29. September, 2003 - politics

• Where do you fall on the The Political Compass? Jim scored -8.00 on the Economic Left/Right scale and -7.69 on the Authoritarian/Libertarian scale. (And he really wonders where Dave will fall) [jim]
  The first time I took the test? Straight down, slightly right of dead center. 0.5, -3.0 or so. On the second try, 5.5, -4.6 (taking a less “reasonable” stance on things, and always feeling strongly about my answer). In both cases, I’m in the quadrant with absolutely no politicians in it. I had planned to do a thorough fisking of this quiz, but I haven’t had the time. So I’ll settle for a couple examples I can bash out this morning:
  • One is the question that says: Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified. Agreeing with this one apparently makes you more of an authoritarian. The assumption behind the question seems to be that international law is never wrong, which seems implausible to me.
  • On the same page, there’s a question: Our race has many superior qualities, compared to other races. And I wonder which “race” the test’s author means. I was thinking the human race which apparently isn’t the politically correct answer. Who’s the racist?
  • Finally, there’s A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system. If you agree that this is an advantage (I find it hard to argue that fact, even though the advantage is not for the goals I would choose), you’re also branded an authoritarian, rather than a libertarian.
• If you’re interested in understanding current American politics, reading The Jacksonian Tradition by Walter Russell Mead may help. It also gives me another label to ponder using for myself. I often fall closer to a Jacksonian than a Jeffersonian.
• Says here Michael Moore Hates America. And he won’t talk to a passionate guy with a camera. Shades of Roger Smith? Could be.
• It was bound to happen–at last Friday’s Critical Mass an SUV ran over a bicycle.. Luckily no one was hurt, though you’ll notice in the posting that the bicyclist was arrested. The Escalade driver was let go. When the cop was asked about this and told he ran over a bicycle he responded Is that illegal?. [jim]

Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek. Last updated on Mon, 29 Sep 2003 09:01:30.