Where Do You Stand Politically? (10 Questions Quiz)
By Barry Ritholtz - November 15th, 2010, 2:30PM
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I took the 10 question quiz, and my results are above. Its pretty much where I imagine myself — fiscally conservative, socially progressive. I don’t have a problem with gay marriage, legalized pot, cutting spending, or letting insolvent companies die.
If you want to take the quiz, just go to theadvocates.org/quiz, and it tells you where you stand politically. It seems to go beyond the Democrat, Republican, and Independent spectrum.
The Washington Post said it has “gained respect as a valid measure of a person’s political leanings.” The Fraser Institute said it’s “a fast, fun, and accurate assessment of a person’s overall political views.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz
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November 15th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
I got 100% personal, 40% economic. What do I win?
November 15th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
You came out pretty much where you expected because in a fraction of a second, your brain can interpret simple questions such as these and determine which response will give you the result you subconsciously desire.
November 15th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I guess I am even more Libertarian than I give myself credit for.
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz_result?e=90&i=100_90.gif&p=100
November 15th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
It is quick & useful. I thought I was libertarian & I am.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I’m another libertarian (60% personal, 90% economic). I suspect a great many would test libertarian in the US. So, how come no viable libertarian party?
Of course it was only my subconscious desire to be libertarian that caused me to choose answers that I thought were libertarian. Which seems to me something of a tautology, that doesn’t really explain anything. Whatever. I’m not into pop psychology.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Agree with franklin411.
I always score “extroverted judgemental intuitive thinker” on the personality quizzes, Mr ideal leader, but in reality I keep my head down, follow orders and limit my judgements to semi-anonymous web snarking.
This political quiz doesn’t say who you are, it says who you vote for. Thank goodness there’s a difference. I like (most of) you(r internet personae).
November 15th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I’m a Centrist, no surprise to me.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
70/30 liberal. Seriously though, 10 questions? Isn’t that gruel a little thin?
Here’s a ribollita with some meat in it….
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
November 15th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
BR, some of your favorite people, including Boskin and Hassett, have a signed a letter critical of the Fed’s QE2.
~~~
BR: Invictus has a post going up at shortly on that exact topic
November 15th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
“Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more”
How can you have it both way in the current fiscal situation?
At the current moment its fiscally responsible to increase taxes (or flat) and decrease gov spending.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Maybe it’s just me, but somehow I have a little nagging doubt about a quiz purporting to tell me where I fit conducted by an organization which (like most organizations) seeks to use the quiz to increase membership.
The notion of a volunteer army likely strikes most of us as a better choice than a draft, but if we rephrase it to something like Military service should always be voluntary. A draft should be constitutionally banned to prevent its use forever, we might get a different answer (especially if the US was involved in a real, existential war). Likewise, if we say let old people starve if they’re too dumb to invest wisely instead of “privatize Social Security”, some of us might not be as libertarian as the quiz suggests.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I thought this political choice-not circle-jerk was so done here and the issue was Human Rights vs Corporate Rights as in Human rights Before Corporate Rights..this being a Constitutional Republic (res publica) and which Constitution proclaims for “We the People…”
The Capitalist Tiger is a most useful beast to ride and we gain from its successes and road-kill, but it needs to be caged lest it eat innocent humans trying to live a sustainable life.
The spiraling consumption economy can no longer be reflated after the inflection point of the 21st Century; get over it.
It won’t change, Until you do.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
@ freejack: Interesting link. Came up as a Liberal leftist. I’m in the Dalia Lama’s range. That makes me happy.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
freejack and Lariat: thanks for the link, I ended up at the same spot as Gandhi.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
ToNYC,
“We the People” was, when the constitution was written, more or less restricted to landed white men. Just sayin.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I’m smack in the middle of the Left Liberal field – 80% Personal and 20% economic. I’m content with that result.
But I answered a lot of “Maybes” on economic policy. I think in general the government should stay out of markets without a compelling rationale, but I also think there are a lot of ways that markets can fail (asymmetric information, coordination problems, effective monopolies or mynopsynies) and require some kind of regulation and/or intervention or policy response. I didn’t get the sense that the algorithm could make much sense of what my “Maybes” really meant.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Centrist as well, but liberal-leaning. I’m not one to tell people how to act personally, but I’m not going to stand by and let people destroy themselves and others with their actions. I would guess most people would agree with me on that, although I’m sure that some would say “if you want to kill yourself, then do it right the first time”.
