Your real political identity

[flaja]

We are all familiar with the various political ideology placement tests that are available on the internet. I have yet to find one that is totally accurate for me- likely because the test designers do not adequately understand the various available political ideologies or the tests are too vague to take into consideration a person’s motive for answering a certain way. For example most public schools where I live are mediocre to bad and supporting school vouchers is taken as a conservative position, but I do not support vouchers because private schools are not regulated where I live and so they are usually not as good as public schools are. Vouchers where I live are useless so I don’t support them even though I am a conservative. But this does not mean that I believe public schools are doing even an adequate job, let alone a good one.

I have been wondering if a person’s political ideology has any affect on his opinions and beliefs regarding non-political issues. For example, do conservatives prefer one color while liberals prefer another? Do liberals like one type of music while conservatives like another?

But in order to devise a test that will use non-political issues to determine someone’s political ideology, I must have a test based on political issues so I can calibrate the non-political test. If most people who are conservative according to the political test answer non-political questions the same way, then there must be something about ideology that transcends politics. I have devised a set of baseline questions that will measure political ideology with political issues. I would appreciate getting everybody’s input.

1. What is your view of property?
A. All property should be privately owned so that the greatest economic good can be derived from it in the shortest amount of time possible without restraint.
B. All property should be publicly owned in that it should be used in the best interest of society as a whole so that no member of society benefits more from it than any other member of society does.
C. All property should be publicly owned so it can be used to insure that the basic needs of every member of society are provided for.
D. Ownership of property should be divided more or less equally between the private sector and the public sector so what needs to be exploited can be exploited and what needs to be preserved can be preserved.
E. Most property should be privately owned so the members of society have a vested interest in maintaining society for the sake of preserving their property for their own benefit and the benefit of their posterity.

2. What obligation do individuals have to society?
A. The individual has no obligation to society, i.e., society does not exist since no individual has a right to expect others to provide for him.
B. The individual has total obligation to society, i.e., individuals should not exist since all individuals are socially and economically equal.
C. Individuals are as responsible for taking care of each other as they are for taking care of themselves and this responsibility must be imposed by law when it is not accepted voluntarily.
D. Individuals have a moral obligation to take care of the less fortunate members of society and this obligation should be enforced by law when necessary.
E. Individuals have a moral obligation to provide the less fortunate members of society with whatever assistance they are capable of without imposing a burden on society themselves, but an individual’s obligation to take care of society should be minimal when the obligation is imposed by law so that individuals will not become dependent on the constant aid of others.

3. What obligation does society have to the individual?
A. Society has no obligation to the individual since society does not exist.
B. Society has an obligation to insure that inequality does not exist between individuals so that individualism does not exist.
C. Individuals have a right to rely on society for their basic sustenance.
D. Individuals have a right to rely on the resources of society when they cannot provide for themselves.
E. Society has a moral obligation to care for individuals that cannot care for themselves but society has no moral and should have no legal obligation to provide charity for individuals that willfully become burdens on society due to laziness, criminal activity, addiction etcetera.

4. When it comes to material gain
A. Each individual should be allowed to maximize his personal material gain without any interference from others as long as the individual respects the right of others to act in the same manner.
B. Material gain for the individual should not be allowed since the struggle for individual material gain leads to inequality within society.
C. Society, through governmental mechanism, should regulate material gain to insure equality between individuals as far as their basic economic needs are concerned.
D. Society, through governmental mechanisms, should heavily regulate material gain on the part of the individual so that the personal gain of one individual cannot deplete resources needed to provide another individual with basic sustenance.
E. Individuals should be free to maximize their individual gain according to free market forces to the extent that government regulation must insure that individuals do not engage in unfair, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest behavior.

