General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama and The Political Compass:
Last edited Sat Jun 29, 2013, 11:18 AM - Edit history (1)
[font size=7]Where's Waldo Obama?[/font]
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
burnodo
(2,017 posts)how is that possible?
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)burnodo
(2,017 posts)Somebody get the tar and feathers!
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)LWolf
(46,179 posts)between "most people here's" political philosophy and the political system in the U.S.; also a huge disconnect between "most people here's" political philosophy and those they vote for.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I've seen these axes before by groups touting libertarianism. *shrug*
http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.88&soc=-4.56
(That's me)
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)A couple of antonyms of authoritarian are "democratic" and "liberal"; not as shown here, libertarian.
I also note that the compass doesn't include communism or socialism or anarchy and is quite limited though nominally better than just the 2-dimentional left versus right.
I'd also include some information about the Overton Window theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Perhaps it's time "the public" stop accepting some of the off the damned chart authoritarian crap being done to "protect" us and "for our own good".
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)There is much more of an explanation of the model there.
You're posting from a position of too little information.
They do show where Stalin ended up (Authoritarian Left), etc., and you can map socialists, Paulites, etc. onto the 2-dimensional model.
Note that there can be both authoritarian & libertarian socialists, as well as many other configurations.
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)Perhaps longer ago or more recently? Well, it's measured in years not minutes or hours.
I "scored" off the lower left of the chart; yep...the furthest south and west was where my "dot" landed. After that, I went and played with the various answers to see how their "methodology" was calculated. It's strongly driven by the "status quo" and "common knowledge"; in short, it falls short. That would be why, in part, I suggested the Overton Window. That adds another layer to who, why, and how people acquire certain "values" which then inform their "opinions"; including their "political" identification.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)were somewhat missing the point of it.
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)Yeah, I can see where people might think adding something to "the mix" might be missing the point. Asking people to read beyond a certain instance of "tunnel vision" might make it difficult to expand their view point.
My apologies.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)the OED says "one who approves of or advocates liberty". (The narrow, US-centric usage as in "Libertarian Party" doesn't alter the original meaning of the word.)
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)But my experience of "L" and "l" libertarians have been those so far to the right it's difficult to differentiate them from fascists; that is, those to the extreme far "right" of authoritarianism. Hardly advocates of Liberty with any case of "l".
While you're looking in the OED; check out the definition of "competition". Quite amazing how it's been twisted since its beginning. As have so many other words and their meanings.
I don't really care how one identifies themself; I'm more interested in how their values manifest, how they act, in the "real" world.
As to this so-called metric of political compass; I find it falls short. If that bothers people, I can't help that. It's too either/or and not enough both/and; it doesn't do nuance. People, generally speaking, are rarely so 2-dimensional as this metric tries to convey. That would be my opinion based on some years of interaction with non-2-dimensional humans.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Are you familiar with Principal Components Analysis? Oblique versus orthogonal rotations?
We're basically talking about simple concepts such as the percentage of variance accounted for in a given factorial solution. The Compass does have some empirical legitimacy.
However, I'm sure your intuitions is far superior to mere empirical data.
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)I like you and I've agreed with you over the years.
Your appeal to authority at this point in time because I criticized an online "test" and stated I thought it was too simplistic, not being one of those times.
I may get back to you later or decide it's not worth the effort.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)and trust that this minor spat won't sour a long-term relationship. I got a lot snarkier than the situation called for. I really generally try not to do that, but sometimes my impulses overcome me.
Anyway, I did look up some of the original literature on the construction of these factorial models & need to back off a bit on the degree of empirical solidity behind the Political Compass.
Principal components analysis (and its near-cousin, factor analysis) is a method of simplifying large data sets. Imagine that you have 100 variables--say, answers to questions about political attitudes--and you compute Pearson correlations between each of the possible item pairs. The number of item pairs is something like (100*99)/2 You end up with a very large triangular matrix that is very difficult to make sense out of. PCA/FA starts with this correlation matrix & attempts to reduce it to a smaller set of variables (i.e. components or factors) that account for most of the information in the matrix.
Depending on what it is you are trying to analyze, you may find that a very small number of factors can account for most of the variability among the original variables. People who are pro-choice are also likely to favor accessible contraception, etc.
One major problem with any PCA/FA is that you obviously can't discover anything about relationships among variables that aren't included, so sometimes people incorporate implicit theories in their selection of just what variables to include in the original analysis.
Also, different approaches can yield somewhat different results, and there are several methods of conducting a factor analysis (e.g. Principal Factor, Maximum Likelihood,etc.). There is also controversy about what rotational schemes should be used to produce, and there are a number of such schemes with esoteric names like Varimax, Quartimax, Oblimin, etc. Some of these rotational schemes are oblique (i.e. they permit correlated factors) and others are orthogonal (i.e. they permit only uncorrelated factors that schematically lie at right angles to each other).
