I came out as a Libertarian. (My Personal issues Score is 60%.
My Economic issues Score is 90%.)

Shocker: Left-Liberal

Left-Liberals generally embrace freedom of choice in personal matters, but support central decision-making in economics. They want the government to help the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Liberals tend to tolerate social diversity, but work for what they might describe as "economic equality."

[I don't necessarily agree with the economic equality part. I'd say equal access to economic stability.]

Your Personal issues Score is 100%.
Your Economic issues Score is 20%.

Libertarian 34.89 %
Left-liberal 18.76 %
Centrist 30.22 %
Right-Conservative 7.50 %
Statist 8.63 %

I come out as a hard-libertarian naturally.

Your Personal issues Score is 100%.
Your Economic issues Score is 100%.

Another quiz out there is The Political Compass. It's quite a bit longer than the quiz you posted, Mike, but I like it because it gives you two scores:

Economic Left/Right
Authoritarian/Libertarian

It doesn't then sort you into a political category, though.

The intersting thing about my score on the quiz mentioned in this post is that my left-liberal score is only 18%, yet that's my political label. I'm 65% centrist/libertarian, but my three answers of "disagree" on the economics side earn me the left-liberal label.

Interesting to think about....

The page tells me I'm a "Centrist" but this seems a very simplistic quiz.

Entertaining approach, though.

Hal,

I am stunned to discover that we both came out with the same label.

Go figure.

Vic

My score is the same as bhw's. Left-liberal, 100/20.

Mike, if this is in reference to me referring to you as 'the right', I didn't mean right-winger. I don't see you as that. I was just dividing things into left/right for that statement. Didn't mean it as offense.

If you go to that diamond (results chart), and draw a line down the middle, you will see that on the left side is the definition of left (liberal) and on the right side is the definition of conservative, and you are just one square over on the right side. I do interpret you as being on the right side of the spectrum, but I don't define that WHOLE side of the spectrum as bad, so hopefully it wasn't interpreted that way.

Several questions the quiz posed, I felt didn't give enough info to vote on (example 'privatize social security' can be mandatory, can be choosing to opt out of social security, etc.) and in those instances that I felt were vague or incomplete in making a decision, I went ahead and leaned left.

Most surprisingly I came out as "left-liberal" :-) .

I agree that the way right and left issues are divided up currently seems VERY artificial. In particular I don't get how people who feel anti-abortion on moral grounds wouldn't also see the pain that unfettered capitalism can unleash on the average American. (Pop Quiz: was the Great Depression caused by OVER-regulation?) Somehow if Jesus was around today I don't see him as a CEO. And is welfare in "principle" an anti-religious idea? There could well be arguments about it's "practice" but it seems that part of the conservative viewpoint is that "welfare" is just plain evil all around. That doesn't seem to me to coincide with a Christian viewpoint, but these different issues all get lumped together. Strange.

I can't discuss welfare without being branded a racist, so I will defer from commenting since I just don't want to deal with it.

Vic

I said it was entertaining, Vic :-)

I wasn't really trying to start a discussion of being anti-welfare OR anti-abortion, I am most interested in those who are anti-welfare AND anti-abortion.

I don't see how being "pro-life" somehow doesn't translate into being for thinking that people deserve a "minimum standard of living" as a matter of human decency. Making sure every fetus comes to term and then trying to cut support systems for the poorest ones after they are born just doesn't hang together for me.

I just use it as an example of how to seemingly unrelated issues get lumped into "right-wing". Another example is how "conservatives" seem now to be against "conservation". Many conservatives used to be FOR preserving the environment, but now it is not part of the "mainstream conservative" viewpoint. (This whole discussion is about the generalities of labels and movements, I'm quite aware each individual is just that, individual in their beliefs).

Yeah, I caught that detail Hal. :-)

Vic

Big Tim Patriot---excellent point. I never understand how people on the far right reconcile being against abortion and welfare at the same time. You cna't have it both ways. For me, I am pro-choice, and I believe in welfare, although with reformations from its current status, that include, but are not limited to, more money spent on getting welfare recipients back into the workforce, educated etc. No more generations of families on welfare.

