My Scores:
Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.98
I think the main reason I’ve been put to the liberal side on social issues is because I think gay people should have equal rights, but apart from that I think I’m fairly conservative.
I might be considered liberal in America though because I’m from England and America seems to be a lot more conservative than over here.
yeah, i am thinking of going to england soon, but america is suffering from so many political problems… seriously, the pressure from the south and the religous groups is rediculous. It makes me glad, that despite our hopeless leader, that i live in Canada
By my political compass I’m an anarcho-communist. I consider myself a social-democrat with an especial liking of the Nordic model.
Based on my understanding of the axes, I belong about halfway between the center of the purple quadrant and the vertical axis.
However, I think the placement of the famous names in the OP is seriously flawed. How does Ralph Nader’s crusade against business leave him in the libertarian half of the map? How in the world can uber-libertarian Ron Paul be in the authoritarian half?
Something in either the test or the reporting is seriously broken.
Probably because Ron Paul isn’t a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination.
Can you elaborate on that incredible comment?
I’ve had this post ready on other political forums. It’s tempting to take all the information and post it in one gigantic post but it’d a) go over the character limit, and b) take way too long.
Aha, a bunch of Ron’s federalism and free-speech stances twisted into “racism”. Basically, because he will let others say unpopular things or would leave many decisions to states, he is branded racist and “authoritarian”. How Orwellian. Paul is definitely an enemy of progressives, but not because he would exercise too much power.
Do tell me how “95% of African American men in D.C. are semi-criminal or entirely criminal” is in any way, shape or form, a stance about “freedom.” The freedom to starve and die, perhaps. And before you say that Paul didn’t, in fact, write those articles… the evidence disagrees with you:
Ron Paul “approved every line” of the newsletters.
Ron Paul “always got to see the final product… He would proof it”
Paul on L.A. Riots 1992: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”
He also has some nasty ties to white supremacist groups. So that’s fun.
But ultimately off topic! This is about his public policy initiatives, no? Regardless, freedom and Ron Paul don’t belong anywhere near one another. He doesn’t believe in freedom. Freedom from the feds, maybe. The individual states though? Why, that’s another matter entirely. Because see, according to Ron Paul, there is no right to privacy.
lewrockwell.com/paul/paul120.html
And he would make absolutely certain that no such right was protected:
thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.958:
But heck, he even thinks that states have the power to regulate sex. I’m not super keen on voting for a man who wants to give state governments a wink and a knowing nod when they deliberately strip me of my rights.
But you don’t think arresting someone for consensual sex is “authoritarian”, eh? What about all the other things Paul’s “We the People Act” would allow the states to do? Would it be micromanagement if the government forced you to undergo medical treatment? How about banning birth control? Imposed religion upon you? Hell, he even knowingly and shamelessly voted for passing an unconstitutional bill because he’s opposed to abortion rights.
archive.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul98.html
clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll242.xml
Ron Paul would give states the authority to deny liberty that neither the federal nor state government currently has. Ron Paul is an authoritarian, end of.
You want a libertarian? Vote for someone like Gary Johnson. I mean, libertarianism is still a fundamentally repugnant ideology (she says, a diehard centrist), but at least you won’t be hypocritical. How can you support someone like Ron Paul or his ilk? He would singlehandedly shred the entirety of the first amendment. Forgive me if I have a bit more respect for the constitution than that.
Fortunately, I don’t really care much any more. He’s an old man who will never gain political office ever again, and I thank God every day (well, every time I remember to) for that fact. All that remains to be done is to continue combating his vile and objectively harmful beliefs whenever they spring up (inevitably by the Tea Party, but they’re a story for another day), wherever they spring up.
I can see that we’re not going to find common ground on parsing Ron Paul’s political philosophy. I measure him by his votes in Congress. There he opposed what I opposed (not that it ever did either of us any good). He was one of only a handful of votes against USA PATRIOT, he wants to dissolve the Fed, and he would dissolve several other agencies for which there’s no Constitutional justification. In the “actions speak louder than words” analysis, that still makes him a libertarian in my book.
