Political Demarcation is Useless

[Sal]

What is your political alignment?

Traditionally this has been a position of Left and Right.

There is a political compass test to show where you fall within a political 2-dimensional graph from answering a series of questions, that I'm sure most of y'all have taken at some point, to plot your "position" on this graph with the Y-axis between Libertarian and Authoritarian and the X-axis of Left and Right, politically. There is also political values test like 9axes and 8values with even more questions than the political compass test, to place you on supposedly diametrically opposed values, e.g. Secular vs Religious. You can find a list of 9 such demarcations from 9axes.github.io. 

The problem, IMO, with such demarcations is that they don't accurately account for someone's values - not even for binary choices - because there will always be overlap and special cases and exceptions, with more situations that are introduced and hypotheticals imagined. Political values aren't easily put into a sliding line between 2 values when talking about political convictions, and most notably, it isn't all that obvious that any 2 values are even opposites. This problem is just compounded further, the more political values you account for, for which that aren't even a question of a binary choice.

I speculate that these demarcate distinctions are a result of rival political factions, where the differences on their own became associated with these left and right political seats. Today those distinctions are arbitrary, IMO. You can combine any number of different values any way you like, that you can't even represent accurately on any dimensional graph or slider; case in point the ridiculous Nazbol political ideology.

At the end of the day the stuff a political party accomplished is a question of how (what methodology they used) and what they did. Now, if a ruling political party doesn't accurately represent the will of the people living in that country, what is the fucking point? I guess I'd like a more pragmatic approach and more coherent political view of government. One that has a clear policy, how to enact that policy and stated goals they wish to achieve from that policy. Putting people in diametrically opposed camps is divisionary, when we're all in the same boat.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’ve never taken any of the tests you mentioned, but I consider myself a social democrat with capitalist overtones and just a shading of a direct market manipulator.

I’ve never felt the need to use a test to pigeonhole myself.

Boru

[Sal]

If someone wants a short answer to my political convictions, instead of answering what amounts to a 20-page dissertation, I just say that I'm most aligned with social democracy with mixed economy.

I basically vote for those that will further progressivism in social, technological, scientific and economic advancements. I will vote against conservatism, unchecked capitalism (such as de-regulation) and increased government power (which usually translates to decentralization of governments, while giving cities more reign and less overhead from governments), but this is barely scratching the surface of what I think politically and ideologically overall.

[Silver]

Every time I take it, I fall on the far left somewhere around where Gandhi was.

[The Grand Nudger]

The people must, by necessity, own the means of production with respect to the basic requirements of life. Everything else is negotiable, but unless we fix that, the negotiating table will be leveraged by starvation and homelessness and penury.

[HappySkeptic]

I prefer the original Nolan Chart



I'm at the upper-left corner of centrist. Still, even two dimensions aren't enough.

Progressive or Conservative are issue-specific. If you have some progressive utopia in mind, I'll ask for evidence that it won't actually turn into a hell. Likewise, if you claim that conservative values are best, I'll ask for evidence why it can't be improved.