[torsoboy]

So this is a very short quiz that tries to match who your views are most compatible with. Take it, it's quick, easy, and might make you think of the candidates a little differently:

Select a Candidate 2008

For me (as a Mormon) the results were not too suprising, but I did learn some more about the different candidates.

My Top 3 (according to the quiz)
--------------------
Duncan Hunter, Score: 37
Mitt Romney, Score: 33
Fred Thompson, Score: 32

My Bottom 3 (according to the quiz)
--------------------
Chris Dodd, Score: 16
Ron Paul, Score: 15
Mike Gravel, Score: 11

[subego]

Guiliani: 45
Kucinich : 43

I wouldn't have imagined them being so close together.

Huckabee: 13
Thompson: 9

Though we (obviously) have differences of opinion, I actually like Huckabee.

[ebuddy]

Sam Brownback -31
John McCain -30
Fred Thompson -28
______________________________

Chris Dodd -4
Barack Obama -1
Hillary Clinton -1

Of course, the bottom three aren't even on the radar (okay... marriage), but interestingly enough I'm not really passionate about the top 3 either. Strangely, that "matter of importance" weighs pretty heavily. Sam Brownback gets a score of 31 and I agreed with him on 7 points, disagreed with him on 4 while I agreed with 8 points from McCain and disagreed on 3.

[dcmacdaddy]

Dodd: 40
Kucinich: 40

Gravel: 35
Obama: 35
Clinton: 35

Richardson: 30
Edwards: 30
------------
McCain: 12

Romney: 10

Gilmore: 5
Tancredo: 5

[subego]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Of course, the bottom three aren't even on the radar (okay... marriage)

Huh? Are you saying it's the marriage question that pushed them down?

[jokell82]

Top 3:
Ron Paul - 51
McCain - 39
Brownback - 38

Bottom 3:
Hillary - 4 (ugh, can't believe I scored higher than zero with her)
Obama - 4
Edwards - 1

[OldManMac]

Top 3

Kucinich 59
Richardson 55
Gravel 54

Bottom 3

Tancredo 3
Thompson 3
Hunter 3

[osiris]

Kucinich 35
Richardson 29
...
Tancredo 3
Thompson 3

I was surprised that Clinton and Guiliani were 24 and 20, but I can't stand either of them, so whatever.

Guys like Thompson sound like their goals are to build a big wall around the USA, kick out all the non-english speakers, execute the non-white, and sit in darkness, alone, with only ignorance as a friend.

[nonhuman]

This quiz kinda blows. The answers were far too specific, and as a result excluded so many possibilities. Anyway, this is what I got:

Ron Paul 49
Dennis Kucinich 34
Chris Dodd 30
Mike Gravel 30
Rudy Giuliani 29
John McCain 28
Barack Obama 23
Hillary Clinton 23
Sam Brownback 22
Bill Richardson 20
Fred Thompson 15
Tom Tancredo 15
Mitt Romney 15
Duncan Hunter 15
John Edwards 13
Joe Biden 13
Jim Gilmore 12
Mike Huckabee 10

I expected Paul, Kucinich, and Gravel to be up in the top, was a bit surprised by Dodd as I haven't paid much attention to him thus far. The others aren't really surprising at all.

[RAILhead]

Top:
Duncan Hunter (of course!) - 47
Fred Thompson - 46
John McCoan - 46

Bottom:
Mike Gravel - 3
Dennis Kucinich - 8
Bill Richardson - 11

Shrillary, Obama, and Edwards were all 14.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by subego 

Huh? Are you saying it's the marriage question that pushed them down?

No, it was the only thing that gave them the 1 point to even show up.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

No, it was the only thing that gave them the 1 point to even show up.

[Doofy]

No surprise here.

Paul - 44
Brownback - 36
McCain - 34

Obama - 8
Edwards - 8
Clinton - 8

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Bill Richardson - 52
Joe Biden - 52
Hillary Clinton(!) - 47

I can't vote but it was fun.