First, let me say that I am in favor of reproductive rights, and the right of a woman to have an abortion.

However, I am against having to pay for her abortion in the same way as I am against having to pay for welfare programs. You make your choices in life, including sexual intercourse, so you pay for the result, whether that result is one's choice to abort or to bring the baby into the world.

I do make an exception for rape, which as a first choice, should be paid for by the assailant, and as a last resort, could be state-funded.

This is distinct from the right-conservative view that abortion is simply wrong and not the right of a woman in any case.

Mike--agreed. Abortion should not be paid for out of tax dollars. Maybe in case of rape, as a last resort, as you point out. There should be little debate about the government paying for abortions. Its not their place.

I am continually amazed at the hypocrisy of the far right. They want less government, less taxes etc., but they love to legislate morality, and whatever else can be culled from the Bible. You can't have it both ways. I kind of went down this road in my Howard Stern article a couple of days ago.

So abortion should be available only to those who can afford it? Did it occur to you that the people who can't afford an abortion are the same people who can't afford the obstetrical medical care required to bring a healthy child into the world? Pregnancy is a medical condition. If insurance companies pay for obstetrical care, they should pay for abortion. Ditto our medicaid program.

In an ideal world, women wouldn't get pregnant when they don't want to. But even with the best of birth control methods -- including the pill -- accidental pregnancies happen. Pregnant women who are uninsured and/or can't afford to pay for their medical care -- whether they choose abortion or birth -- should not be treated differently from people with other medical conditions.

All the no government funds for abortions stance does is set some children up for lives of poverty and, often, abuse. The child is born because the woman does not have the few hundred dollars for an abortion. She also doesn't have the thousands it takes to rear a child. So a baby, likely low birth weight and maybe drug-effected, is brought to a dwelling that does not me housing standards or is crowded. Increasingly, the woman is homeless. While the pathologies that impact the vulnerable set in to destroy both lives, smug people proudly pat themselves on the back for not allowing the government to pay for an abortion. There is something wrong with this picture.

Typo: meet for 'me.'

I can't think of the word I'm looking for to describe the emotion behind the attitude that forcing women to give birth because they are poor is something to pat one's self on the back in regard to. The word is German. It means taking pleasure in someone else's suffering.

schadenfreude?

Me, I love it when men decide that they don't want to pay for a medical condition that only women can have. Must be nice to sit on that perch and decide other people's medical options.

I think I've decided that I don't want my insurance company to pay for prostate surgery of any kind. If men took better care of themselves, they wouldn't have prostate problems. So why should I pay for their surgery?

The government that governs least, governs best
- Henry David Thoreau

Bingo, Bhw! It it is too bad I can't add you to the references on my PDA.

Lono, it is not clear whether Thoreau originated that phrase, though he is sometimes cited for it. (As are Jefferson and Paine, among others.) I'm not at all sure that the proposition is true, either. Least government could be chaos or the complete abuse of everyone else by the powerful.

Me, I love it when men decide that they don't want to pay for a medical condition that only women can have.

See, now that's funny, what I love is when men decide to have sex with a woman, get her pregnant, and then decide she's on her own.

Vic

Oh, that's right. I rejoice in the misery of others. I forgot about that.

The government doesn't pay for anything, as you well know, Diva and bhw. In the case of paying for abortions or any other medical procedure, the government is a tool for extracting money from a pool of people and directing it to individuals. This takes place whether or not the people the money is taken from support this.

Smug liberals pat themselves on the back for correctly preventing this process being used to benefit businesses. Why is there such a huge blindspot on the same process as bad decision-making on the part of individuals?

Individuals who protest having their money taken from them in this way are not causing the impoverishment of someone else, though they may well be acting to prevent their own impoverishment. The person who chooses to have sex when the possibility exists that they could become pregnant *and* they have no ability to pay for that possible outcome *is* choosing their own possible impoverishment. Take off the blinders and assign responsibility correctly!

And for the record, the man who has sex with a woman and impregnates her, accepts all the same responsibilities I have outlined above. All of them.

Hey Mike, in the interest of fairness, you should also present the world's largest political quiz.

