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Libertarian Left update...

Image updated - 18 June...
Yesterday I linked up to the Political Compass poll and expressed my satisfaction with my Lefty/Libertarian results. I put out a call for readers to take the test and pop their results here. To the right you'll see an image of the results to date for those that have submitted, without names. I can add them if you want, it's no matter to me. I will keep checking to see if new results get posted and will update this picture periodically.

There are still only a handful of respondents so far but I am seeing a couple of interesting things in the numbers. First, we all to varying extent tilt toward the Libertarian on personal rights and the perceived role of government. Secondly, I am seeing a general trend along a line 45° from the axes, implying generally that those that are further to the left also tend to be further to the Libertarian. I am proud to say that one of those two dots in SW corner is me.

As I said, there is only a few points here and while nothing scientific is planned for this little project, any trends would be clearer with more points of reference. If you would like to participate, just click on the image and away you go - it only takes a couple of minutes to do the quiz.

I know Mrs. Flash did it too, I'll get her to send it along, since she's a regular reader as well. That is an interesting observation - there may be a real study in here somewhere.

If anyone does the poll sober *and* drunk, as briguy suggested in the other post, send in both results. I'll post them in a different colour.

I'll get inebriated this weekend and take the test.

(feel free to post my name for either or both)

I dislike that particular quiz. A lot of the questions are meaningless (at least insofar as telling what your political philosophy is) and it has frequently put people whose political beliefs I know quite well very far off where they should be. I know a libertarian-lefty who got labelled a right-wing authoritarian, and a right-wing authoritarian who got labelled a libertarian-lefty.

For my part, when I take it, I always get libertarian-left. Even when I was actually a right-wing libertarian a couple years ago, I still got libertarian-left. That quiz is garbage.

BG,
Interesting. I don't know that much about surveys, so I don't know enough about this one really to tell whether or not it's valid or no. One comment I would have, however, is that there are not that many questions - I would think more would be better in this case. Also, if I was making up the quiz, I would put in nearly-redundent questions and change topics back and forth to prevent the testee from getting "on a roll".

That said, my results are certainly in the place that I would visually put myself on the graph. Perhaps a bit more extreme than I really feel, but certainly not that far off.

This one might be one of the best quizzes I've seen.

http://www.moral-politics.com/

I've taken that test a few times, but I'll take it again and post my results for you to graph. I'll probably skew your trend line a little bit. :)

2.13 and -0.31.

I normally score a little more Libertarian. Interesting.

Economic Left/Right: -7.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.05

I'll help offset tt ;)

BG, I think the value in this is not that it give empirical absolute data, but relative data. As you can see, a lot of us left Liberals or Dippers score in the same area because we are similar relative to each other. And Cons and other libertarians score differntly as well.

Or maybe you are a left Libertarian but just don't want to admit it.

:)

BG, don't really think much of your test, actually, it's less questions for one thing, plus it seems weighted towards giving more emphasis towards the right-wing viewpoint. For instance, I fail to see what belief in God may have to do with my morality, or lack of it - sounds too much like the Christianist viewpoint that 'atheists can't be moral' for my liking.

Hmm, I think I've changed since the last time I did this. My political compass
Economic Left/Right: -9.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.59

BG,
That quiz is interesting, though, like Dan I think that there are too few questions. And some of the questions were really tough for me to answer and I'm sure to second guess them if I looked it over again. With only 16 questions, answering these few a different way surely would replot me in a very different place.

That said, it put me in a place I'm comfortable with.

5.88 and 4.77. I've taken this a couple of times now and always wind up in the same general area but with different scores. I also think that the questions are too vague in some places and designed for a US audience in a couple of cases. Just for the hell of it I think that I'll take it a couple more times over the next few days to see how the score adjusts.

Hmm, 6.13 and 5.23 and it's only a few hours later. I'll put it down to my mood at the time. Working for New Brunswick's largest Evil Capitalist Empire might have some effect on the economic score. More research is needed but given the general nature of the provided replies I suspect my scores will vary some more. Any thoughts on this kevvy?

Doug,
Are those positive numbers? Knowing you as well as I do, I'm surprised. Not shocked, just surprised.

As for the variability, I think that a changed answer on any one or two questions might account for it. I would think that the views of any single (real) person would actually form a cloud of points that would depend in part on mood, time of day, etc.

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