Political Spectrum Quiz
Be honest- ya know ya wanna take it! In a world where we are often too busy to even form a complete thought, burning five minutes on a self analyzing quiz gives us time to breathe, time to talk about ourselves and provide answers (most, albeit for entertainment purposes only) to many of life’s unanswerable questions.
This quiz, however, requires no “Facebook credits” or no “completion of this quiz” for answers and does more than predict when you are going to die or who you are going to marry. It reminds us of a completely overlooked complexity of United States politics.
Officially, the United States in a representative (republican) democracy. The democracy part means that every citizen has equal representation and an equal voice in decisions made regarding this country. The representative part means that we acknowledge that it’s all but unfeasible to expect that every citizen in this country could efficiently vote on every issue facing our nation, and still have time for a normal life. So we democratically elect representatives to do the decision making on our behalf. Back in the old days, part of this was because information moved so slowly that decision making for every individual citizen meant doing so with limited information. NOW, there is such an information overload, that the average citizen has simply no time to analyze it all and make an educated decision. We have lives, and jobs, and families. Basically, it’s not much different than hiring a cleaning lady or a dog walker. We delegate the responsibility of making these decisions to people that we think would make the best decisions on our collective behalf.
When I first registered to vote, to be able to make an individual decision about each and every person that would represent my interests, I registered as a Democrat, because of the region in which I live. I loved being able to vote and the area was so predominantly Democrat that those who registered as Republicans hardly ever had a chance to vote in the Primary elections. Times have changed, there are now more Republican candidates in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but my registration has not for no other reason than the whole concept of political parties reminds me of the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Would I be a bad Democrat if I was to assert myself as pro choice? Would I be a bad Republican if I wanted to help the poor? How many dissenting opinions am I allowed to have before you kick me out of your club? I like the idea of uniting for a specific cause- that kind of unity is what birthed our country. A bunch of people, upset about taxes and lack of representation, banding together to declare their freedom- that there’s some good stuff! But being part of a club that gives you a checklist of how you are supposed to feel on any number of otherwise unrelated issues (well, aside from the fact that everything really is interconnected) just seems wrong. If I wanted to be told how to make decisions for myself, I would go back to being five years old and asking my mommy.
Is it possible that the exclusive decision making that’s done by today’s political parties is what has disillusioned so many Americans regarding politics? Is it possible that citizens have just gotten sick and tired of being told what to do and how to feel or being made to feel like we are sitting alone at the lunch table cause our we don’t fit in with the people in the club?
My quiz results were surprising to me. As a registered Democrat, I found that I lean to the right regarding economic issues, am considered non-interventionist regarding foreign policy and am socially a libertarian. There were questions on the quiz, that I felt, deserved more than a multiple choice response from me, but alas, online quizzes rarely have an essay portion. What I liked about this quiz was that it blatantly illustrated (with a cute little graph) that politics is so much more than black or white, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative and that these labels put us in a position where we are getting lazy, sitting back and letting others tell us how to feel and how to vote. Granted, in this economy, it’s very easy to delegate that thinking to someone else, especially when were are all running around like chickens with the heads cut off just trying to break even at the end of the day, but sadly, these are the times when our decisions matter most and when we must remember that the great decisions in our country’s history came from regular people, not hired bureaucrats. The decisions that formed out country came from the people that thought outside the box in which the establishment told them to blindly stay. They united for a cause, and that cause was freedom- freedom from oppression and freedom to choose for themselves.
Maybe, it’s time we remember that, or maybe not. You decide.
Be honest- ya know ya wanna take it! In a world where we are often too busy to even form a complete thought, burning five minutes on a self analyzing quiz gives us time to breathe, time to talk about ourselves and provide answers (most, albeit for entertainment purposes only) to many of life’s unanswerable questions.
This quiz, however, requires no “Facebook credits” or no “completion of this quiz” for answers and does more than predict when you are going to die or who you are going to marry. It reminds us of a completely overlooked complexity of United States politics.
Officially, the United States in a representative (republican) democracy. The democracy part means that every citizen has equal representation and an equal voice in decisions made regarding this country. The representative part means that we acknowledge that it’s all but unfeasible to expect that every citizen in this country could efficiently vote on every issue facing our nation, and still have time for a normal life. So we democratically elect representatives to do the decision making on our behalf. Back in the old days, part of this was because information moved so slowly that decision making for every individual citizen meant doing so with limited information. NOW, there is such an information overload, that the average citizen has simply no time to analyze it all and make an educated decision. We have lives, and jobs, and families. Basically, it’s not much different than hiring a cleaning lady or a dog walker. We delegate the responsibility of making these decisions to people that we think would make the best decisions on our collective behalf.
When I first registered to vote, to be able to make an individual decision about each and every person that would represent my interests, I registered as a Democrat, because of the region in which I live. I loved being able to vote and the area was so predominantly Democrat that those who registered as Republicans hardly ever had a chance to vote in the Primary elections. Times have changed, there are now more Republican candidates in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but my registration has not for no other reason than the whole concept of political parties reminds me of the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Would I be a bad Democrat if I was to assert myself as pro choice? Would I be a bad Republican if I wanted to help the poor? How many dissenting opinions am I allowed to have before you kick me out of your club? I like the idea of uniting for a specific cause- that kind of unity is what birthed our country. A bunch of people, upset about taxes and lack of representation, banding together to declare their freedom- that there’s some good stuff! But being part of a club that gives you a checklist of how you are supposed to feel on any number of otherwise unrelated issues (well, aside from the fact that everything really is interconnected) just seems wrong. If I wanted to be told how to make decisions for myself, I would go back to being five years old and asking my mommy.
Is it possible that the exclusive decision making that’s done by today’s political parties is what has disillusioned so many Americans regarding politics? Is it possible that citizens have just gotten sick and tired of being told what to do and how to feel or being made to feel like we are sitting alone at the lunch table cause our we don’t fit in with the people in the club?
My quiz results were surprising to me. As a registered Democrat, I found that I lean to the right regarding economic issues, am considered non-interventionist regarding foreign policy and am socially a libertarian. There were questions on the quiz, that I felt, deserved more than a multiple choice response from me, but alas, online quizzes rarely have an essay portion. What I liked about this quiz was that it blatantly illustrated (with a cute little graph) that politics is so much more than black or white, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative and that these labels put us in a position where we are getting lazy, sitting back and letting others tell us how to feel and how to vote. Granted, in this economy, it’s very easy to delegate that thinking to someone else, especially when were are all running around like chickens with the heads cut off just trying to break even at the end of the day, but sadly, these are the times when our decisions matter most and when we must remember that the great decisions in our country’s history came from regular people, not hired bureaucrats. The decisions that formed out country came from the people that thought outside the box in which the establishment told them to blindly stay. They united for a cause, and that cause was freedom- freedom from oppression and freedom to choose for themselves.
Maybe, it’s time we remember that, or maybe not. You decide.
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