Exactly. Words like "liberal" and "conservative" have become incredibly loaded terms, and the notion that they describe everyone is absurd oversimplification.

Exactly. Words like "liberal" and "conservative" have become incredibly loaded terms, and the notion that they describe everyone is absurd oversimplification. At a very basic level, the combination of social and economic issues is silly. The politicalcompass.org site/method is not without bias, but at least they break it into a two dimensional problem. I've found that a great number of hackers/engineers skew towards more libertarian beliefs, where they may be "liberal" on one issue and then "conservative" on the next, but overall maintain a perfectly rational & consistent basis for their beliefs. These types of people don't fit well on a simplified 1-dimensional line between left & right.