On The Political Spectrum

[Nephele]

From where I am, "eye for an eye" implies damage and punishement are identical. Then, capital punishment would be the retribution for killing. Am I wrong?

 

Not if you're comfortable with your government having the power of life and death over you. Frankly, I'm not comfortable with that at all, especially since our government makes mistakes (and sometimes those mistakes are deliberate).

 

-- Nephele

Don't get my wrong, Lady N; I'm not defending the Lex Talionis or capital punishment, even less its implementation by anyone, but just trying to explain what I think that specific question on the political compass' quiz means and what it is intended to measure.

 

I understand that. But what I'm saying is that the "eye for an eye" proposition on the quiz really is not clear at all as to whether it's a gauge of where one stands on the issue of capital punishment (this is a political quiz, after all, and "eye for an eye" is the phrase most often used in justifying capital punishment), or whether it's simply to determine whether one believes in personally giving back as good as one gets.

 

The FAQ describes the proposition this way:

 

The orginal intention of "An eye for an eye" was that the punishment should not exceed the crime

That's right, although it's commonly used to argue for the punishment being as severe as the crime. In any case, it means treating offenders as they have treated their victims; no more harshly, in the case of the original stricture, and just as harshly in the retributive sense. Either way, the proposition remains unambiguous in its call for punishment that approximates the crime.

 

Regardless of whether you answered "agree" or "disagree" to the "an eye for an eye" proposition, this doesn't address an individual's concern regarding whether our government should have the power to deal out fatal retribution.

 

The proposition may be "unambiguous in its call for punishment that approximates the crime" (as the author claims), but when it comes to addressing the issue of life-and-death power over us being placed in the hands of our government (i.e. capital punishment), the proposition in the quiz is vague, or metaphorical, or silly, or whatever you wish to call it.

 

-- Nephele

[M. Porcius Cato]

The mere fact that you consider the phrase "predator multinationals" biased or not is an actual measure of your political attitudes.

 

I'd agree if the question were, "Do you agree with the phrase 'predatory multinationals'?" But the phrase appears in a context which doesn't require the pejorative. Analogously, it would be like a question, "Do you support the Zionist crusaders in their war on the oppressed Palestinians?" That's a leading question, and those questions have no place in a proper poll.

 

Also, I seriously doubt that most respondents would take the item on "eye for an eye" to be a literal endorsement of the primitive Lex Talionis.

Edited June 23, 2008 by M. Porcius Cato

[Northern Neil]

Hmm... I am a 'libertarian Lefty' according to this.

[Ursus]

Well, regardless of the deficiencies of the test, I think it accurately pegs me.

 

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printableg...8&soc=-1.03

 

Within the American context, I see a limited government in all spheres as doing the least amount of damage, as I care nothing for the cultural militants on either the right and the left. But, and I hope I don't offend anyone, neither do I embrace Rand's dry, didactic and militantly atheistic philosophy.

[M. Porcius Cato]

What would be an example of a non-didactic philosophy? All philosophy attempts to inform and to persuade. Maybe you're just against philosophy per se.

[Faustus]

Within the American context, I see a limited government in all spheres as doing the least amount of damage, as I care nothing for the cultural militants on either the right and the left.

On the short test, take the first two questions on either side.

Personal:

Edited June 23, 2008 by Faustus

[ASCLEPIADES]

Personally, I agree with Ayn Rand: "... The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe..."

I know I should have asked Mrs. Rand, but that phrase just doesn't make any sense.

 

Maybe you need to read The Fountainhead.

 

-- Nephele

Maybe. But as The Fountainhead is a fiction work, I really doubt there would be the anthropological evidence that might have supported her extraordinary assertion on the savage's existence as public (?).

Is anyone aware of her rationale for this specific phrase?

[Faustus]

Maybe. But as The Fountainhead is a fiction work, I really doubt there would be the anthropological evidence that might have supported her extraordinary assertion on the savage's existence as public (?).

Is anyone aware of her rationale for this specific phrase?

Salve A.

