I've heard people saying that the Political Compass is left-biased, but this...

Firstly, the fact that it is associated with Libertarianism.com (incidentally one of the most hilarious sites I have ever seen - protect workers by abolishing minimum wage! Leave the UN and NATO to ensure the safety of Americans!), is a pretty obvious indicator of what it wants your result to be. Now, the questions.

Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet

Did anyone disagree with this?

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft

Same as above.

I mean, two of the social questions, or 40% of the tests, are pretty much the most centrist statements I have ever seen. But that's not too awful. What's awful is the economic questions.

End "corporate welfare." No government handouts to business

What? "Corporate Welfare"? That's what they're calling a bailout which is going to save thousands of jobs and billions of investment dollars? I disagreed, despite the question trying to make disagreers sound like morons.

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security

Not the phrasing this time, just the statement. If I don't want to abolish pensions, I'm a horrible evil socialist?

Replace government welfare with private charity

Completely abolish welfare? Completely abolish welfare? No disabled benefits? No unemployment benefits? Leave the poorest and most vulnerable people in society to starve? Even I'm not that right-wing.

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more

Halve them? David Cameron is cutting by 25%, and it's going to pretty much destroy the economy. I voted "yes", though.

What surprises me is that I was pretty much the most right-wing member of this site after Machina according to the Political Compass, and I'm now a Centrist.

You'd be surprised how many people (mainlyconservatives) think that a draft should be mandatory.

Also, bailing out companies who failed and deserve to disappear isn't gonna help the economy. This is one type of wellfare that should go away.

Many individuals are for mandatory military service and are against the draft; they're two separate issues, and I think this question could confuse people. I know several people who are very much in favour of mandatory military service from all ends of the political spectrum because of what it can do for the citizens, and the country. Imagine you take people at the age of 16 or 18 and put them in a highly disciplined environment, give them a college education or teach them a trade, have them gain a couple of years experience, and then release them into the "real world" and I guarantee that they will be far more likely to be successful than the average individual is today.

What "experience"? Killing people? People can go to college or learn a trade on their own (and the majority do). No one should be made to endure the brainwashing and dehumaniza that goes on in the military.

Nothing good can come out of the nonsesne you propose, unless you want everybody to be mindless sheep.

First off, who said anything about mandatory military service for combat positions? Last I heard, there were 8 to 10 support staff in the military for every combat ready soldier; and I would (personally) argue that those combat positions should be entirely voluntary.

Beyond that, the vast majority of citizens in most western countries have been struggling because they haven't developed valued skills within the economy. Over 30% of people don't graduate high school, and only 20% to 25% of people graduate from college or University. While there are those that do seek out technical training, over half of the population hasn't developed skills that are valued within the economy.

With that said, the western democracies that have mandatory military service (Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, etc.) tend to be far better off in a lot of significant ways (compared to the United States) that can in some way be attributed to this mandatory military service. For example, the self confidence and discipline that often comes from Military training could be a significant factor to why people in these countries are less likely to abuse their social programs; which allows their social programs to be more generous without bankrupting the country.

I don't know the difference between "support staff" and "combat ready soldiers", but if it involves any type of training (basic training, or whatever they call it) I'm against it.

As for the education thing, that's not the job of the military, and the military in my country doesn't even do that (unless you enroll in the Military Academy, where you can get an engineering degree).

As all that "self confidence" and "discipline" nonsense, all the military does is abuse people, traumatise them (through things like hazing) and dehumanise them. All it does is creates broken little sheep.

It sounds to me like you have an irrational dislike of the military based on uninformed opinions from biased sources ...

What I'm talking about isn't significantly different from how the Canadian Reserves operate (providing vocational training and funding for college); and (having known dozens of reservists in University) I have only ever heard overwhelmingly positive things said about military training.

The only legitimate, informed, argument against manditory military training is the poin of why it is the responsiblity of the military to train citizens; and this is the primary reason I'm (personally) agaisnt it. But this completely unsupported belief that people are somehow worse off from military training is bullshit.

It sounds to me like you have an irrational dislike of the military based on uninformed opinions from biased sources ...

What I'm talking about isn't significantly different from how the Canadian Reserves operate (providing vocational training and funding for college); and (having known dozens of reservists in University) I have only ever heard overwhelmingly positive things said about military training.

The only legitimate, informed, argument against manditory military training is the poin of why it is the responsiblity of the military to train citizens; and this is the primary reason I'm (personally) agaisnt it. But this completely unsupported belief that people are somehow worse off from military training is bullshit.

I don't want to be forced to undergo any military training, and I don't think that anyone should be forced to undergo such training. You're right about it not being the military's role to train people, this is another reason why I disagree with mandatory military service.

And you probably don't know the nature of mlitary service in Romania, but no education was offered to the people drafted, just combat training. I also find the nature of such training, which includes forced physical exercises, forced labour, humiliation, hazing (it happens quite often in the military) to be degrading and dehumanising (not to mention the desensitization to things like physical and psychological violence and murder).

Ultimately I'm against the military as an institution, and no one can force me to be associated with it (if the conscription hadn't been eliminated over here I would've probably either emigrated or gone to jail).

To be fair, the Romanian army may be that shitty... Romania and all.