5. In your view traditional social institutions and forces such as heterosexual marriage, monogamy, family and religion-
A. Have absolutely no importance and they must not exist because they serve to restrict the personal freedom of the individual by imposing societal norms on him.
B. Have absolutely no importance and must not exist because they allow the rich and powerful to oppress the poor and weak.
C. Have only the importance that individuals choose to give them and should not have any government or societal sanction.
D. Are important to society but government sanction should not be given to one form over another for the sake of insuring equality within society.
E. Have paramount importance for the preservation of society and the forms that history has proven to be the most effective for this purpose should be given government sanction and protection.

6. In your view economic markets-
A. Should not have any regulation apart from the natural laws of supply and demand.
B. Have no need of regulation because the market is simply the equitable exchange of goods and services so that everyone gets what they need and contributes what they can.
C. Should be placed under the regulation of government managers who will determine the type and quantity of goods and services that will be produced and consumed so that everyone’s basic needs are met.
D. Should be regulated by the government to the extent necessary to insure the economic equality between individuals.
D. Should be regulated by the government to the extent necessary to promote economic equality between individuals.
E. Should be regulated by the government only to the extent necessary to prevent monopolies, fraud and other dishonest trade practices while protecting consumers from the effects of asymmetric information.

7. In you view-
A. Human beings will fairly complete with each other to maximize their individual self-interests in that the possibility of economic retaliation or civil lawsuits will insure each individual’s honesty.
B. Human beings will freely cooperate with each other in order to maximize their collective self-interests.
C. Government regulation is necessary to insure that society maintains equality between individual human beings by cooperating with each other in the manner necessary to maintain an equitable society.
D. Government should do whatever is necessary to insulate individual human beings from the factors of life so that no individual has to face life at a disadvantage.
E. Humans, when left to their own devices are self-centered, self-serving, greedy beings and thus must be restrained by societal forces (government, religion, social mores etcetera) so their individual actions cannot harms others or otherwise disrupt society.

8. A nation state-
A. Merely exists as a means of justifying the existence of government.
B. Exists to create tension and conflict among the world’s peoples so that the powers that be in each nation can have an excuse for seizing the resources of other nations in the name of patriotism.
C. Is a by-product of history in that nation states serve to preserve the identity of people that share a common language, culture and heritage by fostering conflict between different nation states.
D. Preserves people who share a common racial, ethnic or historical identity, but in order to carryout this function nation states must be in conflict with each other so nation states should not have the freedom to act on their own volition so that international conflict can be reduced.
E. Has paramount importance as a unifying and assimilating mechanism for people who share or choose to share a common language, culture and heritage which are not necessarily dependent on biological factors such as race or ethnicity, and in order to maintain these functions a nation state must maintain its sovereignty and its freedom of action and must not be constrained by other nation states or international entities.

9. Government-
A. Exists merely as a source of oppression to restrain people’s liberty to conduct their lives as they see fit in order to maintain their own self-interests.
B. Is unnecessary and serves only to empower people and institutions that wish to profit by oppressing others for the sake of personal gain.
C. Must have supreme power in order marshal society’s resources so they can be used to insure equality between society’s members.
D. Serves as the mechanism for regulating society’s resources so that they can be used to promote equality between society’s members.
E. Is necessary for the preservation of a stable, functioning and self-perpetuating society in that it is an unbiased referee for settling societal disputes while it maintains public order and performs whatever other tasks that must be done when the private sector either cannot or will not perform them.

10. Force (physical, economic, emotional etcetera):
A. Can always be used by individuals to preserve, protect and defend human life and property against aggression of any kind.
B. Should never be necessary in an ideal setting, but when necessary it should always be applied by society, not individuals.
C. Should be applied by the state whenever necessary to maintain an equitable and just society, but should never be used by individuals either against other individuals or to disrupt the operation of the state.
D. May be used by individuals to achieve justice whenever society fails to provide them with justice, but it should not be used otherwise by individuals and it should be used only sparingly by society lest its application lead to injustice.
E. Is always legitimate when used by society (or individuals when society cannot take action in a timely manner) to preserve, protect and defend human life and property from criminal aggression, but under no circumstances should force be used to disrupt the operation of a legitimate government that can be altered by the normal course of constitutional means.