 

To me, simply put this means: Their (the public viewed as savages) opinions are (not always but) first of all shaped by the broader public's "perceptions" of issues and their own "tribe's" approval of their opinions felt as peer pressure. On that basis, consider the applicability of the two foregoing TESTS in the US or outside the US.

 

Faustus

[Nephele]

Personally, I agree with Ayn Rand: "... The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe..."

I know I should have asked Mrs. Rand, but that phrase just doesn't make any sense.

 

Maybe you need to read The Fountainhead.

 

-- Nephele

Maybe. But as The Fountainhead is a fiction work, I really doubt there would be the anthropological evidence that might have supported her extraordinary assertion on the savage's existence as public (?).

Is anyone aware of her rationale for this specific phrase?

 

The quote comes from Ayn Rand's character, the architect and protagonist of The Fountainhead, Howard Roark. Roark is the quintessential individualist. He speaks these words in his defense during the courtroom scene in the novel, when he is on trial for having dynamited a building that he designed, but which had been subverted by "second-handers".

 

It's a long speech, that Roark gives. It's a speech about individualism, the virtues of selfishness and reason, the nature of achievement, and the folly of collectivism. Here is an excerpt which contains the quote (at the end):

 

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons -- a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man -- the function of his reasoning mind.

 

"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act -- the process of reason -- must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred...

 

"Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways -- by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

 

"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.

 

"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

 

"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

 

"The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism...

 

"The 'common good' of a collective -- a race, a class, a state -- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad...

 

"The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is -- Hands off!

 

"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

 

"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

 

-- Nephele

[Kosmo]

My results

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printableg...88&soc=0.56

place me close to Zapatero

[ASCLEPIADES]

"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

-- Nephele

 

Now I get it; gratiam habeo, Lady N.

[TaylorS]

The Political Spectrum: Take The Test: Libertarian / Statist - (Left/Centrist/Right)

Just 10 questions: <Click Here>

(To plot your score; you may need to print-out.)

 

Liberal, no surprise there, though I'm more of a pro-Labor populist then the stereotype of the social-issue-obsessed form of liberal.

 

Economic: 10

Social: 70

 

 

Oh, and I remember hearing that this "Nolan Test" has a pro-Right-Libertarian bias...

[TaylorS]

Here, I think this quiz is a bit more comprehensive.

 

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

 

Your political compass

 

Economic Left/Right: -7.00

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.82

 

Right next to Nelson Mandela.

[TaylorS]

Here is a very in-depth quiz.

 

LINK

 

Overall, the PoliticsForum quiz considers you a socially-orientated, materialist, small-government, internationalist, non-absolutist, controlled-market kind of person.

 

These characteristics would put you in the overall category of socialist.

 

---

 

You scored 69 out of 100 on a scale of Individual vs Social. This means that politically you are more likely to value the need for group actions and group benefit over individual enterprise and benefit.

 

You scored 73 out of 100 on a scale of Theist vs Materialist. This means that politically you are more likely to believe that religion and spirituality are superstitions that should not inform political debate.

 

You scored 67 out of 100 on a scale of Big Government vs Small Government. This means that politically you are more likely to believe that government should keep out of legislating social policies, leaving such decisions to individuals.

 

You scored 80 out of 100 on a scale of Nationalist vs Internationalist. This means that politically you are more likely to favour international bodies over national ones.

 

You scored 45 out of 100 on a scale of Protectionist vs Free Trader. This means that politically you are neither more nor less likely to favour free trade over protectionist policies.

 

You scored 61 out of 100 on a scale of Absolutist vs Non Absolutist. This means that politically you are less likely to believe that there is an absolute truth that may guide your ideological beliefs.

 

You scored 22 out of 100 on a scale of Controlled Market vs Liberal Market. This means that politically you are more likely to believe that there is need for government regulation of industry.

 

You scored 54 out of 100 on a scale of Marxist vs Non-Marxist. This means that politically you are neither more nor less likely to follow the philosophies of Marx.

[Chris08]

conservative i scored 40 on personal and 90 on econimical