Whew . It ' s a good thing I own a lot of non lethal weapons . And psssst , I wasn ' t giving a tutorial on selfdefense . I was just being cheeky . <| sep |> Why do you have such a click baity title ? <| sep |> Jill Stein is the friend who ruins your wedding but really shows up for you during the divorce . <| sep |> i ' m not actually ! thanks for taking up the next 48 mins of my time tho <| sep |> Those signs still have more personality than he does . <| sep |> A bag of oatmeal ! It ' s a great value item to have , cheap and nutritious meal that you can have anywhere . Just add hot water . <| sep |> Bet $ 1200 on Hillary to win the election . Fuck me <| sep |> Well guess that ' ll be all for tonight . <| sep |> In most polities , if you survey the population at some given point in time on salient political issues , principal component a n a l y s i s s e n s e o f p r i n c i p a l c o m p o n e n t a n a l y s iseigenvectorseigenvalues will show that most not all , but a substantial majority of the variation is along a single spectrum a leftright spectrum , and additional axes will be much smaller . When there is a substantial second axis , it will typically not be a result of a split along economic and social issues , but something orthogonal to either , such as nationalism for example , in Belgium , there is a clear distinction between Flemish and Walloon political parties as well as left and right . For example , this paper analyses German political parties , and finds that a single axis explains over 70 % of the variance in parties the second axis explains less than 12 %. This analysis of a survey of Chinese people finds an ideological spectrum characterized by one main dimension . This book contains an analysis of a survey of residents of TaiwanrZF 8 C w A A Q B A J d q p r i n c i p a l c o m ponentqprincipalcomponent # vsnippetqprincipal % 20 componentffalse which finds that the principal axis of political difference is a single leftright spectrum , and the second is attitude towards relations with the Chinese mainland . This analysis of Latin American votershamburg . degigajplaarticledownload 504502 , which attempts to find if selfplacement on a leftright scale corresponds to coherent ideological groupings , finds that the Latin American electorate does indeed form distinct ideological groups . Furthermore , the central dimensions emerging from these analyses . arepreeminent predictors of the leftright placement of respondents . This paper 23 . pdf compares how individuals place themselves on a leftright scale with their answers to substantive policy questions , to provide evidence that the leftright scale has a consistent meaning across time and place . The comment you refer to , written by someone still in undergraduate study , is right that ideologies as a unit themselves can be placed on an ndimensional space and It serves no real purpose to say that fascism is x arbitrarily defined units in one direction away from communism , but is wrong in saying that The left right dichotomy . has no academic merit whatsoever . The replying commenter is correct in referring to the large amount of empirical validation of onedimensional leftright political scales as applied to actual people living in societies .