I took the test and it scored me as a "Potential Terrorist."

Pretty accurate, I'd say.

In the case of paying for abortions or any other medical procedure, the government is a tool for extracting money from a pool of people and directing it to individuals. This takes place whether or not the people the money is taken from support this.

And that's true of every governmental program that targets individuals or families, such as food stamps. I can live with paying for food stamps and abortions or obstetrical care for the people who cant afford it themselves. The fact is that we all pay for things we don't like in this country. I realize that you would like for almost all of that to stop, Mike, but I'm okay with where my tax dollars go when they support individuals and families who are trying to get by.

Smug liberals pat themselves on the back for correctly preventing this process being used to benefit businesses. Why is there such a huge blindspot on the same process as bad decision-making on the part of individuals?

It's not a blind spot. It's a conscious decision. While businesses need to compete to survive, I don't think American families should be in competition with one another to do the same. So I favor helping families get decent medical care, even if it's care I don't necessarily "support."

You're also assuming all unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are a result of bad decision-making. Sometimes accidents happen, even to the people our president approves of! Of course, I'm no fan of women who repeatedly get pregnant and then use abortion as birth control, but my guess is that they're in the minority.

I don't think it benefits the country to say to poor women that if they can't afford prenatal care, that they can't get any at all. That sets the child up for potential serious long-term health issues, including the possibility of premature birth, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to support. What do we do then? I'd prefer to pay for someone's obstetrical care via tax money to help her end a pregnancy she doesn't want or to bring one she does to a healthy full-term delivery.

There are risks in just about everything we do. Some things are riskier than others, for sure. So should poor children be banned from playing school sports, since they clearly won't be able to pay for the care they'll need if they get injured while playing? What about the h.s. football player who has had a knee injury? Shouldn't we prevent him from playing again by refusing to pay for more care if he hurts one of his knees again? Where do you draw the line?

Of course, one fallacy I've been helping to perpetuate in this thread is that the uninsured in the US are, by definition, poor. Many of them are or were in the middle class, and because of the economy, have lost their careers and therefore their health insurance. And as we all know, medical care costs are astronomical. This summer, I worked with a woman whose husband was out of work. She was a contractor, not an employee. They shelled out over $1200/month [25% of her earnings] for catastrophic coverage, which they did mostly because they have a child. This insurance didn't cover them for doctor's visits or minor procedures, and it had a very high deductible. Not a very pretty scenario, but at least they were covered if anything tragic happened [but not pregnancy].

Many, many families in the US earn less than this couple and cannot come close to affording $1200/month for medical coverage of any kind, never mind the kind that covers routine care, like obstetrical care.

The person who chooses to have sex when the possibility exists that they could become pregnant *and* they have no ability to pay for that possible outcome *is* choosing their own possible impoverishment. Take off the blinders and assign responsibility correctly!

So poor/uninsured, heterosexual people should be celibate? Because, as our president will attest, that's the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy [if all systems are "go"]. Certainly, birth control helps prevent many unwanted pregnancies, but it does fail. I don't think the answer to society's problems lies in expecting uninsured adults to abstain from having sex -- or participating in other areas of everyday life -- so that they can avoid needing medical attention as a result. I just happen to believe that basic medical care is something the richest nation in the world should provide to citizens who can't afford it on their own, even if that means our taxes are higher than we'd like them to be.

Really, Mike K., why not just go on and say the rich and the poor are equally free to sleep under bridges? Take your conservative in sheep's clothing nice fleece vest off. You are saying you want to punish people for being poor, without health care and, apparently female. Kid yourself if you want to, but making a woman have a child because she can't afford an abortion is punitive behavior.

Furthermore, it is is short-sighted behavior. The cost of three trips to the emergency room for that low birth-weight baby, who will be more susceptible to illness, will be greater than the cost of an abortion. Since the mother can't pay for the medical care either, the hospital will charge it to the government or pass it on to paying consumers. So, where is the money you saved by giving the pregnant woman the kick in the arse you are so gleeful about, eh? And, it does not stop there. By forcing that birth, you may have caused a list of costly payments by society. On the other hand, if the woman had been allowed to wait until she could afford a child to give birth, you would have prevented needless suffering. I can anticipate your response: Bar the woman with baby she was forced to have from the emergency room. Deny her that health care, too. Go on. Say it. Then, scratch your head and wonder why 'compassionate conservative' is a laughable phrase.

