I Know this Poll has been taken, but. . .

[True Democrat]

I know I only put Populist and Libertarian, because that is what I'm trying to figure.  Theoretically, Populists should believe people are not naturally good, as they wish to exert control over both a person's economic and personal lives.  Libertarians should be vice-versa.  Just wondering how it turns out.

For me, it's Yes, Libertarian.

[True Democrat]

Bump for vigour and deciveness.

[True Democrat]

It is interesting that, according to these poll results, the philosophy that supports personal freedom more is also the philosophy that is less trusting in the goodness of people.

That was the intent of this was to find out.  I expected the opposite results.

[True Democrat]

damn.  now that I've seen it I must admit I'm a tad surprised too.

I asume you'd have expected the rightists/small govt types to be overwhelmingly YES and the leftists/large govt types to be mostly NO.  Shows how little we know.  Anyway, don't get discouraged, Vorlon can tell you a lot of this has to do with your wording (And the odd choices.)  Let folks forget about it, wait a few months, then ask something like, "I believe in the innate benevolence of mankind"

YES/D
YES/R
YES/Other
NO/D
NO/R
NO/Other

I don't think Democrats and Republicans would be the right thing to use.  I'm trying to focus on just these two quarters of the spectrum.

[True Democrat]

Libertarian are generally more cynical about people (from my own personal experience) and thus don't have an interest in helping the people, and would just like the government to leave them alone so they can pursue success.

From what I've seen, libertarians do have an interest in helping the people, and they feel that the best way to do so is to get the government off their backs.

I really doubt it.  I'm sorry, but most of the rhetoric I hear from economic libertarians is complaining about the lower classes or "welfare slobs" or complaining about people who depend on the government too much.  Why would a leader want to help people through goverment spending if they didn't trust them?  It seems the leader who doesn't believe in the goodness of people would advocated less government spending and involvement, such as a libertarian.

My thinking was that Libertarians would feel that people are naturally good.  They believe people are good enough to make their own decisions.  Populists on the other hand, would believe people are not naturally good.  They believe people do not naturally make good decisions as shown by the Populists want to control both a person's economic choices (i.e. welfare) and personal choices (i.e. opposing gay marriage).