Aloha,

Jeff

I don’t now what “moderate” means. I know I register as an independent because I do not wish to formally align myself with either the Donkeys or the Pachyderms. If “moderate” means “independent,” then I’m moderate.

But if “moderate” means “middle of the road” (whatever THAT means), I’m nothing approaching “moderate.”

If “moderate” means “meek” or “modest” or “mild-mannered” in my attitude toward politics or current goverance, then the pollsters can kiss my ass.

We need more dimensions to any political compass. What about “depth of involvement”? What about “degree of willingness to speak out”? What about “willingness to do the homework necessary to speak out effectively”?

We don’t need a political compass. We need a compass that measures the willingness of the mind and soul to be independent, critical thinkers.

Not voyeurs. Not sycophants. Not miscreants. Not morons.

Thinkers.

Sam, I shared your frustration with many of the questions. I wanted a different option than the available ones, sometimes more nuanced, sometimes more extreme. Finally just a game, though I find it curiously reassuring to be officially designated a goddamned commie hippie.

This is part of what gripes me when I see people who refuse to acknowledge that real life doesn’t always conform to their theories…

The Political Compass system is certainly an improvement, with its left-right economic axis and authoritarian-libertarian social axis, though it would be even better with a third dimension, perhaps measuring flexibility-rigidity. When I took the quiz, I ended up to the far lower left of the schema, more left than Ghandi and more libertarian than the Dalai Lama. I guess I would have been at home in a 1930s Catalonian syndicalist commune; that’s probably why I find Berkeley so congenial