Monday, September 1, 2008

Political Philosophy :o)

My thanks to Dirk of First Amendment -Not Politically Correct regarding his most recent political education entry.  From his site, I clicked through to the following site "OnTheIssues" to take a policy quiz to see what my stance is.  Since I do consider myself fiscally conservative and socially moderate, my final results are accurately reflected below.  Take the quiz yourself and let me know where you stand, If You Dare :o)

Below is a way of thinking about your political philosophy by dividing your PoliticsMatch answers into "personal" and "economic" questions.  It is only a theory - please take it with a grain of salt!

Personal Questions:  Liberals and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while conservatives and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictions answers.

Economic Questions:  Conservatives and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while liberals and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictions answers.
 

Your Score

You scored the following on the PoliticsMatch questions:
 

Personal Score 40%
Economic Score 58%
 

Where You Fit In

Where your Personal score meets your Economic score on the grid below is your political philosophy.  Based on the above score, you are a Moderate Conservative .

Political Map  

Personal Score

This measures how much you believe government should intervene in people's personal lives. Personal issues include health, love, recreation, prayer and other activities that are not measured in dollars.

  • A high score (above 60%) means you believe in tolerance for different people and lifestyles.
  • A low score (below 40%) means you believe that your standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government. 

Economic Score

This measures how much you believe government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes. 

  • A high score (above 60%) means you believe in personal responsibility for your financial matters, and that free-market competition is better for people than central planning by the government. 
  • A low score (below 40%) means you believe that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. You believe that government's purpose is to decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be spent on each program.
Examples

The chart below indicates how four "hard-core" political philosophers would answer the questions. From this example, you can see how you fit in with each philosophy.  Your answers are on the left.

  • A "hard-core liberal" would answer personal questions to minimize government involvement, but would answer economic questions to include government intervention.
  • A "hard-core libertarian" would answer both personal and economic questions to minimize government involvement.
  • A "hard-core conservative" would answer personal questions to include government intervention, but would answer economic questions to minimize government involvement.
  • A "hard-core populist" would answer both personal and economic questions with proposals that include government intervention.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a Centrist: smack dab in the middle! Just a little to the left of you, which we already knew. Interesting, and I'd say it's accurate and reflects each of our philosophies quite well.

Beth

Anonymous said...

I am a Libertarian who believes BIG in economic independence. I've voted most often Republican(err, Libs don't win), go figure. ~Mary

Anonymous said...

I found the policy quiz quite intriguing. I love quizzes. I scored as a hard-core liberal. I never do anything halfway!
 
Personal Score  98%  
Economic Score  22%  

--Sheria