FWIW, I reloaded the results page from my history and found that I side with Ron Paul with 82% of economic issues and 88% on social issues. Apparently, I only side with Massachusetts voters on 25% of the issues and Americans as a whole on 19%.
Just about all these polls, while decent about predicting who you would vote for, are not so good about determining just where you stand on various issues. I came up with Jill Stein with 71% and Obama at 70% on this one, for example, but I also found myself strongly agreeing with Ron Paul, of all people, on a subset of the issues (88% agreement, though I forget which subset).
I've also found that a lot of these quizzes show me as being more liberal than I actually consider myself (I personally consider myself a moderate). Maybe it's because a lot of these polls are all about black and white issues as opposed to the finer shades of gray I tend to see in actuality,
Well, I think that's the point of it, and also the failing of it.
This thing wants to detect people who feel they are for one candidate actually agree more with another candidate. For example, someone might think they are liberal, but after answering the questions be told the are not.
The problem is that when you tell someone they are something they are not, they just say the thing is wrong, or don't care.
There is also another issue. You say you consider yourself less liberal than the quizzes say you are. That is because you probably are more liberal than you think you are. You are just also non-confrontational, so you don't want to imagine yourself being on a side.
There is also the problem that we don't really have a liberal party in this country. Democrats and even Greens have the same stances on issues that centrist and even conservative parties of other countries have. Take the same quiz with French candidates and you probably will come out in the middle. In the US the middle is actually right of center. There is no left.
I'm for guaranteed living wages, universal employment, single-payer healthcare, progressive taxation, educational reform, electoral reform, legalization of marijuana (to the level of alcohol regulation), gay marriage, an amnesty-to-citizenship path for current illegal immigrants, massive copyright and patent law reform, and a number of other fairly radical things.
I'm indifferent to , say, federal gun control (though I would like stricter controls in my own state). Foreign policy is too dynamic to have a simple opinion or stance on. I have no strong ideological opinion on general economic policy.
I'm so far outside of the existing rubric of American politics I'd might as well not even exist politically.
The only reason Ron Paul shows up for anyone here is simply that the rest of his positions/issues aren't in the poll. If every stance he currently holds were in there associated with a question, he's probably hover around 0%. ;^)
Rym's stance politically is alarmingly close to mine. I don't think I've ever met another leftist/socialist that is also indifferent, more or less, to gun control.
Rym's stance politically is alarmingly close to mine. I don't think I've ever met another leftist/socialist that is also indifferent, more or less, to gun control.
The only reason Ron Paul shows up for anyone here is simply that the rest of his positions/issues aren't in the poll. If every stance he currently holds were in there associated with a question, he's probably hover around 0%. ;^)
I think the only ones I saw were no to abortion, and going onto the gold standard. Oh, and legalizing ALL drugs.
There is also another issue. You say you consider yourself less liberal than the quizzes say you are. That is because you probably are more liberal than you think you are. You are just also non-confrontational, so you don't want to imagine yourself being on a side.
There is also the problem that we don't really have a liberal party in this country. Democrats and even Greens have the same stances on issues that centrist and even conservative parties of other countries have. Take the same quiz with French candidates and you probably will come out in the middle. In the US the middle is actually right of center. There is no left.
Both excellent points. I will say this, I am definitely very willing to compromise and give and take, which may be why I feel I'm more moderate than liberal as a lot of the "hard core" liberals out there don't believe in compromise at all.
I also agree that, yeah, we don't really have a left in this country either.
I'm for guaranteed living wages, universal employment, single-payer healthcare, progressive taxation, educational reform, electoral reform, legalization of marijuana (to the level of alcohol regulation), gay marriage, an amnesty-to-citizenship path for current illegal immigrants, massive copyright and patent law reform, and a number of other fairly radical things.
Hmm, on these stances, I myself am for guaranteed living wages (best set by the states for CoL reasons I cited earlier, but a federal requirement that states set CoL-appropriate living wages is acceptable), progressive taxation, educational reform, electoral reform, marijuana on a par with alcohol, copyright/patent reform, and gay marriage similar to you.
