[Buddha-l] Political views of Buddhists

[Lawrence K. Starner]

Economic Left/Right: -3.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.31 

-- Just to the right, of Ghandi

-- Larry Starner

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> -----Original Message-----
> Richard Hayes
> Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 1:59 PM
> 
> If you visualize a standard two-axis graph and imagine four 
> quadrants, here is 
> where some well-known figures would fall according to these political 
> scientists:
> 
> NW (authoritarian communist): Pope Benedict, Stalin, Kim Jongil, 
> Fidel Castro, 
> Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez.
> 
> NE (authoritarian free-market liberals): Hitler, Olmert, Bush, 
> Chirac, Blair, 
> Thatcher, Howard, Harper and Merkel.
> 
> SW (libertarian communist): Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Dalai Lama XIV. 
> 
> SE (libertarian free-market liberal): Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Thomas 
> Freedman.
> 
> Denizens of buddha-l, your assignment if you should choose to 
> accept it, is to 
> take the short political quiz at http://www.politicalcompass.org/ and to 
> report your score back to the rest of us. (This will help Benito do his 
> research into the political orientation of Western Buddhists.)
> 
> My score: -8.63, -7.13 (This means I'm about 87% communist and 
> 71% libertarian 
> and therefor in the same sector as Gandhi, HHDL and Mandela, although 
> consideraby more to the left than any of them.
> -- 
> Richard Hayes
> Department of Philosophy
> University of New Mexico
> http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes