Friday, September 15, 2006

Fun but not worth much.

Your Political Profile:
Overall: 65% Conservative, 35% Liberal
Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal
Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal


I tend to think this little test has far too questions to be very meaningful. Some answers that make one "liberal" on the test are in fact liberal answers but others are socialist answers. The authors of the test can't tell the difference between liberal and socialist and they think politics is made up of a left-right spectrum which doesn't make sense and never did. Any spectrum that said Hitler and Stalin were opposites is clearly defective. But it was fun to do and see how it turned out.

And some of the questions offered false alternatives. You had to pick between saying the justice system has problems because it is either too loose with its interpretation of laws or there isn't enough rehabilitation and rights for prisoners. Neither of those are the main issue by any means. The designers of the test are constrained by the limitations of their own perspectives.