The map of political faith

Think you're a proud bleeding-heart, sickeningly-tolerant liberal? No, course not, you're a namby-pamby, comrade-loving leftie? Oh hell no, you're a unashamedly flag-waving, second-home-owning right winger?

Find out for sure. Loads of people have already taken this test, but for those who haven't it works out where your opinions lie on the political scale.

But the Political Compass website has taken it a step further and shown us where the 2008 Presidential candidates fit on the map (click on the graph below for an enlarged image). So much for choice eh?

Murad Ahmed

Comments

[Johnny Devaroe]

I would place Hillary Clinton higher on the Authoritarian scale. Evidenced by her stance on the power of centralized government and pro-corporate and pro-globalist agenda.

I supported her for many years but my support is eroding. Lately it seems either she has hardened or I hadn't been looking close enough.

[John]

How can you possibly but Kucinich anywhere close to libertarian? The man wants to ban handguns!

[militantbob]

i call BS on this. all one has to do is look at where they place ron paul. the man is a strong libertarian. how in the world do they arrive at such garbage? you see where kucinich and gravel are? ok, now go further south and a bit further right, and that's where ron paul goes. he's a right-leaning libertarian/capitalist, he is in NO WAY an authoritarian. i suspect these people didn't do their research... his anti-abortion statements were probably taken to mean he would outlaw abortion, for example. that's simply not the case, he would refer the matter to each state government, giving people the FREEDOM to choose what their local laws would be, instead of an authoritarian top-down approach with a single federal mandate.

this chart is worthless. if they're that wrong about ron paul, the rest of the data is in question as well.

[Hogfan]

John:

I think you should check the compass again. It does not place Kucinich near Libertarianism. It illustrates that he leans slightly toward Libertarianism as opposed to Authoritarianism.

And gun control, or any other single issue, is hardly the measure of anyone's complex perspective on the world. While he may favor banning* handguns, that is not the sum total of his views on individual liberties.

*Your word choice. Not mine. The Constitution does not give anyone, other than those members of a well-regulated militia, the freedom to bear arms. In that context, it's no "ban" at all. It's just the law as it has been written for more than 200 years.

[Ty]

Ron Paul claims to be a lover of freedom but he's very selective about what freedoms he supports. Abortion is not a "state rights" issue. It is a women's rights issue. State and local governments have no more right to abolish abortion than the federal government does. The only way that abortion could legally be abolished would be through a constitutional amendment. This is because abortion is a right protected by the 9th amendment to the Constitution(at least in theory) and I would also say the same thing about the right to bear arms. Ron Paul also wants to deport everyone who is an undocumented immigrant. Ron Paul also opposes legalizing gay marriage. Ron Paul opposes a separation of church and state.

[Nuntius]

Hogfan:

You might want to re-read the Bill of Rights yourself. You're right that the Constitution doesn't *give* anyone rights; they're assumed to have them already. In fact, the Founding Fathers made it explicitly clear in the ninth and tenth Amendments that the Constitution was only a partial enumeration of said rights. You might also want to read the second amendment more carefully. The "militia" is in fact any able-bodied male between the ages of 16 and 45. Besides that point, the right *of the people* (the same People referred to in every other amendment - i.e. everyone) to keep and bear arms is protected. Not "the right of those members of the well-regulated Militia," if that's what you're trying to get at. Every clause of the Constitution was written in such a way as to limit the power of the federal government and protect the rights of individuals, not the other way around.

Enough of that though - this chart is indeed pretty silly given that it ranks Kucinich as more Libertarian than Paul.

[Alex]

Biden should be more authoritarian. Clinton,Obama, Edwards should be a lot more collectivist (left). Giuliani should be much more authoritarian. Paul should be the most libertarian and the most individualist (right) of anyone. Romney, Huckabee, and Brownback should be slightly more left. Everyone else is approxiamately right.

[gwalker]

Worthless chart. Worthless test. Many of the questions are too complex to force you to simply take an agree/disagree position. I know I'm a Libertarian, and the test decided I was somewhere near Kucinich. Ron Paul is a Libertarian, so I'm not sure how they decided he leans fascist. His personal views on abortion can't push him nearly that far on the scale.

[gwalker]

http://www.heartheissues.com/images/world3.gif

much more accurate

[deadmoo]

I think people are confusing the American Libertarian Party and the term Libertarian. The Libertarian Party is in fact extremely right-wing. If you plotted the American Libertarian Party on the graph it would be almost exactly in the same place as Dr. Paul. The Libertarian on the graph is actually more of a synonym for Anarchism. Since the American Libertarian Party's platform is essentially the U.S. Constitution itself, and hence the Rule of Law, supporters of that party's platform can not be considered Anarchist. The thing I think should be taken away from this is that what we really have here in the United States is a one-party system masquerading as a two-party system. The only presidential candidates that have a significantly different set of political and economic beliefs are Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel. Because of that fact, those three candidates are probably the only ones that Americans will benefit from learning about. They can already assume what the average candidate is all about.

[Steve Lynch]

I do not usually comment in blogs like this, but I found the test very interesting and, unfortunately, most of the comments so far rather short-sighted and self serving. There are some things about human ideology that make little sense. Among those are religion and politics. Virtually all the commenters have been whining because the test did not "place" particular candidates where THEY thought they should have been placed. And mostly , the complaints have been about single issues... and it seems that, true to form, the authoritarian right seems to believe anyone not as extreme as they are is a pinko "liberal". I find it sad that so few of our leaders share the kind of views held by truly great leaders like Ghandi...

[Dustin]

I agree with Steve Lynch. This is, believe or not an actual accurate description of the current political ideology of the U.S.A. IT IS a one-party system. Liberal isn't what it used to be and Conservative isn't what it used to be. In the link I provided it explains the change over the years in America from Democracy to Empire. America is just like ancient Rome...let's hope we soon realize and fix our collapse or be prepared for the greater depression. If it doesn't get better, I'm afraid I might have to leave this beautiful land...and I don't want to.