I differ slightly on amnesty-to-citizenship for illegal aliens, but this may be more an implementation detail difference than a policy detail difference. I think illegal aliens seeking amnesty should face some sort of penalty for breaking the law, but the penalty should consist of payment of any back taxes owed (some do find ways to pay taxes, so this may not be as bad as it sounds), a penalty fine (but not one that's so high it's ridiculous: perhaps a small percentage of their income for a set period of time, say 5 years or so, with a cap) for coming here illegally, and things like mandatory English lessons and such to ease the citizenship path. Also, if you have committed a felony other than coming here illegally, you should be deported after due process and such. I'm also okay with deporting illegals who haven't been here long enough to set up roots and/or contribute to society in a meaningful way.
Universal employment is nice, but my only question is on whether it's economically possible. If it is, then I'm all for it.
Single-payer healthcare is something I view as a good solution to healthcare, but not the only solution. An individual mandate with a tightly regulated private insurance market similar to Switzerland could achieve the same goals. Note that I don't think the ACA/Obamacare/Romneycare/whatever you want to call it is all the way there yet as it doesn't regulate the private insurers anywhere near as much as the Swiss do.
I'm so far outside of the existing rubric of American politics I'd might as well not even exist politically.
Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
Gun control is better left to state and local governments to regulate. The necessity for certain firearms and environment is vastly different between NYC and Bumfuck Nebraska.
This I can partially agree with. My problem is we keep a classification of weapons that boils down to "it looks like it could kill a lot of people." I can mod a bolt action .22 to look like an M16 and it would be classified as an "assault weapon."
The theater shooting last night would have had fewer casualties if one of the "good guys" in the theater had just been armed.
There's nothing wrong with responsible, licensed gun ownership. The crazies are going to get guns anyway, legal or not. Much better to have someone equipped to thwart them on scene than to wait 15-20 minutes for police to come and tag bodies.
The theater shooting last night would have had fewer casualties if one of the "good guys" in the theater had just been armed.
There's nothing wrong with responsible, licensed gun ownership. The crazies are going to get guns anyway, legal or not. Much better to have someone equipped to thwart them on scene than to wait 15-20 minutes for police to come and tag bodies.
Please don't jump to conclusions. I would say it would be more likely for any sort of CCP shooter to shoot a bystander running away than the theater shooter. It was dark, he throw a tear gas grenade, and many people thought the sounds were part of the movie.
I'll look for citations, but I think it's practically a given that in the majority of situations where a gunman has opened fire and at least one intended victim has been armed the casualty count has been lower.
In this specific instance, maybe not due to mitigating factors like the gas.
Let's do the math; as of 2006, 25 percent of all adults in the U.S. report having at least one gun in their home, and concurrently the violent crime rate involving guns is eight times higher than that of any other developed nation.
The McDowall study showed guns are only used for defense in 0.2 percent of crime incidents. Of all those limited incidents, the victim shot the offender only 28 percent of the time. During the same three-year period covered by the study, there were 46,319 homicides in which a gun was the lethal agent. There were also 2.6 million non-lethal crimes in which a gun was used.
Another, the Kleck study, found that guns prevented 2.4 million crimes each year, though due to poor sample size and duration of that study further research suggests the actual number is about 10 times less with peaks up to 2.4 million. (The study is also largely discounted because it was published by Regnery Publishing, a firm specializing in conservative and anti-communist propaganda.)
The CDC also reports that between 2000-2005, one child died every three days due to gun accidents.
I'm referring to "needs of the many" logic whereby 100 defenseless people slaughtered by a lone gunman is OK in light of overarching statistics that show it's an anomaly.
The owning of guns doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a high violent crime rate. Switzerland has a higher gun ownership rate (around 33%) than the US and yet it has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world.
Whatever the causes of the high rate of violent crime in the US are, gun ownership on its own isn't one of them.
The point is that guns have a poor track record of actually preventing crime in the hands of civilians, and civilian gun deaths are fairly common. It's pretty irrational to think that a gun is useful as a weapon of self-defense.
You can't have it both ways; if you are going to discount the disproportionately high rate of gun ownership in the US as a correlating factor to gun violence, then you must also discount the hypothesis that a disproportionately high rate of gun ownership in the U.S. serves as a deterrent to gun violence.