Add up the total number of answers you have for each letter A-E. Divide each sum by 10 and then multiply by 100 to obtain your ideological quotient for each ideology A-E. A score of (X/10)(100) = your ideological quotient for the ideology represented by X, i.e., what percent of the ideology represented by X you are.

[joel]

We are all familiar with the various political ideology placement tests that are available on the internet. I have yet to find one that is totally accurate for me- likely because the test designers do not adequately understand the various available political ideologies or the tests are too vague to take into consideration a person’s motive for answering a certain way.

Definitely.


Below, I respond to your quiz questions, not to argue the issues, but to perhaps help you improve it, and to offer my position.



1. What is your view of property?
A. All property should be privately owned so that the greatest economic good can be derived from it in the shortest amount of time possible without restraint.
I would go with A, except I would strike, "in the shortest amount of time possible without restraint." That would occur only in the case where everyone's time preference were infinite, which does not happen. I think this final clause makes A into a straw-man. I have never heard anyone express A as you wrote it.



2. What obligation do individuals have to society?
A combination of A and E. Individuals have a moral obligation, but not a legal one. Society exists, but all rights are individual rights.



3. What obligation does society have to the individual?
A. Society has no obligation to the individual since society does not exist.
A, but society does exist, but society is not a conscious entity such that it can be legally held to an obligation.



4. When it comes to material gain
A. Each individual should be allowed to maximize his personal material gain without any interference from others as long as the individual respects the right of others to act in the same manner.

E. Individuals should be free to maximize their individual gain according to free market forces to the extent that government regulation must insure that individuals do not engage in unfair, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest behavior.

A and E are pretty much the same thing. (Perhaps depending on the exact meaning of "unfair". At one extreme, any wealth inequality at all could be thought to be unfair.)



5. In your view traditional social institutions and forces such as heterosexual marriage, monogamy, family and religion-
C. Have only the importance that individuals choose to give them and should not have any government or societal sanction.
I'd go with C, but strike "Have only the importance that individuals choose to give them". Also strike "or societal".



6. In your view economic markets-
A. Should not have any regulation apart from the natural laws of supply and demand.
As long as things like violence, theft, and fraud are strictly prohibited. I could almost go with E, but "monopoly" is too ambiguous of a word. Anything is a monopoly if the market is defined narrowly enough, and nothing is a monopoly if the market is defined broadly enough.



7. In you view-
A. Human beings will fairly complete with each other to maximize their individual self-interests in that the possibility of economic retaliation or civil lawsuits will insure each individual’s honesty.
B. Human beings will freely cooperate with each other in order to maximize their collective self-interests.
E. Humans, when left to their own devices are self-centered, self-serving, greedy beings and thus must be restrained by societal forces (government, religion, social mores etcetera) so their individual actions cannot harms others or otherwise disrupt society.
I pretty much agree with all three of these.



8. A nation state-
None of the above. My answer would be "is established for common defense." But should not seek conflict.



9. Government-
A. Exists merely as a source of oppression to restrain people’s liberty to conduct their lives as they see fit in order to maintain their own self-interests.
E. Is necessary for the preservation of a stable, functioning and self-perpetuating society in that it is an unbiased referee for settling societal disputes while it maintains public order and performs whatever other tasks that must be done when the private sector either cannot or will not perform them.
E, except I would change "in that it is" to "insofar as it is", and strike "and performs whatever other tasks..." to the end. Also perhaps noting that most of modern government unfortunately does fall in the category of A, and some in B.



10. Force (physical, economic, emotional etcetera):
A. Can always be used by individuals to preserve, protect and defend human life and property against aggression of any kind.
B. Should never be necessary in an ideal setting, but when necessary it should always be applied by society, not individuals.
D. May be used by individuals to achieve justice whenever society fails to provide them with justice, but it should not be used otherwise by individuals and it should be used only sparingly by society lest its application lead to injustice.
E. Is always legitimate when used by society (or individuals when society cannot take action in a timely manner) to preserve, protect and defend human life and property from criminal aggression, but under no circumstances should force be used to disrupt the operation of a legitimate government that can be altered by the normal course of constitutional means.
I agree with parts of all of these.