As for government’s role, my opinion is that it should be in place to prevent predatory practice and anti-monopolization to the detriment of society. In other words, just set boundary lines for everyone to play in, and then stay out. No changing the playing field once it’s set. And certainly no handouts for those that fail in the game. Spoils go to the winners.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I think in our present situation, taking into account that private sector job creation in the last ten years has been negative, only a government intervention can solve the unemployment problem.
Letting a 17% rate sit for ten years is simply unthinkable, time to think about grand projects.
No offense to libertarians, but not all is rosy in the private sector.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Please note that this is from a Libertarian group, who run the site: http://www.libertarianism.com/
So they are not exactly objective, unbiased test givers
November 15th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I don’t know everything there is to know about Buddhism, but I didn’t think the Dalai Lama actually condoned theft. Therefore, he cannot be a liberal.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
@IS_LM: Wow, Hassett of all people, he of the “Dow 36,000″ fame, or should I say infamy? Why do incompetents like this continue to get any attention in the media? Does being wrong just about all the time not matter anymore?
If Brian Wesbury comes out against QE2, I will officially change my opinion on it and believe it’s not a good idea, but a GREAT. I’m already starting to question my judgment on this one.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Estragon has it right; I will wager more people will find their results lean Libertarian than had the quiz been worded with less-polarizing questions.
And look at the description of each of the types, they all have “quoted” phrases except Libertarian and Statists. For example, under Liberal you have the phrase “safety net” and under Centrist you have “practical”, etc. Wrapping quotes around a phrase is a subtle signal that you don’t believe the phrase really means what it literally says.
The questions here are well structured to ensure the most people fall as much into the Libertarian pool as possible.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
What does it make me if I don’t care to know how I would be categorized in the political spectrum?
Perhaps, to others, I might be labeled a cynic; however, I am simply a person that counts the idea of categorization among the most damaging and mindless of human behaviors, even if it is among the most fundamental.
I believe that places me somewhere between Plato and Deepak Chopra…
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” ~ Plato
“When we relinquish our need to constantly classify things as good or bad, right or wrong, then we experience more silence in our consciousness. Our internal dialogue begins to quieten when we shed the burden of judgment… It is important therefore to get away from definitions, labels, descriptions, interpretations, evaluations, analyses, and judgment, which all create the turbulence of our internal dialogue.” ~ Deepak Chopra
November 15th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
@hantra: Go to this link: http://www.politcalcompass.org ( from freejack). Read and take the quiz, expand your horizons. It won’t hurt, I promise.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I tried to answer the questions to acheive a 100% conservative score (0/100), however, I only got 80 for ec0nomic (0 for ‘personal’ issues). I’ll have to look at the economic questions again to see where I’m ‘wrong’.
I’m going to go for 100% Statist next.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I meant to say, I see myself really as a liberal/centrist/libertarian.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Barry,
Do you think the current crop of GOP “libertarians” (RAND Paul) who keep invoking Ayn Rand have actually ever read her? Specifically, do they understand that she was an atheist who supported separation of church and state, was pro-choice, and generally thought the government should butt out of things like what people did in the privacy of their homes? I know I’m an old guy, but I remember when libertarians were, well, libertarians and not social conservatives who just didn’t want their own taxes to go up.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
@Mannwich: Steve Chanos signed it, as did monetary experts Amity Shlaes and Bill Kristol. I don’t know how those signatures affect your opinion of QE2. Personally, Kristol should stay focused on war with Iran.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Libertarian
80% Personal
80% Economic.
EXACTLY WHERE I KNEW I WAS.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I scored 70% Personal Issues, 30% Economic Issues which makes me a Liberal. My red dot was right on the horizontal centre line, which indicates that I lean towards centrist thinking. However I must admit that I see qualities in statist ideolgy. How else can you crack down on the fraudsters who are ruining every facet of freedom like a cancerous growth?
Here in Britain we cannot afford to be libertarian any more. We were being overrun by lying, cheating, illiterate asylum seekers from African countries, and Eastern European States. The word got around that Britain was a “soft touch” Immigants flooded in, and the dumb-assed thing about it was that once they got here they were able to find jobs just long enough to get themselves a National Insurance Number, which then qualified them to draw welfare benefits.