Two-dimensional schemes like the Political Compass are based on the first (i.e. largest in terms of variance accounted for) two factors to be extracted.
So, in any case, upon looking back at the PC literature, I see that it does present some unresolved problems, particularly in terms of which variables were included for data collection & analysis.
OK now, if you're still with me after that terribly boring discourse, let me suggest that we share the goal of moving the "Overton Window" in a direction more to our liking.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,711 posts)Economic Left/Right: -4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.28
pscot
(21,024 posts)put me in minus territory? Being the ideological and philosophical antithesis of Mitt Romney strikes me as being positive, not negative.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,355 posts)because, I should think, Europeans read from left to right, and so it's traditional to put 1 to the left of 2, 2 to the left of 3, etc.
You could argue about whether authoritarian should be a negative score; perhaps they saw that most people, especially in the west, fall either in the left/libertarian or right/authoritarian quadrants, and though it would make more sense to have most people either negative/negative, or positive/positive.
pscot
(21,024 posts)based on unexamined presumptions.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,355 posts)We've explained why left is negative. For you just to say "this is an unexamined presumption" is itself a presumption. They may have had a reason for putting authoritarian at the top.
LuvNewcastle
(16,855 posts)The middle coordinate is (0,0). Anything to the left of that point is registered in negative numbers and anything to the right of that point is in positive numbers. That's the way graphs work. Being in positive or negative territory has no moral implications.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)that I've been able to find; it offers the best system for categorizing political positions. In my opinion.
It clearly shows the chasm between where I stand and where American politicians operate. It's based on actions, not words. It also graphically shoots down the "lesser evil" doctrine shoved down our throats every election season.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)Or so offended when folks say they feel the two major parties are too similar.
I'm also increasingly under the impression that Democratic politicians come closer to Republican voters than their own and also probably are closer in views to Republican voters than Republican politicians because right or left economically, most Americans probably lean toward the bottom of the map anti-authoritarian so Democrats being on the right economically tend to be a little less authoritarian.
Those of us on the bottom left have no representation of substance at all. We've got pretty much no one of stature on our half of the map and even less in our quadrant.
For many of us a Jill Stein would be a lesser of two evils, still substantially to our right and north a piece. Expecting even minimal satisfaction from a consistently opposite quadrant is silly, of course folks are going to hunger for folks in their approximate neighborhood.
I think we could improve this by expanding the House significantly and requiring regular shapes in districts. The huge districts overly homogenize and the funky lines exacerbate and dictate this. I think this would force a greater variety of voices and perspectives while making the Representative more accountable to their district.
I also think the parties should be stripped of all power in dictating their primary races (no super delegates, no party fund raising, no influence on election dates) and party should not be identified on ballots. Of course all elections would be fully publicly funded. I tend to think that a national primary day would be good for the process too instead of the over-weighting and jockeying that goes on now. I bet many of us have never cast a meaningful primary vote in our lives because the race is decided by the time we come to the plate.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)voting system with a mixture of proportional representation and alternative voting.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Last time it was Mahatma Gandhi, next it will be Jesus Christ. Nobody here really takes this stuff seriously, do they?
p.s. these "you might be Libertarian" charts are total horseshit and so is the beloved politicalcompass.org, which is as dubious as Internet sources get, complete with misleading attribution: "Pace News Ltd." has no known connection to Pace University or to any other reputable publication, institution, or organization. Good for a laugh, like sneaky RW propaganda always is, and that's it.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)going on & on about it.
The main problem here seems to be that people can't distinguish between the original meaning of a term like "libertarian" and the deformations of that meaning brought about by nutcases like Rand Paul and Ayn Rand who co-opted it. The latter are Right libertarians, who have little in common (except maybe ending the drug war) with Left libertarians.
American "Libertarians," which is to say, Right Libertarians, are interested mostly only in the liberty of the powerful to stomp the commoners. True libertarians (in a sense that is not much used in this country) seek increased civil liberties and self-determination for the common people. This generally does not include the "freedom" to amass huge amounts of money & power with which to subjugate everyone else.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)ending the war drug, and some also ending the persecution of the worlds oldest profession.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)"Real libertarians" vs those you consider to have co-opted the term.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)According to this, Obama doesnt want to use Chained CPI on veterans benefits
He opposes Free Trade
He wants to decriminalize pot and end the drug war
He wants to prosecute banks for lending fraud
He opposes No Child Left Behind
and much more, none of which sounds very much like the Obama we have. Ho wonder he scored in the liberal quadrant. It wasnt him who was being rated.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)And its very accurate, way more accurate than the joke that is the political compass.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)War Horse
(931 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)while the model itself is 2-dimensional. If Gandhi & Mandela lie somewhat near the Paulites on one dimension (and I don't think they actually do), they differ greatly from each other on the other.
cali
(114,904 posts)giving any credence to them.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Which just shows rational observers how wacky political compass is--if you read its op-eds, it's run by a Paulbot.