Graphing Your Political Philosophy

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Law professor bloggers have taken to posting their scores on a political survey hosted by Chris Lightfoot that plots your position on left/right and idealistic/pragmatic axes. Some law prof notables (with figures on a -1 to +1 scale, where available):

• Ann Althouse (Wisconsin) is left of center and slightly pragmatic (near Tony Blair).
• Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA): is well right of center and slightly pragmatic, near Margaret Thatcher
• Kevin Heller (Georgia) is well left of center and slightly pragmatic (-0.5715 (left/right) and +0.0086 (idealistic/pragmatic)). (He proudly announced: "I'm to the Left of Everyone!")
• Mike Rappaport (San Diego) is right of center and pragmatic (+1.47 (left/right) and +3.49 (idealistic/pragmatic))
• Tung Yin (Iowa) is slightly right of center and pragmatic (+0.0291 (left/right) and +0.1949 (idealistic/pragmatic))

You take the survey by answering 75 questions (Agree Strongly, Agree, No Opinion, Disagree, Disagree Strongly). Several of the questions are tax-related:

• It's more important to make the poor richer than to decrease the gap between rich and poor.
• Cutting taxes can't ever increase government revenue.
• Drivers shouldn't have to pay taxes to cover damage to the environment caused by motor transport, since that would price some people off the roads.
• The wealthy should pay a larger proportion of their income in tax than the poor.
• The government should raise revenue by taxing income rather than consumption.

For the record, I am almost exactly in the middle on the left/right axis and slightly idealistic (+0.0024 (left/right) and -0.0584 (idealistic/pragmatic)):