I mean even Holland (one of the most libertarian countries in world) is having second thoughts. I have read that they are finding ways to close down some of Smokie Joe’s coffee houses, and the Local Government in Amsterdam have stepped in, buying up properties in the red light district and turning them into offices.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
test was very biased – written from a libertarian point of view – pretty much everyone is a liberal to them!
November 15th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Hmmm, I score: LIBERAL.
After the Bush Disaster and the Wall Street Collapse caused by rampant FRAUD, I wonder why Most people don’t score Liberal?
After the Crackpot Koch brothers hijacked the Tea Party, and the Supreme Court hijacked America, I wonder why most people Don’t put the blame for America’s problems where it belongs: Wall Street and Republican _ _ _ kissers.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Before you all go trotting yourselves out as libertarians, you might want to make a careful perusal of that libertarian web site. Some quotes:
“A libertarian society would certainly have police to protect citizens from gangs and criminals, they just wouldn’t be tax-supported.”
“The primary cause of homelessness is government regulation in the form of zoning restrictions, building codes, and construction moratoriums, which raise housing prices above what many can pay. ”
“Today’s mega-businesses lobby for government regulations to drive their smaller competitors out of business. In a libertarian society, these regulations wouldn’t exist. Consequently, a business could grow big only if it gave consumers better quality service at a better price than its competitors.”
Curiously, the FAQs don’t seem to mention Ron Paul’s favorite and most important government function– total prohibition of abortion. For the record, only about 1/4 of the population agrees with him. Not quite a moral mandate.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
i score as a centrist. while i am sure i would rather be more conservative, i just can’t ignore facts that lead show had bad things were or are. we have had a corporatcy instead of democracy. and the corporates have just convinced a lot of us they are on our side. they aren’t. and never have been. we used to get help from the government to off set the power of corporations. some how they have convinced us they are us, and we are them, and that we must give them more tax breaks and tax cuts, while not requiring them to do any thing at all for the money we pay them. and that we must absolutely must be happy to make even less.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Came in at 60% personal and 40% economic, for a slightly leftist centrist. Years ago, I would have been a rightist centrist. In 1996, Barry Goldwater told Bob Dole: “We’re the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?” (from Goldwater bio in Wikipedia)
Agree with Estragon’s comments above
November 15th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I took the quiz too B.R. and while I consider myself to be leaning more on the libertarian side of late the questionnaire was biased to generate a libertarian bias. For example how many of us support the maintaining of a police force, public building of bridges, transit tunnels, a national defence and a national power grid. I imagine most Americans would support many if not all of the above, but a true libertarian would not.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
This test has been around a long time. The questions are probably too broad to accurately gauge the true leanings of people.
There are a lot of folks who see themselves as libertarians until they’re faced with “tough” choices–then, the tendency is to rely on the government to solve their problems or legislate/regulate the solution (create a new “czar” to oversee something).
November 15th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
diogeron@5.08
“I know I’m an old guy, but I remember when libertarians were, well, libertarians and not social conservatives who just didn’t want their own taxes to go up.”
Not sure how many Libertarian “meet ups” you’ve been to, but that’s what the Libertarian party is still about. The Tea Party crowd has latched on to certain “libertarian concepts” but most of those folks are actually not true Libertarians.
So, don’t worry, the real LP folks haven’t changed much over the years.
I urge you to attend a meeting.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
@IS_LM: I respect Chanos but the other two not so much, if at all.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
@IS_LM: When did Bill Kristol become a “monetary expert” or an “expert” on anything, besides getting everything wrong, of course?
November 15th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I came out at the intersection of Centrist, libertarian and leftist. So basically I just can make up my mind or whatever is left of it
November 15th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
@Andy T
Maybe it depends on where one lives. As for me, I’m in a major university community in the Midwest where my wife is a professor of business law in a top 20 business school. I’m also a “reformed academic” who is now retired. The “libertarians” here are Tea Party types, anti-intellectual to the core, who dismiss climate change as a “hoax”, think that Sarah Palin hung the moon, that intelligent design should be taught in public schools and that anyone who accepts evolution is a “liberal” who wants to brainwash our children, and voice demands that “We need to put God back in the Constitution” (I actually heard someone manning a Libertarian booth say this at our farmer’s market.) In short, at least here, they seem to be angry, old white guys who don’t want to pay taxes and are closer to the old John Birchers than the Libertarians of old. There are, of course, a minority of folks who are exceptions, primarily the college aged/grad student types who think we’re spending too much on everything, including the military and think that pot should be legalized or at least decriminalized.