Comments
This thing wants to detect people who feel they are for one candidate actually agree more with another candidate. For example, someone might think they are liberal, but after answering the questions be told the are not.
The problem is that when you tell someone they are something they are not, they just say the thing is wrong, or don't care.
There is also another issue. You say you consider yourself less liberal than the quizzes say you are. That is because you probably are more liberal than you think you are. You are just also non-confrontational, so you don't want to imagine yourself being on a side.
There is also the problem that we don't really have a liberal party in this country. Democrats and even Greens have the same stances on issues that centrist and even conservative parties of other countries have. Take the same quiz with French candidates and you probably will come out in the middle. In the US the middle is actually right of center. There is no left.
I'm for guaranteed living wages, universal employment, single-payer healthcare, progressive taxation, educational reform, electoral reform, legalization of marijuana (to the level of alcohol regulation), gay marriage, an amnesty-to-citizenship path for current illegal immigrants, massive copyright and patent law reform, and a number of other fairly radical things.
I'm indifferent to , say, federal gun control (though I would like stricter controls in my own state). Foreign policy is too dynamic to have a simple opinion or stance on. I have no strong ideological opinion on general economic policy.
I'm so far outside of the existing rubric of American politics I'd might as well not even exist politically.
I also agree that, yeah, we don't really have a left in this country either. Hmm, on these stances, I myself am for guaranteed living wages (best set by the states for CoL reasons I cited earlier, but a federal requirement that states set CoL-appropriate living wages is acceptable), progressive taxation, educational reform, electoral reform, marijuana on a par with alcohol, copyright/patent reform, and gay marriage similar to you.
I differ slightly on amnesty-to-citizenship for illegal aliens, but this may be more an implementation detail difference than a policy detail difference. I think illegal aliens seeking amnesty should face some sort of penalty for breaking the law, but the penalty should consist of payment of any back taxes owed (some do find ways to pay taxes, so this may not be as bad as it sounds), a penalty fine (but not one that's so high it's ridiculous: perhaps a small percentage of their income for a set period of time, say 5 years or so, with a cap) for coming here illegally, and things like mandatory English lessons and such to ease the citizenship path. Also, if you have committed a felony other than coming here illegally, you should be deported after due process and such. I'm also okay with deporting illegals who haven't been here long enough to set up roots and/or contribute to society in a meaningful way.
Universal employment is nice, but my only question is on whether it's economically possible. If it is, then I'm all for it.
Single-payer healthcare is something I view as a good solution to healthcare, but not the only solution. An individual mandate with a tightly regulated private insurance market similar to Switzerland could achieve the same goals. Note that I don't think the ACA/Obamacare/Romneycare/whatever you want to call it is all the way there yet as it doesn't regulate the private insurers anywhere near as much as the Swiss do. I know the feeling.
Obama is to the right of Ronald Reagan, politically.
Still, warrantless wiretapping: supported by Obama. US run torture camps: supported by Obama (except in word, which is useless), and on from there.
There's nothing wrong with responsible, licensed gun ownership. The crazies are going to get guns anyway, legal or not. Much better to have someone equipped to thwart them on scene than to wait 15-20 minutes for police to come and tag bodies.
In this specific instance, maybe not due to mitigating factors like the gas.
The McDowall study showed guns are only used for defense in 0.2 percent of crime incidents. Of all those limited incidents, the victim shot the offender only 28 percent of the time. During the same three-year period covered by the study, there were 46,319 homicides in which a gun was the lethal agent. There were also 2.6 million non-lethal crimes in which a gun was used.
Another, the Kleck study, found that guns prevented 2.4 million crimes each year, though due to poor sample size and duration of that study further research suggests the actual number is about 10 times less with peaks up to 2.4 million. (The study is also largely discounted because it was published by Regnery Publishing, a firm specializing in conservative and anti-communist propaganda.)
The CDC also reports that between 2000-2005, one child died every three days due to gun accidents.
Spock quotes aside, how do you think the families of those 98 dead from a single gunman feel about the whole thing?
Whatever the causes of the high rate of violent crime in the US are, gun ownership on its own isn't one of them.