[TETENAL]

Of course I can't vote, but just for fun:

Top 3:
Chris Dodd - 46 (never heard of)
Dennis Kucinich - 44 (never heard of)
John Edwards - 42

Top Republican:
Ron Paul - Rank 8 - 20 (never heard of)

Last:
Tom Tancredo - 4 (never heard of)

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

For me (as a Mormon) the results were not too suprising

Which of the questions had anything to do with Mormonism?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

McCain -44
Thompson -40
Hunter -40
____________
Kucinich -1
Dodd -1
Gravel -1

[stwain2003]

I'm a Republican, but I do not support the Iraq war, and agree with Obama's ideas on troop removal from Iraq. Removing all the troops all of a sudden would be foolish. There should still be some troops there to operate against terrorist cells and to stabilize their government.

I like Obama a lot, but I disagree with most of his political views lol.

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Which of the questions had anything to do with Mormonism?

Oh nothing about Mormonism specifically, but in general most Mormons are anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, small government (as if that exists anymore), pro-capital punishment, pro-gun rights, small taxes, believe that war for a just cause is OK, etc.

Very much republican views, and pretty much in line with the three on the top of my result list (Duncan Hunter, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson).

I'm kinda suprised that the top democrat contendors (Clinton and Obama) are not at the top of anyone's lists... why are they in the lead if they don't fit what people want? I guess it's just the campaign money that's buying them votes...

[hyteckit]

None of those have ever been the President. Just saying.

[hyteckit]

Obama - 48
Clinton - 48
John Edwards - 45
Chris Dodd - 45
Biden - 41

Guess, I'm really a Democrat.

[hyteckit]

Bottom four.

Ron Paul - 8
Brownback - 8
Thompson - 8
Tancredo - 5

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

I'm kinda suprised that the top democrat contendors (Clinton and Obama) are not at the top of anyone's lists... why are they in the lead if they don't fit what people want? I guess it's just the campaign money that's buying them votes...

I don't find it surprising at all. Obama is extremely charismatic, it's very hard not to like the guy. I read his book, discovered that, while he's very intelligent and has some good ideas, I don't agree with most of his policies at all, but even still I can't help buy like the guy. Hillary, while lacking any of the good qualities that Obama has (Charismatic? Sure, maybe if you give her green face paint and a broom.), attracts the essentially mindless support of Democrats who have deluded themselves into thinking that she would somehow bring back the 'good old days' when Bill was in office. I don't think her support really has anything to do with her policies, except for a few fringe lunies; she's riding on the wave of her husband, and people are deluding themselves into believing otherwise. This also explains why Republicans and 'conservatives' are so violently opposed to her (although they also have the reasonable excuse of being diametrically opposed to her policies).

So both Clinton and Obama have extremely strong emotional pull. People (well, Democrats) see them on tv and like them. They both have very strong irrational attraction. But when you break it down into a policy decision, neither of them is actually as popular as they seem. The question we'll soon find out is whether elections are decided based on rational decisions or irrational gut feelings. The really sad thing is, if the irrational, mindless voters win out, and the truth of how politically out of line they are from the candidate they elected, they'll still probably delude themselves into thinking that they got exactly what they wanted.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

I'm kinda suprised that the top democrat contendors (Clinton and Obama) are not at the top of anyone's lists... why are they in the lead if they don't fit what people want? I guess it's just the campaign money that's buying them votes...

I was wondering the same thing, but then, Giuliani isn't at the top of anyone's list either, yet he's likely to be the Republican front runner.

It makes sense to me, that whoever is likely to front either ticket, won't be at the top of many lists. The list toppers will probably tend to be more extreme right or left, yet the party front runners will probably be chosen to appeal to moderates and swing voters, which would exclude the extremes. I'd guess toward the middle of most people's lists is probably more telling than the top and bottom.

[Weyland-Yutani]

The Weyland-Yutani corporation supports Huckabee and Thomson equally.

[Jawbone54]

Top 3
43 - Tom Tancredo
42 - John McCain (surprise)
40 - Duncan Hunter

Bottom 3
8 - Dennis Kucinich
8 - Chris Dodd
5 - Mike Gravel

[Buckaroo]

Mitt Romney 34
Duncan Hunter 32
Jim Gilmore 32
Fred Thompson 31
Sam Brownback 24

I'd like to see a Fred Thompson/Mitt Romney Ticket.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

Mitt Romney 34
Duncan Hunter 32
Jim Gilmore 32
Fred Thompson 31
Sam Brownback 24

I'd like to see a Fred Thompson/Mitt Romney Ticket.

Mitt Romney is an incompetent boob.

