Essay: Political ideologies (personal analysis)

Political ideas are put to use every day when people share an outlook or express their thoughts. These political ideologies are the set of internally consistent ideas that people use as a description for themselves, as a vessel to help them assemble into a party, and make decisions. The political ideologies that a person hold, also account for the vote choices they make during elections, whether they are local or national. A compass recognizes the many different ways that one person can be ideological politically. The compass also helps people understand whether they fall ideologically based on the three features that ideologies have. These features are world view, vision of a desired future society, and theory of how political change can be brought about.
The political compass is a good way to understand where one may stand in correlation to their ideas on how the government should operate. The quiz asks questions from six categories, including personal social values, one’s view of society, religious views, opinions on sex, thoughts on the economy, and one’s view on the world and country. After taking the test, I was placed at a -1.0 on the economic left to right scale, and on the social libertarian / authoritarian scale I scored a -0.46. This has proven that I, like most Americans, am not very politically ideological, but I do lean towards the standpoints that modern liberals have.
One of the main reasons that I was placed in the libertarian left area of the compass was because I agree with many social and religious values that modern liberals support. One of the issues that I agree with Modern Liberals or Progressives is a woman’s right to choose what she will do with her body regarding an unwanted pregnancy. I do not believe that the government has the right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body, like most liberals and socialists. Morality, I believe, correlates more to what a society will see as right or wrong, rather than a particular religion, so a person can be moral without being religious.
In accordance to sex, I also believe in the right for members of the LGBT community to get married, unlike conservatives and fascists. Because the nation was founded on the freedom of religion, I believe it is unconstitutional to base laws on religion. There should be no legal standing keeping any two people who love each other form getting married, because of their sexual orientations. I also disagree that one cannot be moral without being religious. I do agree with modern conservatives, however, that openness about sex has gone too far, not only at an absurd level in movies and television, but also in the way people act in public.
I do not agree with modern liberals on all of their societal beliefs, however, such as the death penalty. I believe that the death penalty is a punishment that sometimes is the appropriate punishment for murder or other felonies. This belief is a much more conservative one, because modern liberals believe it should be abolished as they deem it “cruel and unusual.” I also do not agree with the legalization of marijuana, unlike libertarians who are pro-drug legalization as well as anti-war, which I believe is in some cases inevitable and inescapable.
My views on government health care are also different than what left winged libertarians believe. Libertarians desire no government involvement with health care, because they are anti “big government,” instead favoring multiple competing health care industries. I believe that the government should not be involved directly with health care systems, but should be involved in dictating prices and ensuring a certain quality of healthcare for its citizens. This mentality though, is not agreed by libertarians, rather many conservatives think that healthcare should be managed this way. I also agree with conservative thinkers on their idea of property as an asset that reflects merit. This idea is very far off from the idea of liberals that property is a fundamental right, and that of libertarians that believe in strong regulations and that national ownership serves a public purpose.
Unlike Karl Marx and other socialist and communist thinkers, I disagree with the “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” phrase. Even though I believe all members of a society should be productive in one way or another, those who work more financially rewarding jobs should be able to keep their pay and spend it as they wish, after a reasonable amount of taxes are deducted. Taxes, I believe, are a necessary part of a society and crucial to running a government, but I believe that all citizens should be taxed an equal percentage of their incomes. This idea is not exactly in correlation to the conservative ideas of lowering taxes and smaller government, but it is also not the liberal want to increase taxes (mainly for the wealthy) support for a larger government.
My views on the country and world are also very much on different sides of the compass. I disagree with the notion of always supporting my country, whether it is right or wrong. My mind always goes back to Nazi Germany, and I am wary that political allegiance to the nation is not always the correct thing to do. However, I do believe in the modern conservative thought that national symbolism, shared history, and patriotism are extremely important to a country. I also strongly disagree with the fascist belief that one race has superior qualities, or are meant to rule, over others. Like many conservatives, though, I do believe that military action is sometimes justified.
Before I took the political compass examination, I identified as a Republican, although a moderate one at that. However, after completing the questions I found that I was not very politically ideological. On the economic left to right scale my score was a -1.0, and on the social libertarian / authoritarian scale I scored a -0.46. This has proven that not only am I extremely not ideological, but I lean towards the opposite side of the scale that many highly ideological Republican party leaders lean towards. My political compass test results helped me not only learn that I was extremely moderate in my ideas toward government, but also that I fall into the modern liberal or progressive section of the graph.