[THIEF]

1. What is your view of property?
A. All property should be privately owned so that the greatest economic good can be derived from it in the shortest amount of time possible without restraint.
B. All property should be publicly owned in that it should be used in the best interest of society as a whole so that no member of society benefits more from it than any other member of society does.
C. All property should be publicly owned so it can be used to insure that the basic needs of every member of society are provided for.
D. Ownership of property should be divided more or less equally between the private sector and the public sector so what needs to be exploited can be exploited and what needs to be preserved can be preserved.
E. Most property should be privately owned so the members of society have a vested interest in maintaining society for the sake of preserving their property for their own benefit and the benefit of their posterity.
E. D's philosophy didn't sound too bad, but I had to disagree with the part where the division would be more or less equal. A just goes too far in taking the government out.


2. What obligation do individuals have to society?
A. The individual has no obligation to society, i.e., society does not exist since no individual has a right to expect others to provide for him.
B. The individual has total obligation to society, i.e., individuals should not exist since all individuals are socially and economically equal.
C. Individuals are as responsible for taking care of each other as they are for taking care of themselves and this responsibility must be imposed by law when it is not accepted voluntarily.
D. Individuals have a moral obligation to take care of the less fortunate members of society and this obligation should be enforced by law when necessary.
E. Individuals have a moral obligation to provide the less fortunate members of society with whatever assistance they are capable of without imposing a burden on society themselves, but an individual’s obligation to take care of society should be minimal when the obligation is imposed by law so that individuals will not become dependent on the constant aid of others.
E. Again, D sounds appealing but puts too much in the government's hands and A goes further than I would.


3. What obligation does society have to the individual?
A. Society has no obligation to the individual since society does not exist.
B. Society has an obligation to insure that inequality does not exist between individuals so that individualism does not exist.
C. Individuals have a right to rely on society for their basic sustenance.
D. Individuals have a right to rely on the resources of society when they cannot provide for themselves.
E. Society has a moral obligation to care for individuals that cannot care for themselves but society has no moral and should have no legal obligation to provide charity for individuals that willfully become burdens on society due to laziness, criminal activity, addiction etcetera.
E. D is so similar to E that it becomes redundant.


4. When it comes to material gain
A. Each individual should be allowed to maximize his personal material gain without any interference from others as long as the individual respects the right of others to act in the same manner.
B. Material gain for the individual should not be allowed since the struggle for individual material gain leads to inequality within society.
C. Society, through governmental mechanism, should regulate material gain to insure equality between individuals as far as their basic economic needs are concerned.
D. Society, through governmental mechanisms, should heavily regulate material gain on the part of the individual so that the personal gain of one individual cannot deplete resources needed to provide another individual with basic sustenance.
E. Individuals should be free to maximize their individual gain according to free market forces to the extent that government regulation must insure that individuals do not engage in unfair, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest behavior.
E. Second place goes to A this time.


5. In your view traditional social institutions and forces such as heterosexual marriage, monogamy, family and religion-
A. Have absolutely no importance and they must not exist because they serve to restrict the personal freedom of the individual by imposing societal norms on him.
B. Have absolutely no importance and must not exist because they allow the rich and powerful to oppress the poor and weak.
C. Have only the importance that individuals choose to give them and should not have any government or societal sanction.
D. Are important to society but government sanction should not be given to one form over another for the sake of insuring equality within society.
E. Have paramount importance for the preservation of society and the forms that history has proven to be the most effective for this purpose should be given government sanction and protection.
D. Somehow D and E seem to have been switched here, since E is the one that adds unnecessary government intervention. ;)


