Curious how you define the labels: 'conservative' and 'liberal'.
Could you explain what these terms mean to you?
(I find that the common invoking of these labels to be so muddled that they often provide little useful information... and the meaning of the terms themselves has significantly changed over the years....)
For example --- although I'm not particularly fond of labels --- if pressed I would generally define myself by use of THREE scales (fiscal, social, authoritarian/libertarian) to be a:
Fiscal Conservative, Social Moderate (Social Liberal if you will... don't really care, it all depends on one's vantage point), and with strong Libertarian beliefs (ie, anti-Authoritarian).
Some would argue that policies coming out of our current administration would place them in the categories of:
Fiscal Liberal, Social Conservative, +Authoritarian.
And, there is certainly no great shortage inside the Washington beltway still of pols who are Fiscally Liberal, Socially Liberal, and + or minus Authoritarian.
(On a parenthetical note, I observe that the MAIN thing that seems common to Fiscal Liberal Social Liberals, and Fiscal Liberal Social Conservatives... is their *common* promotion of a Bigger, More Intrusive Government. Although they pursue different policy objectives, both groups tend to require a bigger government to enforce their objectives.)
Even using THREE word-labels though (Fiscal, Social, Libertarian/Authoritarian) is not nearly as accurate as assigning points on a number scale to each metric --- which is why I'd like to suggest the *VERY SHORT TESTS* linked below.
Perhaps you would (out of curiosity of course, and in a free moment) care to take one or two of these tests, and then share the results here? I find each of the tests to be very useful in quantifying beliefs, sometimes eye-opening, (and, I'm certainly willing to share my scores, if you are interested, or take any alternate survey(s) you might care to suggest... in the spirit of open inquiry).
Try one or more of THESE. They are all SHORT, don't take much time, and have been widely reported on, widely regarded as objective measures, and used by millions:
World's Smallest Political Quiz
lp.org
Political Party Matchmaker
3pc.net
Political Compass Test
politicalcompass.org |