No thanks, Diva. Take your label and stick it.

What you are saying is that you want to punish people who had nothing to do with the birth caused by two irresponsible people, by making them foot the bill.

Your only other solution, statist that you are, is to again punish other people for this birth they did not cause, over the life of that child: at the emergency room, at the birthing center, at the clinic, and everywhere else.

So, just as you have no room for compassionate conservatives, which I have never claimed to be, I have no patience for compassionate liberals who would impose their morality against me at the point of a gun in the form of taxes to pay for people whose choices I lament.

I graded left-liberal. I guess I don't trust people to be very responsible or compassionate. I'm willing to pay more for a strong Federal government to stand up for my rights, keep social programs in place, & protect me from my local good ol' boys, who have no interest in the well being of anyone but themselves. If you work harder you should have more, but I believe that the playing field should be more balanced. Women & minorites are disadvantaged by a 400 year head start, that the white male establishment(through reluctant legislation) claims should be overcome in 40 years. I don't expect in my lifetime to be on equal footing with the legacy-driven Biddle's or Bush's. All I know is, hopefully, one fine day the only birth rite America offers is citizenship. Call me lefty!

I'm feeling you, Bob! Nolan and Kole start out with an asumption that is utterly false: The disadvantaged and poor are that way because they deserve to be. They use the false assumption to justify their punitive perspective. There isn't much flux in America economically. Eighty percent of citizens die in the same class they were born in. The other 20 percent is as likely to fall to a lower income as to rise. People who started out with disadvantages are largely stuck where they are.

On the bright side, we have made some progress. Indiana, which Kole raves about so much, was the heart of the twentieth century Ku Klux Klan. I kid you not. The rebirth of the Klan after its successful campaign of disenfranchisement and terrorism during Reconstruction was in Hoosier land in the 1920s. So, considering that the forebears of these people may have participated in a lynching or two, it is progress that, now, these stellar Hoosiers merely want to deny poor women abortions.

Ahh, political labels adopted by people who wish to find a way to live in an America that is like the one they grew up in or were told it was like. The days when diversity ment different flavors of ice cream. Homo was strictly milk. The word 'gay' floated off the tounge to describe a good mood. Civil Rights was a free pass to deny rights at your discretion. 'Rule of thumb' meant you could beat your wife & kids with a stick no wider than a man's thumb! It's alarming what was status quo for Americans who remember this stuff. Thank what/whoever you like that there are liberal minded humans with some clout to make sure 1950 stays right where it belongs: 54 years in the past, never to return.

P.S. "It was so much better when loose women could coathanger themselves to death in the privacy of their own dark corner of an alley somewhere."

Mac Diva, Crawford Wives vote (D) when no one is watching.

I have a couple of questions for anybody.

1) One of the concerns, about taxpayer funded abortion is that it will create a 'revolving door' situation for women, absolving them of responsibility. A lot of people with this philosophy also believe in the individual rights of businesses, and a medical practice is a private business. They say they trust in capitalism to lean towards the good for society because capitalism grows that way. So why would one not trust the private medical practice to ensure that there is counseling, medical examinations, and ongoing support to guarantee that it doesn't become a revolving door procedure?

2) People who are against taxpayer funded abortion, does their medical provider currently fund abortion with their payments? And how do they feel about that if so?

3) The Religious Right uses it's television networks, churches, magazines, everything it can, to oppose abortion on all fronts, including taxpayer funded abortion. But religious groups are exempt from paying taxes. So does anybody else wonder what gives them a legitimate claim to even have a voice in this? If they speak as individuals, that's one thing, because as individuals they pay taxes, but as a group? A group that pays no taxes but wants to influence how American taxes are spent medically. Think about it. Does anybody else see this as wrong?

