Tue 12 Dec 2006
Here’s a quick political views survey I just made. Let’s see how you do. If you provide your education level, gender, city, state and zip I can plot you’all on a Google Map and segregate responses by demographics. It will be wicked fun!
Instructions: check each statement with which you agree. As soon as I get 30 or 40 responses I’ll throw up the responses.
Take the Ryan Byrd dot net Political Views Survey
If you’d like to take a stab at creating a rubric for grading the surveys that would be cool too. I’m thinking of identifying core liberal values and ancillary liberal values and assigning them corresponding weights. Then we could get a percentage of liberal for each submitter. I’d love to hear from you’all on a better way to do this, however.
I have an issue with one of the questions:
“There should be a clear separation of church and state”
That question could be interpreted so many different ways.
Should the state not have any control of religious organizations and not officially endorse a specific organization?
Or….
Should the state clearly separate itself from any religious aspects of society? Examples include not having religious symbols within government buildings or removing/disallowing any type of religious text from official government documents.
I think both those definitions could apply to that question, but they are on different ends of the spectrum politically.
Can you clarify the question?
good point. I changed the question to read:
12. There should be a clear separation of church and state. (The state should clearly separate itself from any religious aspects of society)
Nice quiz, although I believe there should be more questions so you have a better chance of figuring it all out
–Will
It should be more specific. I think religion has a definite part of society. The USA was setup and established by a group of men who where VERY religious. Although different in many ways they were devout followers of their respective religious views.
I think the State can stand on and have religious values and not favor one religion above another. Similar to how I live my life. I have certain religious values and I afford anyone to have their own.
If we give in to the ‘tolerate everything’ attitude we will destroy our society. It has happened to every major empire that existed in the history of the world. Liberalism crept in and brought them to their knees and then kicked them in the head. A ‘democracy’ ‘republic’ or a ‘representative democracy’ are all still RULE MY MAJORITY! We MUST not allow the minority voice to control the majority vote. One day we will regret it.
Your quiz is too bipolar. You want me to either wholly agree or wholly disagree with some very complex issues.
Take your abortion question. In general I believe women should be responsible for their sexual promiscuity and the consequences that go with it. However, I don’t think it’s right to force a rape victim to carry anyone’s baby especially if they are underage. The aspect that never seems to be considered in the public debate is what affect on society to all these unwanted babies have? How many become orphans? How many become criminals and drug addicts? What kind of lives do they lead? I think if the baby is going to be abandoned by the mother if forced to be carried to term, you have to weigh those consequences in your lawmaking.
The question about patriotism is certainly loaded. Liberals have been accused of being anti-American and unpatriotic for daring to suggest the president was off his rocker with some of his anti-terrorism and war-making policies. If you dared speak out you were told you’re either with us (an American patriot) or against us (a terrorist supporter). I’m sorry but that’s F’ed up. One of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans is the right to openly disagree with the highest officer in the land without fear of being whisked away in the night. I truly believe those who were speaking out against the USA Patriot Act and the Iraq Ware were inherently being more patriotic than those who simply agreed and went about their business, because it is that very dichotomy of thought that makes our country great. It provides a self-correcting mechanism when the country gets off course. Dissent without bloodshed is unheard of in human history, but we have it here and it is fundamental to our freedom.
Finally, the last question about whether religion is good or bad cannot be answered in such a general way. Religion at the macro scale can be and has often been very destructive. We’re currently engaged in what amounts to Islam vs. Christianity to in this War on Terror. The problem is in the interface between religious groups. People believe so strongly in their religion they are often willing to die for it. However, on a micro scale religion is very beneficial to individuals and localized groups of people. It provides a moral compass and wholesome values to live by. But it also makes them susceptible to sheisters and con-men. You tell me, does religion do more harm than good? On a global scale, I’d have to say yeah, it’s pretty messed up. On a local scale, I’d say no, it goes wonderful things.
That’s why I won’t answer your quiz. If you want to give me a scaled answer to each question like
Strongly agree
Generally agree
Generally disagree
Strongly disagree
Then I’d be more willing to participate.
picky, picky, picky. Webmonkey, the survey was not intended to be scientific. It was a quick litmus test. you check the box if you agree, if you don’t (or have caveats/reservations), you don’t check the box. then we get a general idea of one’s standing. I chose 16 statements I thought a very liberal person would agree to. Checking one or more of those statements is an indication of your alignment to that ideology.
picky, picky, picky…
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree. We live in a world where liberal is a 4-letter word, especially in Utah. Liberalism is not any better or worse philosophically than conservatism. But with the conservative movement in power for 12 years now, liberals have taken quite a beating. And with GWB firmly dividing the country as either “with us or against us,” it’s become a rather touchy subject. I’m not THAT much older than you, am I?
I consider myself liberal but I don’t align myself with most of the so-called liberal organizations out there, because they tend to be the vocal minorities in the same way the vocal minorities on the right give conservatives a bad name.
I stand by my statement that you should provide a range of answers to each question. Without that, I have to assume by “Agree” you mean “strongly agree” and I do not strongly agree with many of the statements.
I’m curious, why do you seek to establish what the core and ancillary liberal values are? Are you interested in learning how liberal you may be?
Hello again, Chris! Let’s see…
it’s true that liberals are given a hard time here in Utah. As for my standing, I took the “real” test over at politicalcompass.org (which, yes, has those “agree”, “strongly agree”, etc.) and I fell exactly on the y axis and a slight bit to the right on the x axis. I think that means that I’m an inbetweener.
To be honest, I really just wanted to play around more with google maps, so I had to invent a reason and a political survey sounded like a good way to gather some data.
SO TAKE THE FREAKING SURVEY ALREADY!!!
Ryan
I’m coming out of the closet… I’m slightly left…
Following the example of my buddy Ryan Byrd, I took the Political Compass Questionnaire and lo and behold, I’m slightly left:
Economic Left/Right: -1.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.87
So I’m in the Authoritarian Left quadrant.ÃÂ B…