(2007 text) There are a number of online websites that allow one to assess one's position by answering a long list of questions. I completed one of these back in 2003, with the following result-
Another assessment site in October of 2005 showed me to be leaning ever so slightly libertarian -
The most recent one was last December, and I was squarely in the center -
So, that's "where I'm coming from." Not unbiased, certainly, but probably as much "in the center" as any person you're likely to meet. If you want to find out how you stand, try the quiz at this link... http://www.politicalcompass.org or at this one - http://www.okcupid.com/politics. It might be an interesting experience.
Update January 2009: I'm amused to note that I was such a "newbie" then that I didn't even post the links in clickable form. I'll correct that now. Here's the one for Political Compass, and here's the OKCupid one.
I'm posting this update today because the Weblog Awards are sending a flurry of new traffic here this week. There seem to be a couple hundred extra visitors per day, most of them wondering what this blog is about, and as a corollary, what this blogger is about. The charts above pretty well define me as a centrist on the political spectrum; I tend to have equal contempt for polticians of both major parties. Now that you know where I stand, I challenge you to go to the links and chart out your own political biases.
Update February 2018: I decided to take the test again, and found my position on the chart has changed slightly but not fundamentally:
I don't know whether I have changed, or whether the test standard reference points have changed (the questions are the same as in 2003), or in fact whether the repositioning of my dot is statistically significant.
Political Compass now offers a cartoon-amended chart to show where various well-known persons would be (approximately) situated on the chart:
I'm pleased to see that I'm seated right next to Bernie Sanders.
You can take the test here.
Always an interesting topic. The quiz put me right about where I would have put myself, but I vastly disagree with their take on the 2016 election.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting where they put H. Clinton.
ReplyDeleteI found myself in Chomsky territory - surprised me just a bit
ReplyDeleteThere is an old Dilbert about the Myers-Briggs kind of four-way classifiers. Dogbert is presenting a chart whose axes are labelled "SMART/STUPID" and "CUTE/UGLY". He is telling the audience, "You'll notice that most of you fall into this quadrant right...down...here."
ReplyDeleteThe axes on this grid are obviously undefined and undefinable in any rigorous manner.
That said, I am sorry to see you so close to the center, always the loneliest place in politics, more isolated and uninhabited than Antarctica, and I hope you eventually find a community that you can feel like you belong to.
i took the test yesterday but couldn't be bothered to read the directions to make myself a certificate, but i find myself slightly to the left and lightly more libertarian than you.
ReplyDeleteand the last time i found myself next to bernie sanders was at the movie theater.
Me too.
DeleteI took the test the other day and I'm right about where you are--but of course there's so much biased language in the questions that it's hard to accept the quadrant categories. If they'd simply asked me, I'd have said I'm a yellow-dog Democrat.
ReplyDeleteI am to the left of you, but the surprise for me was that I was also quite a bit Libertarian.
ReplyDeleteNot as deeply Libertarian and not as far Left, but a surprise, nonetheless, as I consider myself more of a Jeffersonian.
DeleteI find it interesting where Donald and Hillary are in the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteI think of myself as a bit of an Authoritarian.
ReplyDeleteI guess the best authority is my own.
Although I am not surprised I shared a square with Bernie Sanders.
I'll just leave this here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.baen.com/chapters/Axes.htm
doc
Very cool
DeleteThose tests are so american centric that any french righ winger as me finds himself at the extreme left of american values, so funny, and tells a lot :)
ReplyDelete