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Anarchist

Libertarian

Communist

Socialist

Soocial Democrat\Liberal

Moderate

Market Liberal

Conservative

Far out Nationalist

Other(Specify)

[Xehon]

I realise that my poll isn't 100% perfect so refer to this Test for additional clarification.

I stumbled upon the Conservapedia some time ago and now I finally came over the dread and made this thread. I don't want a flamewar so behave. Take it as a test of maturity for you and this forum community.

I myself am an Anarcho-Communist with Individualist tendencies, I'm somewhere around -6.00/-9.90 on the political compass, so excuse my bias. I'm not a big fan of the single issue fragmentation of general leftism and the traditional socialism, thus I haven't been to many events. I guess I'm somewhat a post-anarchist. I believe that the individual should come before the collective(ex. the individual should do what is best for them instead of doing what the society tells) and I also believe that the greatest gain for an individual comes from maximizing cooperation with other individuals not from, for an example, being atop of a hierarchy. This being said, I do not believe in any gain from centralised governments and I also see an economy where everything is shared without a sense of property as the one with the greatest potential for cooperation. I recon the usual criticism about violence within such a system, but I deny the assumption that violence I natural in a human interaction. I think that our society is broadly designed so that violence comes up because it distances the individuals from each other. Too many interactions are greatly impersonal and accommodate through that such anonymous behaviour as seen in the famous Stanford prison experiment. Cooperation is buried within a mountain of blurry concepts with uncertain meanings like nation, government, money, religion, education etc. in such a way that people no longer can see the cooperation between them. In a word, Alienation. I believe in a need of social\collective consciousness so that we can engineer together a society which satisfies all our need the best possible way.

Now that I have shortly presented my view, enough advertisement. I find the political passivity and ignorance of our world quite mind numbing. Things like wide spread conservatism makes me wonder what do those people hope to gain from their views. Why are people content and place their trust with systems that leaves people to starve to death and forces others to work relentlessly? Doesn't anyone want anything better than this? Discuss I guess.

[Cthulhu]

Economic Left/Right: -5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.28

That's what I got.

Things like wide spread conservatism makes me wonder what do those people hope to gain from their views.

I've seen people just as ignorant on the Liberal side too.  When asked about her choice to vote for Obama, my English teacher last year repeated the same lines like a mantra:

"Bush is a buffoon"
"Obama is Church of Christ"(Oh I lol'd at this one)
"How can I tell my son he could be President one day when all the Presidents so far have been old white guys?"(Her son is bi-racial, and this line is ironic because she insists she doesn't care that Obama is black)
"McCain's wife is creepy looking"(Because that's important in deciding who to vote for)

[Torak]

Economic Left/Right: -3.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 1.08


Odd. Some of the questions were biased to give a certain result no matter what option you chose, though.



I find myself to be an anarchist at heart, but I know anarchy doesn't work because someone has to go ahead and seize control of the people and ruin it for everyone.

[Cthulhu]

I think Communism is superior to Capitalism, but mankind is best suited to Capitalism, since we're so competitive and ambitious.

[Nilocy]

Economic Left/Right: -3.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.28

This is my morally correct side of politics. What I deep down think is the best.

On the other hand, i have my practical politics, in which capitalism should be allowed to take over everything. Cause businesses have a much better managment process than the governments do. Nuff said.

[Asheron]

Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.38

I see myself as a neo-communist. Basically, communism mixed with some business freedom, but most of all, democracy.
It should be more of everyone-is-part-of-the-state-and-has-their-say. I believe businesses should be allowed freedom, but the taxes on max income should go up and min income should go up. You can still make more then your fellow human, but not enough to raise you to a next class.
Also, their should be a huge emphasis on anti-corruption. Since power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts, their should ALWAYS be someone to tap you on your shoulder when you've done something wrong.

I want to avoid building a huge wall of text here, so I'd better stop.
So far for my two electrum coins.

