A bit of both? The test does a wonderful job of giving us a broad idea of where we fit politically; I am certainly more Authoritarian/Right than is SentientMeat. Whether I am however many ‘points’ more is a matter for debate, but the general gist is correct.
And I tend to form strong opinions. I don’t generally ‘sorta’ agree or disagree; It’s in for a penny, in for a pound. (Until I change my opinion, which does happen.) That probably skews my results some.
Amusingly enough, I took the test again and paid more attention to the propositions.
Economic Left/Right: 9.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 8.56
Not as Authoritarian as Hitler. Hey, that’s something good, I suppose…
If I may ask, Brutus, how did you respond to propositions #4, #21 and #31? You did not join in those discussions, and I would genuinely like to hear how you would justify ticking Agree if you did so (and your score suggests that you might have).
Also, would you accept that you are a fascist (as defined in the dictionary) in that you advocate nationalistic, authoritarian right wing government? (I am not suggesting that you are literally a follower of Mussolini in the 1920’s.)
#4: Strongly Agree. But not in the ‘white/black/etc’ sense of ‘Race’. Mere skin color is of no consequence. I am going by:
A sort of amalgamation of nationality and culture. What actual color a person is doesn’t factor in to my answer.
#21: Strongly agree. There is enough doubt surrounding the whole matter of when life begins that I think we should err on the side of caution.
#31: Strongly agree. I was using a pretty extreme definition of ‘disabled’ when I was answering this, along with a effectively 100% chance that the child would also be disabled in the same extreme way.
I realize that if you lined up all of my answers, you would find apparent contradictions. (Such as between 21 and 31.) But then, I am supplying my own definitions (I am sure many people assume ‘skin color’ for #4) and my own ‘scenarios’ to apply these in.
No love for El Duce? Tsk tsk tsk. I would because of all of the connotations that ‘fascist’ invariably carries. Even though I ‘stongly disagree’ that “It’s a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product”, I don’t think the Evian-haters should be carted off to camps or anything. Shrug
That is why I said ‘fascist’ in the correct sense of the word, without the inaccurate connotations. I am a socialist in the correct sense of the word (just not a Marxist or a Stalinist). Are you not a fascist (just not a Nazi or a supremacist)?
You are being damnably reasonable. I will agree with that I believe a “nationalistic, authoritarian right wing government” is what would be best for America. To what degree ‘authoritarian’ and whatnot would be another matter. (Though I would argue that America of today is less authoritarian than it was through most of its history.)
Unfortunately, the dictionary definitions of ‘fascism’ that I see involve things like dictatorship (Which I don’t care for, just look at my username) and violent suppression of the opposition. (Which has a certain visceral appeal with the 9,543 ‘Bush sucks’ thread, but I don’t violent suppression of the opposition is generally a good idea.)
Tell you what: You give me the definition of ‘fascism’ that you want me to use, and I will give you a straight yes/no answer.
Heh heh, I have no interest in trying to foist upon you a descriptor you feel uncomfortable with, friend. Your continued input to the threads themselves is all I ask.
When I finally saw the graph I remembered having taken the test in the past. It’s always put me around (-5,-5), so it is, at least, precise. I’d agree it has me in the right quadrant, at least, but I don’t know if it should be (-3,-8) or (-7,-2). I know a couple of the questions would be answered differently depending on how I chose to read them… so I think that limits its accuracy. It would probably work better to ask a larger number of more straightforward questions that didn’t contain quite so much baggage.
(3.75,-338). SentientMeat - I know this thread is old, but I recently joined and am trying to take part in your Political Compass surveys. I think the PC test assessed me pretty well. I found some of the propositions troublesome in that they assume things to which I can’t agree, thereby forcing me to answer in ways which feel less than honest to me. An example that I don’t think has been cited yet:
I ticked “Disagree”. My problem with the proposition is that I don’t believe that fortunes are made by people who “simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society.” I know that this is arguable, but a reasonable economic argument can and has been made that pure financiers, who simply invest, make a valuable contribution to society. No need to debate that here. Believing as I believe makes the proposition a difficult one. If I thought that there were people like those stipulated in the proposition, I would agree. Since I disagree with the stipulation, I disagreed. If that part of the proposition were left off, I would strongly disagree. I should clarify that the part that I’m talking about leaving off would be “and contribute nothing to their society.”