6. In your view economic markets-
A. Should not have any regulation apart from the natural laws of supply and demand.
B. Have no need of regulation because the market is simply the equitable exchange of goods and services so that everyone gets what they need and contributes what they can.
C. Should be placed under the regulation of government managers who will determine the type and quantity of goods and services that will be produced and consumed so that everyone’s basic needs are met.
D. Should be regulated by the government to the extent necessary to insure the economic equality between individuals.
D. Should be regulated by the government to the extent necessary to promote economic equality between individuals.
E. Should be regulated by the government only to the extent necessary to prevent monopolies, fraud and other dishonest trade practices while protecting consumers from the effects of asymmetric information.
E. Again, A goes too far in the "no-government" direction. Do I sense a pattern here? Perish the thought!


7. In you view-
A. Human beings will fairly complete with each other to maximize their individual self-interests in that the possibility of economic retaliation or civil lawsuits will insure each individual’s honesty.
B. Human beings will freely cooperate with each other in order to maximize their collective self-interests.
C. Government regulation is necessary to insure that society maintains equality between individual human beings by cooperating with each other in the manner necessary to maintain an equitable society.
D. Government should do whatever is necessary to insulate individual human beings from the factors of life so that no individual has to face life at a disadvantage.
E. Humans, when left to their own devices are self-centered, self-serving, greedy beings and thus must be restrained by societal forces (government, religion, social mores etcetera) so their individual actions cannot harms others or otherwise disrupt society.
E comes closest to my view, in that you should forbid things that harm others but otherwise leave things alone.


8. A nation state-
A. Merely exists as a means of justifying the existence of government.
B. Exists to create tension and conflict among the world’s peoples so that the powers that be in each nation can have an excuse for seizing the resources of other nations in the name of patriotism.
C. Is a by-product of history in that nation states serve to preserve the identity of people that share a common language, culture and heritage by fostering conflict between different nation states.
D. Preserves people who share a common racial, ethnic or historical identity, but in order to carryout this function nation states must be in conflict with each other so nation states should not have the freedom to act on their own volition so that international conflict can be reduced.
E. Has paramount importance as a unifying and assimilating mechanism for people who share or choose to share a common language, culture and heritage which are not necessarily dependent on biological factors such as race or ethnicity, and in order to maintain these functions a nation state must maintain its sovereignty and its freedom of action and must not be constrained by other nation states or international entities.
Again, I have to go with E. To elaborate, we should probably intervene if there's genocide or something going on, but except for such extenuating circumstances we should respect other nations' sovereignty.


9. Government-
A. Exists merely as a source of oppression to restrain people’s liberty to conduct their lives as they see fit in order to maintain their own self-interests.
B. Is unnecessary and serves only to empower people and institutions that wish to profit by oppressing others for the sake of personal gain.
C. Must have supreme power in order marshal society’s resources so they can be used to insure equality between society’s members.
D. Serves as the mechanism for regulating society’s resources so that they can be used to promote equality between society’s members.
E. Is necessary for the preservation of a stable, functioning and self-perpetuating society in that it is an unbiased referee for settling societal disputes while it maintains public order and performs whatever other tasks that must be done when the private sector either cannot or will not perform them.
I think I get what E is trying to say here and I'm going with it because all the others are even more wrong. Government is very often not an unbiased referee, and creating a government program to oversee the government only adds another level of potential corruption. That clarified, maintaining public order and performing tasks that the private sector does not do and are necessary is indeed the government's role.


10. Force (physical, economic, emotional etcetera):
A. Can always be used by individuals to preserve, protect and defend human life and property against aggression of any kind.
B. Should never be necessary in an ideal setting, but when necessary it should always be applied by society, not individuals.
C. Should be applied by the state whenever necessary to maintain an equitable and just society, but should never be used by individuals either against other individuals or to disrupt the operation of the state.
D. May be used by individuals to achieve justice whenever society fails to provide them with justice, but it should not be used otherwise by individuals and it should be used only sparingly by society lest its application lead to injustice.
E. Is always legitimate when used by society (or individuals when society cannot take action in a timely manner) to preserve, protect and defend human life and property from criminal aggression, but under no circumstances should force be used to disrupt the operation of a legitimate government that can be altered by the normal course of constitutional means.
I can sympathize with all the options here, but again E comes closest. Individuals should have some authority to use force within clearly defined bounds; otherwise, the government should deal with criminals.


