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Am I A Faith-And-Family Leftist?

Yes, I am, according to the Pew Political Typology Quiz, which puts me on the “Faith-And-Family Left,” described by Pew as follows: The Faith and Family Left combine strong support for activist government with conservative attitudes on many social issues. They are highly diverse – this is the only typology group that is “majority-minority.” The […]

Yes, I am, according to the Pew Political Typology Quiz, which puts me on the “Faith-And-Family Left,” described by Pew as follows:

The Faith and Family Left combine strong support for activist government with conservative attitudes on many social issues. They are highly diverse – this is the only typology group that is “majority-minority.” The Faith and Family Left favor increased government aid for the poor even if it adds to the deficit and believe that government should do more to solve national problems. They oppose same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana. Religion and family are at the center of their lives.

This is interesting to me, because on the issues that I would have thought were most associated with this group — race and immigration — I answered conservative populist. My guess is that I answered more “lefty” on economics, foreign policy (anti-interventionist), and the environment than most conservatives, plus I took a hard social conservative line.

I’m a lot more skeptical of government intervention than you would guess from my result here, but every time I would come up against a question about it, I would think about how on balance, I believe that Wall Street and big business have more power than is healthy for the common good. On the other hand, I’m convinced the get a lot of this through regulatory capture, which means that I am skeptical that the government works for the little guy, as opposed to the big guys who make campaign contributions. I’m pretty much where Nader is on this:

But the corporate media would not cover a lot of areas where Left and Right do agree that matter very much to our country and its place in the world. And that is mirrored by the fact that our two major political parties keep these convergent areas off the table in their debates. The obfuscation is quite impressive. So you have this combination of Wall Street and Washington, the corporate powers and their political allies, converging across party lines to perfect this corporate government …

For the record, I am a registered Independent, and consider myself a crunchy con, or a Red Tory. I suspect that deep down, I’m a 1950s Catholic Democrat — back before the Democratic Party became so hostile to religious and social conservatives — so maybe it’s not wrong to call me a Faith-And-Family Leftist. Truth is, my eclectic alt-conservative outlook is so marginal it doesn’t even rate on the Pew quiz. Let joy be unconfined, or something.

Take the Pew quiz yourself. Where do you fall?

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