[Aqizzar]

I remember seeing this test like three years ago on another forum.  Ah memories.  I also remember I got a different score every time I took it, because the questions don't have a No Opinion answer and many of them are worded to tilt to the "liberal" answer.

I always cringe when I see someone trot out that old line about how laizze-faire business is always better at solving problems.  I could pull out about a half-dozen examples from recent American history as to how utterly wrong this is, but I'll sum it up thusly.  You're looking at the problem wrong - businesses are in business to make money (this is a good thing), governments exist to do things people want that won't make money (this is a good thing).  A government is not a business, and the same rules cannot be applied.

As far as blind loyalty is concerned, I always remember my father's take.  He's a hard-line "roads and borders" libertarian, backwoodsy, and thoroughly racist.  We caught an Obama speech on TV one day and he said, "I get why people get extreme about leftists views.  'Let's all love and share everything and the world'll be great.'  The principles sound great.  I'll never understand how people can get extreme about starting wars and making the rich richer."

[Dasleah]

Economic Left/Right: -4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.79

Another test that ultimately comes across as useless as it only gives us four options, and I for one cannot so cleanly define my opinions amongst "Agree" or "Strongly Agree".

But yeah, I'm one of those guys who'd rather die on his feet than live on his knees. Give me liberty or give me death, blah blah blah  I mean, I follow the rules, but that's because I choose to be a productive member of society, not because I have to. And even I have to recognise sometimes that what's best for the state isn't what's best for the people.

Now we need a religion debate, to really get the muck flying

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well done on the poll and tpoic btw, it's nice to see a wide variety of options and something behind it to educate and back it up.

I think a point I'd like to make about capitalism is that we don't actually practice pure free market capitalism right now. The US government restricts companies by law from committing the most egregious assaults upon the liberty of everyone else. In a truly lawless, borderless free market, whether it's economic, political, cultural, you invariably see the strongest enslaving the weak.

I think people who believe in individuality above all else must believe they are in some way special, and able to rise above the mob to live a life of quality. But chances are you're actually not special, and if life reflected anarchist ideals you'd be one of the billions who get shafted. Hard.

After all, we watch zombie movies to see the survivors survive and die, right? And we may daydream about how we would fare in the role of the protagonist. It's just not as exciting to imagine being a zombie and getting blasted by a survivor. Well based on the numbers of survivors in the movies, every member of this forum would end up a zombie in the initial outbreak. Your chances of winning the lottery jackpot would be higher. Not everyone can be James T. Kirk, you know? Most of us wouldn't even be red shirts.

From that perspective, I wonder how someone could in self interest support anarchy. Knowing that in our society you're not at the top of the heap, and in a lot of other social structures you'd have no reason to believe it would be any different, does it simply ride on hope? This assumes there is an interest other than for the self, which I might be overestimating.

I'd actually like the people who consider themselves anarchists to talk about this because it's been swimming around in my head for a while.

[Reasonableman]

I refuse to use a single word to categorize my views.

The one principle of mine that I can define right now is this:
"The purpose of government is to ensure the liberty of the people above all else, even their lives, so long as it interferes with nobody else's life or liberty."

I really didn't want one of these topics to start, because nothing good ever seems to come of it. Ordinarily, people have a set of views gathered from experience that are too ingrained to be changed, and when others insist that those views are in fact wrong, only anger results.

EDIT: I'd like to point out that I am guilty of this same reaction, on occasion.

[Boksi]

I got:
Left/Right: -7
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.87

I have no idea what group that puts me in, and frankly I don't care.

[Cthulhu]

Are there no right-wingers on the netrowebmachine?

[Reasonableman]

Are there no right-wingers on the netrowebmachine?

Most people would probably call me right wing, but I don't want to subscribe to any pre-existing set of ideas.

EDIT: Silly me, that's not what ascribe means.

[Little]

Anything school tells you is wrong. There's my views.

[Cthulhu]

What if school says it's wrong?