There have always been the easy hits ... color, ethnicity, religion, and most recently sexual orientation, that drop people into categories within society. We even find time to classify others by their looks -- beautiful people get to get in here, those who are ugly don't even bother attempting, and so on.
Politics seems to have created a seriously divided and often contentious social class as well, with many calling themselves, conservative, liberal, or whatever the flavor of the day may be.
Strangely enough, though many other of the usual suspects like color, ethnicity, religion and so on, don't fit into this type of social structure. Political affiliation seems to be "all encompassing" in some form with nearly all people.
The important questions coming from this are: WHO are YOU and WHAT do YOU believe?
Are you Liberal? Conservative? Other? Let us know where you stand ideologically, and in turn you will gain a better perspective of your political values and those of your fellow bloggers.
Discuss!
Monday, February 18, 2008
People are people ... right?
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14 comments:
Stu: "Let us know where you stand ideologically, and in turn you will gain a better perspective of your political values and those of your fellow bloggers."
Excellent point. In the interest of full disclosure, I we should allow our host to go first. Therefore, Stu, Gary Sutton, Jay and LarryK, the ball is in your court.
If you don't mind, there is a quiz at http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/ . Just click "Political Philosophy," answer the 20 questions, and click "Score the quiz!"
If you respond with your personal and economic score, I will gladly follow suit.
“Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007), "Cold Turkey", In These Times
(Let’s add Radio and Internet to that list – my suggestion only, not Kurt’s)
Your Score:
You scored the following on the PoliticsMatch questions:
Personal Score 38%
Economic Score 56%
Where You Fit In:
Based on the above score, you are a Moderate Conservative .
My current score is as follows:
You scored the following on the PoliticsMatch questions:
Personal Score 0%
Economic Score 74%
Where You Fit In
Where your Personal score meets your Economic score on the grid below is your political philosophy. Based on the above score, you are a Hard-Core Conservative.
Although previous results were a litter higher on the Economic Score, this is my current result.
IMO, those who don't participate will be more revealing that the results of those who do.
My name is Eric, and I approve of this message.
On the quiz here...
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
My results are...
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 70%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 90%.
LIBERTARIAN
With different questions, formulas and weighting, comparison of the two quizzes is like comparing apples to oranges. However, I just find it interesting to compare my results with others who have taken both quizzes.
I have taken the different tests that try to determine your leanings and by in large I come up somewhat in the middle of things typically, but depending on just HOW a question is worded can many times make a big difference in answers.
Suffice it to say that I find things in both left and right that I can agree with. I believe in individual rights but not to the exclusion of helping others and sharing what I have so the notions of something like taxes to help support some common good concepts I can embrace (ie – education, public roads, etc).
Labels should not be the name of the game.
Once you get to specific topics and subjects, then you wind up coming to grips with what you really believe in.
Some items are easy for me to understand what I believe and some are complicated.
As an example of the complicated are things like war. I do not believe in war, yet I think that in many cases it is the choice I would have made also. That being said, I would NOT have chosen to invade Iraq. I served in the military and was proud to do it as I believe ALL Americans should be held to do some service for their country.
Other things are easy for me, for example abortion. I am against abortion, but not particularly for religious reasons as I don’t consider myself to be overly religious. I am not a hater of people who believe abortion is their right (as it is legally anyway today) but I certainly would try to convince them otherwise.
Thus, as we face choices in voting, I (and perhaps like many out there) will likely never find the person that is a total match to what I believe, but wind up trying to pick the person that I believe at the time is the best person to do the job. I always vote, even if I am not thrilled will any of the candidates. I hear a lot of people decrying the candidates in this election, yet I feel personally that most of them could do a good job in the Presidency.
So, this whole post answers nothing label-wise for me , but gives hopefully some insight that I tend to see some good in both the left and right answers at times. In that sense, I don’t mind being called a middle-of-the-roader.
I think a better label would be "politically balanced" instead of "middle-of-the-roader."
I have to agree with JMO on this one. To try to pigeon hole people into a catagory seems a bit simplistic, and then makes some people feel like they can't be part of the 'team' anymore should they change their mind on an issue.
Here's a few of my opinions:
I believe in a small, streamlined and efficently run federal goverment. Fiscal responsibility is a high priority with me. On most social issues I suppose I would fall into the liberal catagory, but that would be for someone else to decide if they think it's important to do that.
I can voice an opinion on a specific issue or idea, but I'll take them on one at a time. The last thing I would do is check to see what a label or 'club' says I should do or think.
just fred: “To try to pigeon hole people into a catagory seems a bit simplistic, and then makes some people feel like they can't be part of the 'team' anymore should they change their mind on an issue.”
Fred, let me say that I completely agree with you on this one. Recent politics has shown that when we allow ourselves to be pigeon holed, it is extremely difficult to change your ‘team’ within a moments notice. After all, who wants to be reminded that what they said yesterday is in direct contradiction with what they say today. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having the flexibility to take multiple positions on the same issue for the sake of convenience. Being a man/woman of your word is a holdover from long ago, and it has no place today’s non-tribal political structure.
Obama’08- Change we can believe in.
Boy, that's rich, Eric. Are you suggesting that once you form an opinion, you're stuck with it for the rest of your life?
Would these opinions be solidified at birth or upon conception? Or maybe during the school age years when you were under the spell of those liberal, left-wing, tree-hugging, pinko, communist algebra and social studies teachers?
When is it appropriate for someone to re-think their position on an issue, theory, or an idea, and perhaps change their mind? A guy like Joe Liberman is seen by some tribe members as a bum, while the other tribe sees him as a hero.
Politics aside, "A life unexamined is not worth living". Oops sorry, I just plagiarized Socrates.
Fred: "Boy, that's rich, Eric. Are you suggesting that once you form an opinion, you're stuck with it for the rest of your life?"
No, just the opposite. I am suggesting that once an opinion is formed, you are free to change it anytime you wish. After all, who wants to be pigeon holed as part of a team when opportunities present themselves to become a part of a better team.
Fred: "When is it appropriate for someone to re-think their position on an issue, theory, or an idea, and perhaps change their mind?"
Thinking should be a continuous process, therefore re-thinking a position should not be based on a time period. It should be based on an individuals desire to reconsider previous positions. We should be flexible enough consider the errors in our previous decisions and adjust accordingly.
Huckabee '08 - Because Chuck Norris can't be wrong.
Eric,
We're probably closer to being on the same page than I originally thought. Does that scare you?
eric, since you asked, your test put me in the northern box -- libertarian.
You might want to check out this new post:
Find out where you stand politically.
"We're probably closer to being on the same page than I originally thought. Does that scare you?"
If my comments were made for any reason other than humor and my own personal amusement, then I would probably be somewhat worried. Changing ones position for the purpose of being agreeable is really quite easy when one doesn't allow a sense of morality and a clear conscious to get in the way. This is likely why honest people are rarely successful in politics.
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