Maybe it’s like the line about anarchists: They just can’t get organized.
November 15th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz_result?e=70&i=100_70.gif&p=100
“…Exposing millions to libertarianism by replacing the old “Left-Right” political map with a more inclusive and accurate model such as the one used by our World’s Smallest Political Quiz…”
“…We believe liberty is the best way to achieve peace and prosperity. And the best way to achieve liberty is by effectively communicating the ideas of entrepreneurship, limited government, civil liberties, and individual responsibility to the public…”
http://www.theadvocates.org/about/
and, really, some things: “ToNYC Says: November 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I thought this political choice-not circle-jerk was so done here and the issue was Human Rights vs Corporate Rights as in Human rights Before Corporate Rights..this being a Constitutional Republic (res publica) and which Constitution proclaims for “We the People…”
The Capitalist Tiger is a most useful beast to ride and we gain from its successes and road-kill, but it needs to be caged lest it eat innocent humans trying to live a sustainable life.
The spiraling consumption economy can no longer be reflated after the inflection point of the 21st Century; get over it.
It won’t change, Until you do.”
“It won’t change, Until you do.”
just, need to be re-read.
November 15th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
I got a 90/20 but I attribute it to some loaded questions, e.g. should government barriers to free trade be abolished? We don’t have any; everyone else does. Cut taxes and government spending by 50%? Which spending? Which taxes?
November 15th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
If you mark everything “maybe,” you come out dead center.
If you agree with all the personal ones, and disagree with all of the economic ones, you come out dead left “liberal.”
After that, I got bored playing with it.
November 15th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
OK, so I lied (about being bored).
The personal questions move the dot vertically (upward for “agree”), the economic questions move the dot horizontally (rightward for “agree”).
An “agree” counts for zero, a “maybe” counts for ten, a “disagree” counts for twenty.
The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
Now I’m bored with it.
November 15th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
50-50, right in the centre.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
“After the Bush Disaster and the Wall Street Collapse caused by rampant FRAUD, I wonder why Most people don’t score Liberal?”
I’m just guessing, but probably because the media, controlled as they are by the exceptionally wealthy (Murdoch is almost beside the point these days), keep repeating the Corporatist story line.
80/20, and pretty much convinced (you know how my kind are prone to self-doubt, it’s how we are…) that Liberal is the only sensible option if you are susceptible to receiving fact rather than dogma. Don’t get me wrong: Capitalism is a marvelous system, but it really doesn’t cut it as religion.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Great quiz! I found this back in 2000 when our choices were between Big Brother Gore and Military Industrial Complex Bush! I was 20, in college and confused because I couldn’t “choose” one clown or the other. I was consistently arguing with friends and family about politics and their answer was always “choose a side!”
Thankfully this quiz helped me find an alternative and led me to Ron Paul, Alex Jones and the truth about our government. I hope it does the same for some of you, although I doubt most of you are 20 and open minded enough to “get it.”
November 15th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Libertarian Left, for wont of a better expression, is the nature of America.
We need a single-payer option for health care (face it: this is a civil rights issue as well as the major contributor to prospects of exploding national debt), and we need to strip the tax code down to five pages as a first step to eliminating corporate welfare.
Incorporating conscripts should be a core competency of the US security apparatus. I’d like to see a Department of War (DoD renamed), a Department of Defense (DHS renamed), and a greatly enhanced State Department for dealing with civil issues in other countries (creating an actual functioning justice system in Mexico or Afghanistan as examples). All should practice conscription on a limited scale.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Andy T:
That’s the problem with you “real” Libertarians, you’re stuck in your own little worlds and can’t see the big picture. This is why your “party” has done absolutely NOTHING since its existence. Ron Paul has done more for the Libertarian party being a “Republican” then your entire party put together. He figured out a long time ago that the Libertarians were full of hot air and cared more about debating theory than actually doing anything meaningful.