Maybe his views on states rights are confusing (averring that states have a power doesn’t mean favoring a particular policy using it), but I never voted for him to hold state office, so I haven’t studied in detail. Maybe my opinion of him would be different if I’d seen him in a state legislature for a couple decades.
And yes, I did vote for Gary Johnson (as well as both Libertarians who ran against GW Bush). I think the last time I voted for a winning presidential candidate was 1988 (Bush Senior), back when I was young and naive enough to read his lips and think he was telling the truth.
His votes in Congress? Forgive me if I’m not too keen on having private mercenaries fighting our wars for us or defaulting on our debts. More than that though,he’s incredibly inconsistent. Here are just a few examples of Rep. Paul’s inconsistent views and actions:
He oppose environmental and conservation laws on the grounds that such issues should be dealt with by tort litigation based on property rights. However, he supports tort reform (particularly by states) that would limit exactly such litigation.
As Wikipedia notes, “Paul also states that he has an opposition to virtually all federal interference with the market process, even though he has inserted Congressional earmarks that specifically direct spending into such projects, including the aforementioned projects which appropriated millions of dollars for the renovation of a defunct movie theater and millions in subsidies for the American wild shrimp industry as well as Federal spending to improve shipping in Texas.”
On a wide range of issues, Rep. Paul believes that states should not be limited by the Bill of Rights. On other issues, such as gun rights (2nd Amendment), internet regulation, eminent domain, etc., he believes that states are limited by the Bill of Rights. Similarly, although he argues for “states rights” to legislate on almost all issues, he has supported overriding federal laws on a wide range of issues including ballot access, health care, abortion, mental health care, welfare, immigration, and family law.
Rep. Paul has argued vehemently against a border fence, but voted for voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, authorizing an additional 700 miles (1100 kilometers) of double-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico.
There are more (and I could be more specifc), but I honestly can’t be bothered. Anyone who looks at Rep. Paul’s various positions should recognize that many of his positions are simply convenient ways to impose a conservative, religious agenda couched in libertarian language. Letting the states run wild on issues does not maximize freedom – it allows the states to be authoritarian. Rep. Paul conveniently insists, however, that states be curbed in their authority on specific areas where it is likely that states would do something he oppose.
But really, just look at the “We the People” Act, Ron Paul’s legislative baby:
He’s a theocrat, make no mistake about it.
Now, you may agree with that and that’s your prerogative, but at least be honest about it.
And for someone who claims to care about the constitution (I really can’t take goldbugs at all seriously), he sure seems to hate the 1st, 14th, and 16th amendments, and openly wants to repeal the 17th.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Peo … People_Act
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_le … egislation
Both of those weaken the 1st and 14th.
Also weakens the 14th.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ … esentation
Public call for the repeal of the 17th.
Are we done here?
I think a dynamic the political compass doesn’t take into account is your favourability for sovereignty vs internationalism; a possible idea for a 3-dimensional poltiical “cube”. For example, Donald Trump is more economically centrist than the traditional Republican party, has authoritarian tendencies, and is very much in favour of sovereignty compared to internationalism. I think Ron Paul is incorrectly placed in the diagram of the 2-d political spectrum; unlike Trump he is very Libertarian, and very much on the economic right or Capitalist,so I would place him in the purple quadrant of the 2-d political compass (lower right corner). The reason why his authoritarian score is distorted (artificially high) is because like Trump, he favours sovereignty over internationalism; there is a potential for those favouring either sovererignty or internationalism to be either authoritarian or libertarian, hence why a third dimension is needed.
I think that there is a cube like that on Medium thought catalog, but I think it’s an article for reading and illustration rather than an actual cube test. There is a prism test on github.io that is basically a cube test but in 2-D.