I'm the one named "You", by the way. So, according to the American online political questionnaire I completed I'm to the right of all the main US presidential candidates apart from Ron Paul on economic issues, and less socially authoritarian than all of them, apart, again, from Ron Paul.
Here's the chart showing where the UK's political parties stood attitudinally at the time of the 2010 general election:
But what's this? I'm only slightly to the right of the Tories economically and noticeably less authoritarian than them. So how come their current economic and social policies strike me as drippingly wet and left-wing?
Oh, I see! Look at where the Liberal Democrats are on the chart - and that's exactly where our so-called "Coalition" government is right now. An indication - at the very least - that David Cameron might as well have handed total control of government policy to Clegg, Cable and Huhne et al and simply ordered Tory MPs to turn up and vote for whatever deranged left-wing nonsense the Lib-Dems happened to come up with in between court appearances and TV dance contests and sorting out their boyfriends' rent and so forth...
Oh, hang on a second. I get it. That's exactly what Cameron must have done!
Thanks, Dave. Nice one.
If you want to take the Political Compass test, you can find it here. I have no idea if it has any validity whatsoever, but it's fun to do, and the results certainly gave me pause for thought.
I did the quiz and amazingly I came out in the green box. And I thought I was giving some pretty conservative views, e.g. against abortion, etc. Maybe it was being against the death penalty and believing the state has no right to interfere with what goes on inside the bedroom that pushed me over to the left.
ReplyDeleteHope you're still going to talk to me, Scott!
Anyway, I'm in good company. Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama are both near my position!
Commie!
ReplyDeleteIf I refused to speak to people with beliefs more liberal than my own, I'd be an extremely lonely man, and I would have lasted for two decades at the BBC! The only left-wingers I find it difficult to get on with are the ones who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is inherently evil. Americans are the worst for this - I remember an American liberal friend of mine once telling me straight-faced that, if I were an American espousing the same views, he would refuse to ever talk to me again!
Glad you're still talking to me, Scott! Lol
ReplyDeleteGandhi's near me too. Must say I'm pleased to have honed in on the Dalai Lama. Obviously, it's my Buddhist background. According to this quiz, I'd guess that most Buddhists would end up in that green box!
But I don't think you can take these kind of quizzes too seriously. For example, with the abortion thing, the left is usually associated with pro-choice and the right with pro-life. But any seriously religious person whether on the left or right politically has little choice to be anything but pro-life. It's not a right-left issue.