Im happy with my result:)it is fairly accurate

The idea of a two axis political map is a fairly good one, but each axis has to be a meaningful one, something that tries to objectively see what’s out there, rather than trying to fit what’s out there into a mold formed just after the French Revolution.

I’m actually not saying it as well as he did. His original article is here:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm

In fact the libertarian party is just extremely right-wing and not necessarily “libertarian” I mean the socialist party candidate was more libertarian then Ron Paul.

Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.49

In this case it seems libertarian is used as the antithesis of authoritarian so we ended on the left side of it because we believe that government has no business controlling our personal and social lives.

Libertarians with a capital “L” would have ended up on the right side because of their worship of the Free Market God.

So, what does this mean? I’m more libertarian than you, but not as far left? Ha.

I’ve seen another such graph that charts conservative and liberal as two quadrants of a circular spectrum that seems more functional but that still creates a number of false dichotomies.

The problem with tests like this is that it doesn’t allow you to “explain” your answers. For example, I strongly agreed with this statement: “It’s natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents” because I believe that sentence to be true. Children will try to keep things from their parents. It is an inborn “natural” trait.

But that doesn’t mean I think it’s right. Nor do I think that children have some sort of “right” to keep secrets from their parents. I wonder what my score would’ve been had I changed the answer to strongly disagree. Because while I do believe the sentence is true, I disagree with what I believe the spirit of that sentence to be.

And there are, or course, other questions that I could’ve answered in pretty much the opposite way to what I did. But for what it’s worth, here’s my score:

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.90

Yea, where was the gun control questions in the quiz? That would have knocked me the hell out of libertarian land, for sure…

As for growing into being a liberal. That’s me. I was born a Good Little Conservative in a conservative family. Look at me now. My bleeding heart bleeds bleeding hearts. I began to think for myself in my early twenties and decided .. hey — I kinda like this Al Gore guy even though he’s not republican. Then I became a Democrat officially.

Now, I thank W for making me go waaaay off the deep end into Moon Bat territory.

Finally, Ron, I agree. No authoritarian Dems in my Utopia either.

I think the “should government control our sex lives” questions is what throws us all into the Libertarian column. And on that note, I don’t think that test is too accurate. Because it puts the better part of the Democratic party in the authoritarian column. Now, I know I’m different from the USA’s majority liberal party, but I’m more of a moon bat than Ralph Nader and more glib than Ron Paul?!?! I just don’t buy it.

I think either the test’s calibration is off or the candidates themselves are not placed correctly. I just don’t see how my “government out of the bedroom” beliefs could override things like “government should own parks and pay for the arts” which I answered “Strongly Agree” on in every case.