[Buckaroo]

Based on WHAT?

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Mitt Romney is an incompetent boob.

[BadKosh]

FDR
Nixon
Reagan
Jefferson
Truman

[jokell82]

FDR and Jefferson had two *COMPLETELY* different ideas of what the government should be. How could your views match both of them?

[BadKosh]

The times they were in...

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

Based on WHAT?

Living in Massachusetts.

[- - e r i k - -]

Top three apparently:
Dodd - 48
Kucinich -48
Gravel - 45

Bottom three:
McCain - 10
Gilmore - 10
Hunter - 5

About the same as that other candidate quiz. If Ron Paul didn't dilute his libertarian views so much with conservative values on stem cells and abortion he'd be the most interesting candidate.

[subego]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

If Ron Paul didn't dilute his libertarian views so much with conservative conservative values on stem cells and abortion he'd be the most interesting candidate.

I find the wild inconsistency far more problematic that the opinions themselves.

As a different example, I'm still angry at Hillary for supporting a flag-burning amendment. WTF?

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

About the same as that other candidate quiz. If Ron Paul didn't dilute his libertarian views so much with conservative values on stem cells and abortion he'd be the most interesting candidate.

There is nothing inconsistent about being libertarian and being pro-life. If a libertarian believes that life begins at conception, then what choice do they have other than to protect the rights of that life against the aggressions of others?

[subego]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

There is nothing inconsistent about being libertarian and being pro-life. If a libertarian believes that life begins at conception, then what choice do they have other than to protect the rights of that life against the aggressions of others?

If you claim your political philosophy is based on individual liberty, you need a better excuse than "I think it's wrong" to force your opinions on someone via the state.

If that's not the case, one doesn't believe in individual liberty as much as they think.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by subego 

If you claim your political philosophy is based on individual liberty, you need a better excuse than "I think it's wrong" to force your opinions on someone via the state.

If that's not the case, one doesn't believe in individual liberty as much as they think.

If you believe in individual liberty, and you believe that an unborn child is an individual, then that's all the reason you need. Why do we outlaw murder if not because we think it's wrong? Abortion, if you consider life to begin at conception, is just a sub-category of murder.

[subego]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

If you believe in individual liberty, and you believe that an unborn child is an individual, then that's all the reason you need. Why do we outlaw murder if not because we think it's wrong? Abortion, if you consider life to begin at conception, is just a sub-category of murder.

Note the lack of conditional beliefs with murder. Everyone agreeing with you is a better excuse.

When the situation is debatable (as it is for abortion), it seems to me a believer in individual liberties would default to letting this debate be carried out by the individual.

This is the actual hard part of maintaining this philosophy, an acceptance of the fact that some people will take their liberty and act wholly irresponsible with it.

Believing in individual liberty except when people are irresponsible, and then we get the state to make them responsible, isn't really believing in individual liberty.

[jokell82]

The thing is, he doesn't want to federally ban abortions *despite* his personal views. He thinks (rightfully so) that it is a state issue and shouldn't be handled by the Feds.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

If you believe in individual liberty, and you believe that an unborn child is an individual, then that's all the reason you need. Why do we outlaw murder if not because we think it's wrong? Abortion, if you consider life to begin at conception, is just a sub-category of murder.

The Weyland-Yutani corporation does not support the renaming of phoetus to 'unborn child'. It has far too much sentimental and ethical connotation, blurs the actual scientific facts on the status of the blastocyst and hampers possible profits made from altering or otherwise enhancing the phoetus for commercial use.

[subego]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

The thing is, he doesn't want to federally ban abortions *despite* his personal views. He thinks (rightfully so) that it is a state issue and shouldn't be handled by the Feds.

This is a canard.

If it was a state issue he'd want his state to ban it. The only debate for him is which instrument of the state is legally empowered to do the banning. At least, this is what I assume, otherwise he is incorrectly labeling himself.

FWIW I agree that this is a state issue as well.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by subego 

Note the lack of conditional beliefs with murder. Everyone agreeing with you is a better excuse.

Just because you ignore them, doesn't mean that the conditional beliefs that justify a ban on murder don't exist. 'Murder' as we know it can only exist if you believe that an individual human life is worth preserving in and of itself. There are endless examples of human societies that haven't held that belief, or that have predicated it upon other conditions; ours included.