Add up the total number of answers you have for each letter A-E. Divide each sum by 10 and then multiply by 100 to obtain your ideological quotient for each ideology A-E. A score of (X/10)(100) = your ideological quotient for the ideology represented by X, i.e., what percent of the ideology represented by X you are.
My mathematical self is saying "couldn't you just simplify it and tell us to multiply by ten?" Anyway,

90% E (conservative)
10% D (liberal)
0% A (libertarian)
0% B (communist)
0% C (socialist)

[Hweila]

1. What is your view of property?

E. Most property should be privately owned so the members of society have a vested interest in maintaining society for the sake of preserving their property for their own benefit and the benefit of their posterity.


2. What obligation do individuals have to society?[/QUOTE

E. Individuals have a moral obligation to provide the less fortunate members of society with whatever assistance they are capable of without imposing a burden on society themselves, but an individual’s obligation to take care of society should be minimal when the obligation is imposed by law so that individuals will not become dependent on the constant aid of others.

[QUOTE] 3. What obligation does society have to the individual?

D. Individuals have a right to rely on the resources of society when they cannot provide for themselves.

I would add to this the caveat that it is preferable that this be done by private associations, but that in instances when they are unable or unwilling to do so, it is in the interest of the state to provide some sort of safety net for the disabled in order to maintain an ethical, orderly society.


4. When it comes to material gain

E. Individuals should be free to maximize their individual gain according to free market forces to the extent that government regulation must insure that individuals do not engage in unfair, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest behavior.


5. In your view traditional social institutions and forces such as heterosexual marriage, monogamy, family and religion-

E. Have paramount importance for the preservation of society and the forms that history has proven to be the most effective for this purpose should be given government sanction and protection.

This one comes the closest to what I believe, but it isn't quite right, because while I support the traditional Ceremonial Theism we have in the US, I would oppose any attempt to establish a particular religion or denomination on the part of the state, similarly I also believe less traditional forms shouldn't be discriminated against.


6. In your view economic markets-

E. Should be regulated by the government only to the extent necessary to prevent monopolies, fraud and other dishonest trade practices while protecting consumers from the effects of asymmetric information.

I would also add regulation to prevent the destruction of domestic industry through international trade.


7. In you view-

E. Humans, when left to their own devices are self-centered, self-serving, greedy beings and thus must be restrained by societal forces (government, religion, social mores etcetera) so their individual actions cannot harms others or otherwise disrupt society.


8. A nation state-

E. Has paramount importance as a unifying and assimilating mechanism for people who share or choose to share a common language, culture and heritage which are not necessarily dependent on biological factors such as race or ethnicity, and in order to maintain these functions a nation state must maintain its sovereignty and its freedom of action and must not be constrained by other nation states or international entities.


9. Government-

E. Is necessary for the preservation of a stable, functioning and self-perpetuating society in that it is an unbiased referee for settling societal disputes while it maintains public order and performs whatever other tasks that must be done when the private sector either cannot or will not perform them.


10. Force (physical, economic, emotional etcetera):

E. Is always legitimate when used by society (or individuals when society cannot take action in a timely manner) to preserve, protect and defend human life and property from criminal aggression, but under no circumstances should force be used to disrupt the operation of a legitimate government that can be altered by the normal course of constitutional means.



Add up the total number of answers you have for each letter A-E. Divide each sum by 10 and then multiply by 100 to obtain your ideological quotient for each ideology A-E. A score of (X/10)(100) = your ideological quotient for the ideology represented by X, i.e., what percent of the ideology represented by X you are.

A, B, & C = 0%
D = 10%
E = 90%