Because Americans can only be classed as liberal/Democrats or conservative/Republicans; any other opinion, any other vote is considered wasted. Conform citizen! Choose your side and let your wealth and freedom be stripped by your wealthy betters who can see beyond two choices!
(edit)The study is interesting but reflects what the researchers determine as what constitutes a member of the left or right gang, tribe, athletic team fan club, or whatever.
I believe that there are two kinds of people: those who believe you can divide any group into two types, and those who donāt.
(Actually, came here to speculate about whether whatās considered non-conservative in the 'States would be considered āare you f**king crazy?ā right-wing authoritarianism every where elseā¦)
Left, Right, Up? Down?
They donāt mention parties in the short abstract, claim to measure policies not partisans, but Iām curious as to your alternative to left or right?
There is the Nolan chart, for oneā¦
EDIT: The above is an updated (well, as of 2012) version.
Suck it, Portland! 
Wow. Having grown up in the Buffalo area (but having been gone for almost 20 years), I am a bit surprised. I imagine their negative score might shift to positive if it included the vast suburbsā¦
The Nolan chart is horribly broken if you are a Libertarian-Socialist, although considering David Nolanās politics that might be by design.
I prefer that people have many opinions and be free to express them rather than being lumped into two competing camps.
3D Venn diagramming is probably the best way to describe a persons politics.
Conservative vs liberal is oversimplification for easy thoughtless fandom based wasted voting rather than considered choices, intelligent striving for change, and appropriate outrage.
The link I provided is to an updated chart for 2012 (I know, thatās not very up to date anymoreā¦) but that does not invalidate your concern. For example, the current quiz still seems to have no way to call out the fact that I favor a universal stipend for all adult citizens.
FWIW, my own position on the chart has not changed much on the old vs. the new quiz, but the proportion of respondents in the same region of the chart as I am has declined.
Also, I live in one of the cities near the top of the conservative rating in the chart from the article weāre talking about, so I shouldnāt be too surprised that my politics are a bit off from most of my neighbors.
Actually, there are 10 kinds of people: people who understand binary, people who donāt, and people who understand ternary.
Orā¦
Yeah, but my joke still works, except in binary.
I donāt get it. 1 is supposed to be āmost conservativeā, but the most conservative city has a score of less than 0.5.
I suspect that the cities that had a score of 1 had a population < 250000. Presumably this is a subset of the whole data.
Cities are virtually always less conservative than rural areas. So even the most conservative city is going to score low on a well balanced chart. A similar chart of farming communities would probably be jammed all the way to the right.
I note that Virginia Beach is up there. Iām not surprised. I went to a convention there once and was warned that the cops would be patrolling and that hugging someone in public could land you in jail for solicitation.
Agreed. What I noticed from the chart ā based on personal knowledge ā is that many of the cities listed would be at a very different place on the continuum if their suburbs (which are often more than 50% of the population for the greater metropolitan area) were included.
To use the most obvious Canadian example, thereās a reason Rob Ford kept getting elected to run Toronto, and it wasnāt because he was voted in by people who actually lived in Toronto.
Dobby. This is a post about what people identify THEMSELVES as.
I think your problem is withā¦ most people, and not the author. Is that a possibility?
āāeasy thopughtless fandomāā - also a bit of an oversimplification, no? Could you elaborate on what the oversimplification is āāforāā? You may have oversimplified, yourself, yes?
There were no options I could agree with 100% in the first few questions, so I gave up. And Iām neither a libertarian nor a socialist. It seemed to be as unsubtle as most political quizzes.
Iāve heard this about Ford before, and Iāve always wondered how that compares with, say, London - where Boris Johnson has also been predominantly elected because of suburban support (I think this is the 2008 result).
