheld posting for a while because i was going to call out what i thought was a rather apparent liberal bias to the test, but refrained from doing so for fear of getting shouted down by everyone else on the forum but trashman. but having perused the thread, i see many others have drawn the same conclusion. this test was SORELY lacking a neutral response.
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Really? Here, I thought the test was american biased :P
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bam
(http://i46.tinypic.com/2qz49.png)
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I was only planning on taking the test to attempt to skew it to something like that, but I see my job's been done for me. :p
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took the test, not posting results because they were incorrect. i'm quite certain i know my own political ideals better than an internet test. i withheld posting for a while because i was going to call out what i thought was a rather apparent liberal bias to the test, but refrained from doing so for fear of getting shouted down by everyone else on the forum but trashman. but having perused the thread, i see many others have drawn the same conclusion. this test was SORELY lacking a neutral response.
Sounds like someone hasn't read the FAQ :P