When the situation is debatable (as it is for abortion), it seems to me a believer in individual liberties would default to letting this debate be carried out by the individual.

I agree, that's why I'm not calling for an all out ban on abortion. I personally believe that abortion is wrong, but at the same time I recognize that allowing abortion conveys many advantages upon society. I also recognize that there is debate as to whether and when a fetus/embryo/zygote/whatever should be considered an individual human life in it's own right. I personally happen to believe that it happens at conception and have discussed the matter with a number of qualified people (mostly biologists) enough to know that there is currently no scientific reason to doubt that, just individual opinions. But just because I believe something to be true doesn't mean that there should be laws premised upon it; on the other hand, when you get right down to it all of our laws are, at root, premised upon arbitrary moral decisions.

This is the actual hard part of maintaining this philosophy, an acceptance of the fact that some people will take their liberty and act wholly irresponsible with it.

Believing in individual liberty except when people are irresponsible, and then we get the state to make them responsible, isn't really believing in individual liberty.

Again, this is demonstrably false. Any non-anarchist necessarily accepts that there must be some limits imposed upon interpersonal behavior. Libertarians draw this line (admittedly somewhat fuzzily) at the initiation of force: you're free to do whatever you want so want so long as you don't impinge on anyone else's right to the same. As above, you're simply glossing over the implicit conditional that people only gain their rights after a certain age (whether it's when they're in the third trimester or after they're born or when they're 15 or whatever other arbitrary time you want to choose).

If you believe that at the moment of conception a unique and human life comes into being, then you're forced to question that conditional. It's entirely reasonable and consistent to then come to the conclusion that the rights of any one person do not extend so far as to willfully end the life of any other person, even if that person is only seconds old. People are forever painting the issue of abortion as an issue of women's rights. Frankly that's a load of crap. At no point is this an issue of women's rights. It has jack **** to do with women. It has everything to do with how we define 'human life' and at what arbitrary point we decide to claim that 'human life' begins. Claiming 'women's rights' just obfuscates the real issue and prevents you from having to make the actual difficult, distasteful decision of deciding if this fetus is a human and this one isn't.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

The Weyland-Yutani corporation does not support the renaming of phoetus to 'unborn child'. It has far too much sentimental and ethical connotation, blurs the actual scientific facts on the status of the blastocyst and hampers possible profits made from altering or otherwise enhancing the phoetus for commercial use.

The 'actual scientific facts' are just as blurry. No one can say for sure at what point it should scientifically be considered an individual life. There are, however, perfectly reasonable, non-arbitrary, scientifically valid, and concrete grounds for claiming that life begins at conception.

However either way requires philosophical justification because we just don't know.

[subego]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Just because you ignore them, doesn't mean that the conditional beliefs that justify a ban on murder don't exist.

Allow me to rephrase.

Note that you chose not to include conditional beliefs about murder, while you did with abortion.

The only way you can do this is to assume I wasn't going to question the validity of the ban on murder, and therefore hold similar conditional beliefs.

Which was my point. There's a general consensus in our society about the ban on murder.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I personally believe that abortion is wrong, but at the same time I recognize that allowing abortion conveys many advantages upon society.

I agree with this.

I won't whitewash it. For my part this is a cynical viewpoint that borders on the obscene, though I obviously can't speak for you.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

I personally happen to believe that it happens at conception and have discussed the matter with a number of qualified people (mostly biologists) enough to know that there is currently no scientific reason to doubt that, just individual opinions.

I don't usually go looking for scientific answers to philosophical questions.

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Again, this is demonstrably false. Any non-anarchist necessarily accepts that there must be some limits imposed upon interpersonal behavior.

Since it wasn't clear what I was saying above, this doesn't really address my point.

The limit is drawn at (plausible) debatability, which - since things are being debated - implicitly means one recognizes and is questioning conditional beliefs.

The lack of general consensus on the issue should by all rights be the prompt to seek avenues other than state control.

As for it being a "women's issue", I think the lack of consensus makes having an abortion also a matter of privacy. As women are the only people who can have abortions, it is exclusively their privacy that is being infringed.

At the very least it's a "women's issue" in that sense, though like all things, people tend to go waaaaay overboard.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

The 'actual scientific facts' are just as blurry. No one can say for sure at what point it should scientifically be considered an individual life. There are, however, perfectly reasonable, non-arbitrary, scientifically valid, and concrete grounds for claiming that life begins at conception.

