This really annoys me

[drmeow]

I was looking up the Monitoring the Future survey for work - Monitoring the Future is an annual survey of Jr. High and HS students which mostly asks about drug and alcohol use but includes lots of other questions. In the survey I ran across this question:

How would you describe your political beliefs?

1. Very conservative
2. Conservative
3. Moderate
4. Liberal
5. Very liberal
6. Radical
7. None of the above, or don't know

Radical? After very liberal? Even if they do not mean for it to represent a more liberal position than very liberal (which I doubt), it still sends a message that makes me uncomfortable.

As far as the results are concerned (14,063 kids), 34% of the kids said none or don't know, slightly more said very liberal than said very conservative and 2% actually endorsed radical - mostly boys (in the other categories girls tended to be more liberal that boys which leads me to suspect that they are defining radical very differently). I wonder how much more the gap would be between very liberal and very conservative if they included a more extreme category at the start of the list (reactionary?).

[Uncle Joe]

1. If the survey is going to have radical as a choice, it should be at both ends. n/t

[sweetpotato]

3. Radical at one end, reactionary at the other

They messed up on this one.

[Uncle Joe]

4. The way I see it, conservatives and liberals promote change.

The biggest difference is in which direction change is to go.

The most extreme conservatives promote change in taking us back to the Gilded Age, the elimination of unions, getting rid of the Department of Education, no minimum wage, the privatization of everything, no EPA, a continuous restriction of who should be eligible to vote, the promotion of corporate supremacy by criminalizing the American People for "unapproved of behavior," the general dumbing down of the American People, etc. etc.

I see all that as change but in a most negative light and to me this is radical and I believe and hope should those things come to pass, liberals or progressives would become "reactionaries" to those kind of changes.

This is why I believe radical best fits both extremes as a descriptive word.

[willing dwarf]

2. Wow, talk about bias. That is outrageous!!

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Interesting.

I started a page for this on the Truthiness Encyclopedia: http://www.wikiality.com/Monitoring_The_Future

You're welcome to add your own jokes to it, just remember to log in so no one can see your IP address.

[Javaman]

6. above Very conservative should be Fundie.

that question is slanted.