Tuesday, June 27, 2006

What's Your Political Philosophy? Take This Quiz and See

The Orange County Register ran a fun political philosophy quiz on their commentary page a week or so back (free registration may be required). Here's part of the preamble:

Are you a rock-solid freedom lover, a closet authoritarian or an in-your-face socialist? Take the Register's first Freedom Quiz and see. It's devised with new [high school] graduates in mind, to help them understand their political philosophy as they head out into the real world or back into the not-so-real world of academia. Register editorial writers Alan Bock, John Seiler and Steven Greenhut developed these questions to highlight aspects of "small l" libertarianism, the freedom philosophy that animates our pages. We believe in limited government, respect for the individual, self-responsibility, free markets, free trade and property rights. Enough of that before we give away too much of our testing bias!
I quizzed-out at a about a 15 or 16. I support the executive autonomy theory of presidential power, so I had significant disagreement with the libertarian position on this query (I answered "b"):

Our government seems to get in a lot of wars without a declaration of war by Congress, as the U.S.Constitution demands. You conclude that:
a) The Constitution is a "horse and buggy" document, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said, and in the space age, modern democracy and freedom demand more leeway in the actions of the chief executive to protect us.

b) The age of terrorism demands quicker action to preserve our liberties than allowed by the Constitution. If the president needs to act decisively, he should do so and then later get the explicit approval of Congress for any military actions.

c) Congress needs to re-assert itself and insist that only it can declare war.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Holy crap on a stick. This whole test is set up to make you appear like an evil crack smoking right wing nut job if you answer anything like you would, or as close as you can get.

It's nut's. I especially like the parting shot....."If you answered “a” to 15 or more questions, you are a devoted enemy of freedom, who most likely works for the government or is a direct beneficiary of it. We won’t give up all hope for you!"

AARRRGGHHHH!!!!! I loathe the L.A. BASIN. You've nothing but left wing psychos.

AmPowerBlog said...

Jenn:

Well, they're REALLY freedom-loving over there at the Register. It's a kick to read some of the commentaries published on the editorial pages sometimes. As for the quiz, I came out about 15, so I'm close to a pure freedom lover (but with a "squishy" side). As I noted in my post, I don't agree with the paper's position on presidential power -- why would we want legislative war powers to be any more subtantial than they already are (basically, Congress authorizes resolutions supporting presidential deployment of troops, like in 2002)? Thanks for checking it out!

Take it easy.