4) I believe in the right to free speech and the right to practice one's religion, and the right for one to raise their children with their values, but I am against my taxpayer dollars being used to aid private religious schools, via vouchers or for faith based initiatives. The reason being is that while I know there are many great churches out there, and many great people of faith, there are also religious entities that are harmful towards people, whether it is small like the Westboro Church in Topeka, Kansas or the large 700 club that reaches millions and blames hurricanes and other natural disasters on gay people. This leads to intolerance, hate crimes and ultimately someone (besides a host-dependent embryo or fetus) dying. I don't want my tax dollars to fund any part of it. I also don't want my taxpayer dollars to go to a business that insists it wants to discriminate. If it wants to discriminate, fine, but not with MY taxes.

So, the question is: for those who are against taxpayer funded abortion because of religious belief, how do you coincide your ideology with separation of church and state? Or do you have no problem with the state practicing your religious ideology? You're not the only one who's encountering a conflict of some sort there.

I've been thinking of Terri Schavo and Dr. Kevorkian in conjunction with this. I know when I get to the point (heaven forbid), where I am incapacitated, a vegetable, or otherwise unable to enjoy life when I deterioriate to a certain point, I would like to leave it gracefully and with dignity. I'm talking about Quality of Life. However, nobody has a right to be born into an ideal situation. Children are born in huts in the desert, run over with rats, in other parts of the world, something abhorrent here, but over there quite acceptable and certainly happiness at being alive can be found there. I'm not sure we should use Quality of Life as a determining factor in abortion, as that is subjective. But I need to place my trust in the doctor and the woman to arrive at that decision too. I don't want the government stepping in between me and my doctor when it comes to my medical needs.

Al was right: when Diva has no answer for a point, she resorts to the race card and makes shit up! Kole lives in Indiana (for all of two years now), the Klan was popular in Indiana from 1920-50, Kole disagrees with me, ergo, it must be inferred that Kole must be a Klan supporter! Yeah!

Humans are abusive. Power corrupts. Nobody's perfect, etc. Federally fund abortion or pay more for unwanted children foster care, dead bodies in the fucking streets, prisons, property damage, crime victims medical & follow up care. Programs out there are already shortchanged. Imagine if we were more overwhelmed with the nightmare of outlawing abortion, under aged children doing what they have to hide a pregnancy.

Christians fuck outside of marriage in droves. The pressure to hide a pregnancy is even higher in those circles. Church is were people pick & choose who they will marry. (The ultimate meet-market) If a relationship doesn't work out & pregnancy is the result, one can only thank the Lord that fellow parishioners had nothing to do with the passing of Roe v. Wade. Pay now, period!

Jesus' message is in direct conflict with fundamental right wing values. According to most Protestant doctrine, all children who die before the age of 12(age when Jesus knew he was the Christ) go to Heaven. If this is the common belief, where is the brutality? Turn the other cheek; Love thy neighbor as thy self; He who has not sinned cast the first stone; Man cannot live by bread alone; Live by the sword die by the sword; Teach a man to fish...

Within the teaching and virtues of Jesus Christ, where's is the racism, the war, the Roveisms, the eugenics, the hate, the lies, the blind eye, the divisions, the bootstraps, Halliburton, Abu Grahib, Guantanamo Bay, Diebold, PNAC, the deliberate disregard of our own needy! Why will any self-proclaimed religious person follow Republicans? Jesus greets the aborted angels, blessed to never be subject to this hell.

Anyone can check the Web or other resources and confirm that Indiana was the heart of modern Klan activity. Old attitudes die hard. 'Libertarians' are getting support there because they reflect those attitudes. Contrary to the propaganda Mike K. has been posting, that state is still close to its gruesome past. Just this summer, the Indianapolis Star published a series about neglect and denial of health care to the poor and minorities there. It ain't a pretty picture, and if people like him get their way, it will get much uglier.

Thank you for citing Al Barger, so approvingly, Mike. Your true colors are showing.

The leading applicant and probable location for the Libertarian Party's 2006 National Convention is Portland, OR. Let's Diva this...

The LP is a neanderthal kind of politics, Diva lives in Portland, the LP chooses Portland for its affinity, Diva must be not only a neanderthal, but...

a Libertarian!