However either way requires philosophical justification because we just don't know.

Human beings are a commodity of the free market, both as labor and as living beings. We hold several patents on the human genome and derviations thereof.

When it comes to making a profit, arbitrary things such as philosophy is swept aside - unless it can be sold for more profit.

In a free society people are able to treat their offspring as investments for the future. Their lives, their genes.

Corporations are there to embrace and extend this freedom with financial backing, know-how and strategy.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by subego 

Allow me to rephrase.

Note that you chose not to include conditional beliefs about murder, while you did with abortion.

The only way you can do this is to assume I wasn't going to question the validity of the ban on murder, and therefore hold similar conditional beliefs.

Which was my point. There's a general consensus in our society about the ban on murder.

Ok, sounds like we agree here. You're right that I chose not to include the conditional beliefs about murder because there's a general consensus on that has been reached. I'd posit that there is still debate going on about the fringe issues surrounding murder (capital punishment, hate crimes, vigilanteism, revenge &c), but for the most part it's settled and agreed upon. With abortion the debate is much more active and emotionally charged.

I agree with this.

I won't whitewash it. For my part this is a cynical viewpoint that borders on the obscene, though I obviously can't speak for you.

Without going into too much detail, I imagine both our viewpoints are fairly well in line on this.

I don't usually go looking for scientific answers to philosophical questions.

Nor I, but before I could take any stance on this issue at all I felt the need to familiarize myself with the current science. Taking the stance that life begins at conception and therefore abortion is murder would be pretty stupid if there were some sort of firm biological evidence to the contrary. From many discussions with many people more qualified than myself, however, it seems to me that the scientific community basically doesn't attempt to answer the question if for no other reason than that we don't even really know how to define life in the first place.

Since it wasn't clear what I was saying above, this doesn't really address my point.

The limit is drawn at (plausible) debatability, which - since things are being debated - implicitly means one recognizes and is questioning conditional beliefs.

The lack of general consensus on the issue should by all rights be the prompt to seek avenues other than state control.

Certainly I agree with that. While I may have my own views on the matter, it's clear that not everyone agrees with me. Even many of the biologists I've spoken to about this, while they admit that they can't scientifically challenge my view, still hold the opposite view themselves. So it's pretty obvious that there is no clear-cut answer here. I'm generally loathe to use state control for any issue, let alone issues of life and death (this is my main criticism of the death penalty: do you really trust the government with the power of life and death?), this one being no exception.

None the less, I think it's important to voice my opinion on the matter especially as it often comes as quite a surprise to people who know me personally (I went to a very liberal school, and for whatever reason most of my friends even now are pretty liberal; everyone just assumes that I must be too which just leads to what I would consider an unhealthy political complacency).

As for it being a "women's issue", I think the lack of consensus makes having an abortion also a matter of privacy. As women are the only people who can have abortions, it is exclusively their privacy that is being infringed.

At the very least it's a "women's issue" in that sense, though like all things, people tend to go waaaaay overboard.

Certainly, there are some women's issues related to abortion, and privacy is a big one. I definitely agree that people (women included) have a right to privacy. But again, if we say that life begins at conception, that throws into question whether or not a woman's right to privacy extends so far as to deny the rights of another person.

The fact that only women bear children complicated this issue immensely, but, holding the beliefs that I do, it's difficult for me to sympathize when the main pro-choice argument often seems to reduce to nothing more than that it's inconvenient to be pregnant or that it's somehow not fair to women to have to carry a child to term but completely fair to the child/fetus/whatever that they're carrying to be denied a life altogether. So while I recognize that women have a particular interest in the issue, I don't accept that men have no say in the matter nor that the mother's rights trump those of the child. If anything, the child's rights should be tantamount. Anything else would seem to be in violation of our biological imperative to reproduce and continue the species.

[subego]

Oh god. We agree on everything.

Dull. Dull. DULL.




Edit: well there's a few things we may disagree about, for instance, I think what you say above makes you a better Libertarian than Ron Paul

[nonhuman]

Now if only having some random guy on an online message board say that I'm a better Libertarian than Ron Paul actually conferred some real-world benefits...

Ah well, I'll put it on my resumé anyway. Can't hurt, right?