I came across this site this morning, The Political Compass. Basically, it’s a long survey which, based on to what extent you agree or disagree with a series of statements, calculates where you are at in the political spectrum. What’s interesting is that it isn’t as simple as “right/left”, “Republican”/”Democrat”, “red state”/”blue state.” Rather, it calculates your location on the political spectrum in quadrants– the “compass,” if you will.
I don’t know who put this thing together, and some of the statements they use to position your politics seem more useful (“The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes”) than others (“Abstract art that doesn’t represent anything shouldn’t be considered art at all”). But it’s still kind of interesting.
By the way, my answers put me in the lower left quadrant of the compass, which is the same place where you’ll find Gandhi, The Dali Lama, and Nelson Mandela. So I got that going for me.