Many political debates here have included references to The Political Compass, which uses a set of 61 questions to assess one’s political orientation in terms of economic left/right and social libertarianism/authoritarianism (rather like the “Libertarian diamond” popular in the US).
And so, every so often I will begin a thread in which the premise for debate is one of the 61 questions. I will give which answer I chose and provide my justification and reasoning. Others are, of course, invited to do the same including those who wish to “question the question”, as it were.
It would also be useful when posting in these threads to give your own “compass reading” in your first post, by convention giving the Economic value first. My own is
SentientMeat: Economic: -5.12, Social: -7.28, and so by the above convention my co-ordinates are (-5.12, -7.28). Please also indicate which option you ticked. I might suggest what I think is the “weighting” given to the various answers in terms of calculating the final orientation, but seeing for yourself what kind of answers are given by those with a certain score might be more useful than second-guessing the test’s scoring system.
Now, I appreciate that there is often dissent regarding whether the assessment the test provides is valid, notably by US conservative posters, either because it is “left-biased” (??) or because some propositions are clearly slanted, ambiguous or self-contradictory. The site itself provides answers to these and other Frequently Asked Questions, and there is also a separate thread: Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading? [size=2]Read these first and then, if you have an objection to the test in general, please post it there. If your objection is solely to the proposition in hand, post here. If your objection is to other propositions, please wait until I open a thread on them. (And for heaven’s sake, please don’t quote this entire Opening Post when replying like this sufferer of bandwidth diarrhea.)
The above will be pasted in every new thread in order to introduce it properly, and I’ll try to let each one exhaust itself of useful input before starting the next. Without wanting to “hog the idea”, I would be grateful if others could refrain from starting similar threads. Finally, I advise you to read the full proposition below, not just the thread title (which is necessarily abbreviated), and request that you debate my entire OP rather than simply respond, “IMHO”-like, to the proposition itself.
To date, the threads are:
Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading?
Political Compass #1: Globalisation, Humanity and OmniCorp.
#2: My country, right or wrong
#3: Pride in one’s country is foolish.
#4: Superior racial qualities.
#5: My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
#6: Justifying illegal military action.
#7: “Info-tainment” is a worrying trend.
#8: Class division vs. international division. (+ SentientMeat’s economic worldview)
#9: Inflation vs. unemployment.
#10: Corporate respect of the environment.
#11: From each according to his ability, to each according to need.
#12: Sad reflections in branded drinking water.
#13: Land should not be bought and sold.
#14: Many personal fortunes contribute nothing to society.
#15: Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade.
#16: Shareholder profit is a company’s only responsibility.
#17: The rich are too highly taxed.
#18: Better healthcare for those who can pay for it.
#19: Penalising businesses which mislead the public.
#20: The freer the market, the freer the people.
#21: Abortion should be illegal.
#22: All authority must be questioned.
#23: An eye for an eye.
#24: Taxpayers should not prop up theatres or museums.
#25: Schools shouldn’t make attendance compulsory.
#26: Different kinds of people should keep to their own.
#27: Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
#28: It’s natural for children to keep secrets.
#29: Marijuana should be legalised.
#30: School’s prime function is equipping kids to find jobs.
#31: Seriously disabled people should not reproduce.
#32: Learning discipline is the most important thing.
#33: ‘Savage peoples’ vs. ‘different culture’
#34: Society should not support those who refuse to work.
#35: Keep cheerfully busy when troubled.
#36: First generation immigrants can never be fully integrated.
#37: What’s good for corporations is always good for everyone.
#38: No broadcasting institution should receive public funding.
#39: Our civil rights are being excessively curbed re. terrorism.
#40: One party states avoid delays to progress.
#41: Only wrongdoers need worry about official surveillance.
#42: The death penalty should be an option for serious crimes.
#43: Society must have people above to be obeyed.
#44: Abstract art that doesn’t represent anything isn’t art at all.
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**Proposition #45: In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation.
SentientMeat** (-5.12, -7.28) ticks Disagree.
First of all, the most important aspect is prevention of future crimes. Criminal justice achieves this primarily by providing an important input into the human decision process: If this action then that consequence. (There is of course another if implied therein - “if I’m caught” - but that is a matter of policing rather than of criminal justice.) But criminal justice also achieves prevention by both physically removing convicts from society, and by attempting to change their operant conditioning such that they do not seek to commit crimes in the first place. And so, what can be said to be more important: punishment, or rehabilitation (which I define here as “metamorphosis into one who will never commit another felony”)?
Let us first take it to extremes. What if none were punished but all were rehabilitated? This would appear to be an inadequate deterrent, even if nobody committed a second crime (everyone would just make their first pay off big time!). And what if all were punished but nobody was rehabilitated? Clearly, many crimes which might not have occurred would then be committed by those readmitted to society after their solely punitive incarceration.
I struggle to position myself on this particular see-saw, since both punishment and rehabilitation seem to be important mechanisms for preventing future crimes. Added to this is the complication that punishment can itself be rehabilitative to some extent (although one who broke the law in the first place must surely have been vaguely aware of the undesirability of the consequences - I’m don’t really think that the criminal justice system has the effect on many people of “scaring them straight”.) Thus, I genuinely could not say that punishment was more important.
I suspect that what this proposition is trying to get at is that if (somehow) rehabilitation “works” on a convict such that they do not reoffend, but are released early or given some other leniency, that they have “played the system” and been “let off” - that vengeance has not been assuaged. As I have said in other threads, I do not consider revenge to be an appropriate motivation for the actions of a civilised state government. Punishment so that justice is seen to be done, to deter and condition, is perfectly reasonable. Punishment for the sake of it is merely an outlet for the sadistic, animal urge to dominate another.
This is a proposition which, answered honestly, has me ticking Disagree only marginally. However, given the mindset I personally project onto to those who would tick Strongly Agree, I have no objection to placing myself on the other end of the see-saw. Perhaps I am mischaracterising that mindset as being fixated on vengeance - we shall see.