World's Shortest Political Quiz - (10 Y/N Qs)

[Cyberguy34000]

The World's Shortest Political Quiz

Thought this was pretty spiffy. What did you end up with?

[Billfred]

Libertarian, with a significant shift to the left side of that area on the graph. (90% and 60% on personal and economic, respectively.)

[thegathering]

Conservative. on the 80% mark on the right side of the map.

[Cuog]

Liberatarian, not too much of a surprise

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 80%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%.

[Pat Fairbank]

I came out a Centrist.

[viking1902]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I came out a Centrist.

As did I, with a little lean toward the liberal side.

[Tristan Lall]

Come on, guys. This quiz is deliberately constructed as a promotional tool for the libertarians that operate that site.

All the questions are phrased in the form of libertarian policy statements; what matters is not so much that you provided an answer, but that you were exposed to the question (which states one of their beliefs). The whole point is to get you to identify with the libertarian viewpoint. That's a good thing, in that it diminishes the relevance of the standard right-left model. But remember that it's a political advertisement, and the results should be evaluated in that light.

Also, the questions are laughably simplistic. "There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults", for example. On the surface, it's an easy enough question for a lot of people—that sort of thing is no business of the state. But look a little deeper, and you realize "no laws" means, for example, no laws restricting sex between consenting adults in public places (apologies for the prurient imagery). In fact, the phrasing of those questions in such absolute terms appeals to quick, thoughtless respondents, rather than those who realize that there exist all sorts of special cases where a libertarian philosophy isn't necessarily practical. (There's my bias talking. But I trust that I'm still getting the point across.) Furthermore, referring to it as a quiz implies that there are objectively right and wrong answers—if only it were so easy.

And the scoring? Well of course it's biased. For example, it describes "statists" (nobody self-identifies as a statist) as the arch-enemies of libertarians, claiming that they "want government to have a great deal of power over the economy and individual behavior. They frequently doubt whether economic liberty and individual freedom are practical options in today's world. Statists tend to distrust the free market, support high taxes and centralized planning of the economy, oppose diverse lifestyles, and question the importance of civil liberties." That's just the inverse of the Libertarian party's current platform. But because the questions are so absolute, the honest answer (from a position of "some regulation") drops you into that category. It's a deliberate conflation of "some laws" with "too many laws", and "some government" with "big, wasteful government".

But that's why it's a short poll, and not part of the census. Bias is everywhere. Never forget to watch for it.

[Billfred]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Tristan Lall again.

Dang, never even caught my eye. Well-played, I have to say.

[Mike]

I agree with Tristan... but for the novelty of it

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 100%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%.

[Cyberguy34000]

If this quiz is delibrately biased than why do so many people not score libertarian?

True, it was created by libertarians, but it is in their best intrest to keep it accurate, otherwise people wouldn't spread it. And this is one of their main tools for finiding people with similar views as the traditional left/right model kind of leaves them out. They really don't want a bunch of liberals or republicans thinking they are libertarians and vica-versa.

Read the FAQ

Tristin Lal: This isn't a tool to get people to "identify with" libertarians, this is a tool to make people aware of libertarians. You can disagree with them completely, what they want is for people to at least be aware of what they stand for.

There is a very good reason why, in addition to the Y/N, there is a "maybe" answer. If you have doubts of any kind of a statement, not an outright dismissal, but doubts, you supposed to answer "maybe". You are not required to have an absolute opinion on anything. If you don't have very strong opions of beliefs about anything, answering maybe on every question, it should accurately place you in the dead center as a Centrist.

And as far as bias goes, yeah there is some subtle bias, but only in the view of "who is best", but not in "what your political philosophy is like", the quiz itself is pretty accurate. Though they do make it seem like "you are only 50% on the road to self-enlightenment on the all-knowing plane of Libertarianism", which isn't very nice.

As far as practicality is concerned, well... If you take any of the extreme of extremes, whether it be conservative, liberal, libertarin, or statist, you end up with crazy stuff that really isn't practical. Charicterizing any political philosophy by it's most extreme and pure form is useful for discussion, but very unfair to use as a reason for dismissal ('these views are too extreme to be practical').

Personally, I don't think that libertarians will ever come to any major of seat of power, simply because their ideas are so radical, and they will royaly tick off those people that don't share those ideas.



I love to argue politics.

[prettycolors91]

I got Centrist...which sounds about right.

Most political things like this will be biased, no matter what. Because humans cannot truly be non-opinionated third parties. Unfortuntetly, us humans seem to have an opinion about everything, and it comes out in what we say and do, so I don't think you can really find one of these things that is truly unbiased.