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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." —Thomas Jefferson

Political perspective: "[This] chart [was] devised in 1969 by political scientist David Nolan. Nolan was frustrated with the traditional Left/Right political spectrum because he observed that many people with very different views were all lumped together in the middle. Nolan ... recognized that there are actually two separate elements that define a person’s political belief: what sorts of goals should government have, and how much government should be applied to achieve those goals. The old Left/Right spectrum covered the first; the second was entirely unaddressed. ... The Quiz has ten simple statements broadly categorized into economic and personal issues. Each statement concerns who should control a particular decision: individuals or government. There are three possible answers: Agree, Maybe, and Disagree. ... The answers, when taken together, accomplish two tasks. First, they determine whether a person tends to favor conservative goals or liberal goals. Second, they determine whether a person tends to favor small government or big government. Once the person has taken the Quiz, those answers are evaluated, and are plotted on the Diamond Chart. ... People can easily see whether they are politically to the left or to the right. Some are closer to the center, and others are more toward the edges. At the same time, they can see whether they are toward the libertarian, or small-government, portion of the Diamond Chart, or closer to the statist, or big-government, area. ... A person is to the left or right of the center, and also to the top or bottom of the center. This makes it easy to get an overall evaluation of the person’s political belief system. Rather than merely calling people conservatives, liberals, or moderates, [this] ... expand[s] the categories into more descriptive and effective terms. For example, conservatives seek particular societal outcomes, such as strong traditional families, private property, or religious faith. Liberals, on the other hand, seek social justice, equality, or compassion. Yet, given these sets of goals, it is still possible to be a Big-Government Conservative or a Small-Government Conservative, to be a Big-Government Liberal or a Small-Government Liberal. A Big-Government Conservative may believe that the best way to achieve his or her goals would be through tax policies that give breaks to traditional families or corporations, using the military to open foreign markets, channeling money into approved religious organizations, or through the use of speech codes to prevent discussion of anti-American ideas. Meanwhile, the Small-Government Conservative may believe that any use of the tax code, military intervention, funneling taxpayer money to religious groups, or establishment of speech codes actually undermines the goals being sought, and would oppose them. Both of these are conservative in their goals, but have very different means of achieving those goals. A Big-Government Liberal may propose all manner of social programs designed to rectify society’s ills, such as Medicare, job retraining programs, wealth transfers, or speech codes to protect various groups from hatred. A Small-Government Liberal, while desiring the same outcomes, may look at these programs as merely causing other problems, and not actually solving the initial ones. Thus, it is possible for a Small-Government Liberal and a Small-Government Conservative to have very different goals, but still prefer the smallest government possible. At the same time, a Big-Government Liberal and a Big-Government Conservative may both be pushing for expansion of government in their respective realms. To the taxpayer, it often matters very little whether it is the Big-Government Conservative or the Big-Government Liberal who expands government, increases taxes, or imposes speech codes; it matters equally little whether it is the Small-Government Conservative or the Small-Government Liberal who makes government less intrusive and reduces onerous regulations. In short, it is the amount of government, as much as what the government does, that affects people, and it is the amount of government that is not tested or evaluated by the traditional Left-Right political spectrum." —From " ... Operation Politically Homeless" by Scott A. Kjar, © 2006, The Advocates for Self-Government