So keep going to your “meet ups” while the strong, motivated, and angry Libertarians take over the both parties!!! Yes, there’s some of us in the Democratic party too!
We Ron Paul Libertarians are like cancer, we not only attack the host, we take over them.
November 15th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
I am a centrist conservative. Generally and biblically a conservative, but I don’t always agree economically with my Republican friends in Washington.
http://www.philstockworld.com
November 15th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I second/third freejack’s rec. This test:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
is far, far better.
Also, please notice that the “theadvocates.org” quiz is not just a quiz but a small bit of propaganda. How so? It places “libertarian” at the top. Of course, don’t we all want to be “at the top”? Don’t we all want “100%”?
The Political Compass folks actually place “statist” at the top. Of course, who wants to be one of those? So, there’s no subtle implied condescension when you score off to the left, right, or bottom.
November 15th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Also, simply asking “are you in favor of the draft?” and then saying that’s “statist” misses one of the points of requiring a draft:
If the cause is wrong/premature, then a draft will cause people to *oppose* the state. (What’s “statist” about that?)
Instead, this test seems to assume a rather simple world where the most simplistic of wishes might actually be viable/good answers. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:03 am
@wunsacon
Agree with much of what you have said here and the first time I ever took this test ( several years ago) I scored 90/90. These questions are way too broad to suss out the the true leanings of folks, not that it matters much anyway.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Andy, I scored less than 100%, too. (And I felt bad about it for a second!) ;-)
I bet the political compass should beef up, too. I scored in the lower left quadrant (-2, -2). But, I’d be surprised if many people in that quadrant would want, say, to dismantle the FDIC or issue school vouchers in lieu of funding local school boards.
November 16th, 2010 at 12:52 am
@wunsacon
I’m actually one of those “whacky” Libs that wouldn’t mind seeing the SEC/FDIC go away. One can make an argument that the mere existence of those organizations give depositors/investors a false sense of security that really shouldn’t exist. But, I suppose that’s a debate for a different day…. :-)
November 16th, 2010 at 3:23 am
I’m a left side of the box centrist (slightly north of center). But the quiz is biased and not particularly nuanced. Of course, that is pretty much what a centrist libertarian would say. I suppose extreme left or right wingers would be comfortable answering all the questions and probably wish there were a column for “Strongly Agree” or “Strongly Disagree”.
I don’t mind people have convictions per se, but I am reduced to tears by unfounded, unshakeable Beliefs and strict adherence to a party line. But it makes sense that libertarians and centrists not be organized since they are probably smarter and less rabid than those on the extremes.
And speaking of Anarchists, I was riding the Paris Metro last week and saw stickers for the Anarchists Association (“smash the system”, “end capitalism and the police state”, etc) annoucing a rally. Okay, so who the heck are these Anarchists who are so well organized?
November 16th, 2010 at 7:03 am
@Mark E Hoffer Says:
Spot-on. This is only a test. There are two readers who reflected with that Human Rights vs Corporate Rights solution to Politics as usual to death point. Must be way time to get fractal.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:56 am
ToNYC ,
“Must be way time to get fractal.” — at the min.
as you may well know, here
http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=Fractal+Economics
http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=Fractal+Economics+Taleb+Mandelbrot
wouldn’t be a bad place to start..
though, as you, surely, know, that if We care to change the ‘Outcomes’, We need to change the Inputs.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:28 am
Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi redux:
It won’t change, Until you do.
I’m off corporate time, out of corporate space, and live off my IP.
Coldplay as Lost with Jay-Z “..media meddles, niggaz sue you you settle, every step of the way they remind you you ghetto.
Freedom is purchased with Cash, Slavery by Debt. My granpa taught me that after a fashion channeling what I heard of lessons from the Thirties. He was allowed into a Free country for a couple of decades and while missing the Twenties, too slow to participate and living within modest means of pasta fagioli , also missed the Thirties’ pain and recapture.
November 16th, 2010 at 10:29 am
I got 60% personal and 100% economic…now if the Libetarians could just get saome people elected and get rid of the parisitic, career politicians both Republicans and Democrats seem to cherish. Wonder if that is because they keep milk in the public teat?