Caplan's Libertarian Quiz: Redux
So, some time ago I took Bryan C's "Libertarian Purity Quiz." (to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, if you care more about testing purity than about actually affecting policy in the world....you MIGHT be a Libertarian). As I noted then, I got a 54.
Took the test again. This time, 66. George Bush, you did this to me. I have jumped up more than 10 "purity percentiles" in a little less than four years.
Labels: Libertarian Party
posted by Mungowitz @ 9/28/2009 11:58:00 AM
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16 Comments:
Tommy the Englishman scored only a 45 but is a bit turned on by the leader of Germany's FDP...shouldn't there be points for that?
the idea a test to form an ideal libertarian is contradictory. Individualism is the arbiter of price: thus for a question like: "is occupationallicensing too strict? the answer is you can't know if the competitive process would yield a stricter or looser process; but they are necessarily arbitrary to a degree. That is, unless policy writers have solved the calculation problem and are now omniscient in which case the don't need taxes anymore because they can gain through this mystical ability. And also a question like "should gov't sell of more public land? ignores the possibility of selling it off in a way to increase exploitation. The point: Stupid test
""51-90 points: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much."
-The perfect score of a political libertarian. After all, can't run for governor on the platform: "there should be little or no government;" kind of self-defeating
I'm a soft-core libertarian. Who knew.
I took it just now, too, and scored a 65, which seems about right....to the hardcore libertarians, I'm not pure enough, but compared to everyone I know in "real life," I'm a crazy libertarian.
I got a 73. The questions in the last part of the quiz are pretty freakin' scary. Most of the people I know who maybe are answering yes to them would be the first ones to get sphinctered if that world came into being.
I never knew sphincter was a verb at all -- let alone transitive. Do you need tools for that?
I got an 18. Is this test actually representative of the libertarian platform?
Yes Tom, sphincter is a verb in angus-land at least. As in, "hey Mark! Tyler is trying to sphincter us"
hbanan: Yes, I would say that section I, and parts of section II, are pretty representative of the Lib Party platform. I tend to emphasize civil liberties more than the party does, but most of the questions in part I are mainstream Lib stuff. As Angus notes, the stuff in part III is NOT Lib Party, but then it wouldn't be. It's perfectly fair to take an anarchist position, but then of course you don't really want to be a political party controlling government; you want to dismantle government.
Tom Jackson: Yes, welcome, that is a club I know very well.
Angus is right about the verb "to sphincter." The antonym verb is "to give a reacharound." As in, "Hey Mark, Tyler is giving us a major reacharound, to make up for the way he sphinctered us last time!"
I'm right alongside Tom Jackson. Scored just above 50 - and here I thought I was a hardcore libertarian, but that may just be a reflection of my community.
"Most of the people I know who maybe are answering yes to them would be the first ones to get sphinctered if that world came into being."
We have the government assault on integrity to blame for our utter dependence. (coercive) Monopolies are necessarily inefficient. Most who make the claim know that in today's world of dependence it is more of a school of thought (i know the wording of that faulty quiz implies putting it into action). Point is to demonstrate the unjust origins of Government. If you or Munger should feel so inclined to take time out of your busy schedules and listen to an hour long lecture of professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe on this websitehttp://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/
and come up with a logical argument against it which demonstrates there is a natural law argument for coercive monopoly, I would love to here it. For me, the likes of Rand, Hayek, and even Mises have failed to produce a better argument for minimal gov't than hoppe's against. Perhaps it is better to live in the "Real world" but viewing things in this manner is a useful school of thought. Unlike the detrimental school of thought of mainstream economics (detrimental in that it is applied as a natural science).
-Sean
i definitely scored higher than 66, but perhaps only because i was trying to bend the wording to fit my mental model. the quiz itself is pointless: none of this will come to pass so long as quiz makers scare the shit out of people who might have given some thought to the issues. expecting people to morph magically into Rothbard is wishing to be sphinctered by a unicorn.
JQP: Excellent use of the word "sphinctered." Thanks!
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That guy would get sphinctered , too, I imagine. As would I.
Hence the paltry 39.
I scored 97. I'm not an anarchist, I just want to strip the government to the bare essentials.
This test is more for "libertarians" than "Libertarians" (ie, the Libertarian Party). Obviously no one who runs for office as a Libertarian would score very high on this test. I'm probably more hardcore anti-government than anyone who's involved in politics, and according to this I'm still not that extreme.
However, I must say that the bigger government gets, the better no government sounds.
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