He asked, quizically

[ornoth]

I almost never take quizzes, and even less frequently post the results, but in this case I find the way the results are presented interesting.

The quiz is the OkCupid Politics Quiz. It quantifies people’s political beliefs along two axes that represent how much government should restrict people’s economic and social behavior. Those two axes are clearly shown in Chart 1, which the other two charts are based upon.

Being liberal and progressive (and more so since I started reexamining my personal philosophy some years ago), I pretty much knew where I was likely to fall: government should work to ensure social freedoms, but carefully limit economic freedoms in the service of a guaranteed minimum standard of living and equal opportunities for all. That’s reflected by the marker representing me in Chart 1. As always, click for bigness.

Chart 2 is the same chart, but it roughly overlays famous politicians based on where they fall on the same axes. I’m snuggled nicely in the Clinton/Obama camp, which again is no surprise.

The one that really got my attention was Chart 3, which maps out all the major political movements against those axes, including not just Democrat and Republican, but Socialism, Libertarianism, Anarchism, Totalitarianism, and so forth. That’s the interesting nugget for me: seeing the way these political groups relate to one another and differentiate themselves.

Having grown up in a household dominated by a very conservative and very political father, I’m curious what his results would have been. I could see him fitting in anywhere in the arc from Libertarian through Capitalist and Republican.