In article . net,
Jonathan Ball wrote:

I don't have a 30 point test, but the following 10
point quiz worked well enough two other times. When I
posted this in alt.food.vegan, twice about a year
apart, the self-styled "vegans" gave consistently
leftwing answers 85% of the time or higher. One of the
problems with this particular quiz is, it's possible to
disagree with the statement from either leftwing or
rightwing perspective. It's important, therefore, to
add a few *honest* explanatory words in addtion to your
yes/no or agree/disagree answer.

State whether or not you're "vegan" or tend to agree
with the tenets of "veganism", then answer yes or no,
or agree or disagree, along with a short explanation of
your answer.

1. Military service should be voluntary. (No draft)

Everyone under the age of 50 is too young to have been up for the draft.
Does that mean that in your imaginary world every American under 50 is a
lefty or a commy pinko because of the abolition of the draft? But on the
other hand, all Israeli Jews must be rightwingers cuz they have no choice
but to serve in the Israeli armed forces? Thanks so much for clarifying
how you think!

2. Government should not control radio, TV, the press
or the Internet.

True conservatives believe the government should indeed keep its ass out
entertainment & the press; & true liberals believe these liberties should
be darned close to absolute. So a "yes" here means the respondent is
EITHER a righty or a lefty. Unless you're paranoid, then it means what you
"knew" it meant long before anyone answers.

3. Repeal regulations on sex for consenting adults.

I see, Goldwater was a lefty. Actual conservatives want government out of
peoples' private personal lives & deeply value privacy protection; actual
progressives agree with conservatives on this. If you thought otherwise,
then you're not talking about left vs right, but sane vs. crazy.

4. Drug laws do more harm than good. Repeal them.

Yes, William F. Buckley believe the War On Drugs is the abject failure
that has done more harm than good. No, Buckley is not a vegatarian or a
liberal, nor are Ederkin, Greenspan, . The issue of decriminalization vs
legality are themselves completely separate issues, & the FACT of existing
laws' harmfulness is distinct from the QUESTION whether effective &
constructive laws are possible. So you've raised for distinct issues for
which you want a single yes or no -- this works only in simple minds. The
war on drugs is a failure, period, unless the goal was to disenfranchise
black america while letting the vastly larger drug problem in white
america pass unprosecuted. THINKING Conservatives & liberals alike can
agree a completely different legal attitude toward drug abuse is required.
Only a few fringies (as many fringy conservatives such as the libertarians
as far-out-man retro hippy liberals) want harmful laws supplanted with
drug anarchy. Well, as point of fact Greenspan & Buckley seem to outright
legalization over harmful laws, but a greater number of conservatives
favor decriminalization. The REAL distinction between right & left on this
issue is the right generally wouldn't fund medical treatment of addicts
once imprisonment ceases to be the ineffective response.

5. People should be free to come and go across borders;
to live and work where they choose.

The actual progressive stance is that people should not have fewer rights
than corporations. A growing percentage of conservative politicians, soon
as all the corporations in their voting districts move across a border,
are saying the same thing.

6. Businesses and farms should operate without govt. subsidies.

Once again you ask two distinct questions at once that for a great many
require two different answers, but in your scaled down simpleminded world
no two questions have two answers. Commonly (by no means universally)
progressives don't support corporate welfare, but do support small farm
assistance. Conservatives don't support either one when speaking
philosophically; but when they become Elected conservatives they keep
whittling away farm subsidies for the small farmer in order to give bigger
& bigger tax breaks to oil company chums & agribusinesses like Monsanto.

7. People are better off with free trade than with tariffs.

Strangely a so-called "liberal" president pushed through that particular
conservative agenda to give corporations more rights than individuals. One
frequently finds conservatives & liberals in agreement that tarrifs are
bad, free trade is good, but disagreements arise only when issues of
protecting the environment or unionization are expected to be included. So
the "left vs right" query here should've been either "Free trade is so
important that all workers should be scabs" or "Free trade is so important
toxic waste dumps across the border should stay legal." But if you're
really positing that either the left or the right prefers a tariff system,
that is considered a poor bandaid by both sides, though in fact tarrifs
have been resorted to more often by right-leaning presidents including our
current far-right unelected one.

8. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment. Repeal them.

9. End taxes. Pay for services with user fees.

The crankier libertarian ideas are rarely supported by either
conservatives or liberals, as both sides would answer that one NOT with a
yes or no, but with a "what the **** are you on, bub?" One COULD however
easily identify a STATISTICAL difference between left-of-center vs
right-leaning presidents: Democrats have historically spent less than
Republican presidents & attempted to cover it with existing taxes;
Republicans have cut taxes & increased spending in order to indebt the
next generation. Reagan was the biggest spender of all time until Bush
arrived on the scene. But out here in the real world most us, left or
right, just want the government to live within its means & not tax us to
death. Apart from the crazier liberatarians who regard themselves as
purist conservatives, nobody advocates a world in which the fire
department only stops fires for citizens who can afford to pay for the
service & police only answer calls from subscribers. The way you phrase
these questions tag you as an amazing loon to even think these are issues.

10. All foreign aid should be privately funded.

Appears you've either mistaken the fringiest conservatives such as
libertarians for conservatives, or more likely you just don't understand
even Politics 101 and have this series of crazy mixed up ideas so fungally
rooted in your mind that you can't form rational yes/no queries. There may
be (in principle, rarely in execution however) different ideas between
left & right as to what foreign aid should consist of, but only crazies
propose isolationism.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VEGAN & VEGETARIAN:
All vegans are vegetarians, not all vegetarians are vegans. Vegans don't
eat meat, fish, eggs or cheese or meat; vegetarians don't eat AT LEAST red
meat, & vary as to whether their vegetarianism includes chicken, fish,
eggs, or milk products; the airlines like the distinction Lacto-Ovo
Vegetarian and Vegetarian, the latter they assume to be vegans.

Reasons for these choices range from sentimentality toward animals, to
health concerns (you'd be surprised how many men, right or left, are
vegans within a week of open heart surgery), to ancient religious
ideologies. Many moslems traveling in the west become vegans until they
get back to their home countries, because they know meat is not killed
cleanly & sacredly here, unless it's kosher, but in that case a Jew
touched it, yuk -- most of these vegan Muslims seem to be pretty damned
rightwing sad to say. A fringier group may be concerned with parity of
equal rights between chickens & people but these are such a minority that
I've only actually met one or two in a quarter-century of vegetarian
activism -- not counting the newsgroup wackos who're probably chomping on
cheeseburger even as they post what a jerk you are for exploiting your
yorkshire terrier as a companion animal instead of letting it run wild
with the wolves.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/