Conservative, liberal, libertarian, progressive? Do these terms make your head spin?

If so, you’re not alone — the art of politics is indeed a confusing slew of labels and ideologies that at times rarely seem to have any logical connection to one another.

Often times, the political spectrum is described simply as a one-dimensional line running from liberal to conservative. If one thinks of the political spectrum instead as a two-dimensional grid with axes representing a person’s views on the role of government intervention in both the spheres of personal and economic freedom, it becomes easier to see how economic and social philosophies are often coupled.

Traditional views of constituencies are well and good, yet it leaves out a significant portion of the picture.

For instance, members of the Libertarian Party (who occupy the Libertarian Right) are often confused for either traditional liberals or conservatives, depending on what particular issue they’re discussing at the time. Yet rather than ever-changing, the Libertarian credo is one which objects to the initiation of force to achieve ends, thus leading to political agenda which lends itself to great economic and personal freedom.

Now that you know the rules of the game, where do you fit in? For reference, a cross-section of Daily political columnists were polled to give an idea of the political diversity of the Opinion page. Finding out where you lie is easy — simply take the political orientation quiz found at www.politicalcompass.org today to find out where you lie.

The quiz appoints values to your economic left-right views (the first set of numbers) and authoritarian-libertarian views (the second set of numbers). The higher or lower the number, the more extreme the view.

Aggregate Data:

Skutnik: 8.38 -5.64

Bolton: .25 .15

Morrison: .50 .31

Cerra: -4.25 -4.97

Clark: -4.12 -3.44

Nguyen: -3.25 -.56

Steve Skutnik

is a graduate student in nuclear physics from Ames.