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You are here: Home / Politics / Libertarian Purity

Libertarian Purity

by John Cole|  March 11, 20042:58 pm| 20 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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I scored a 47 on the Libertarian Purity test, which means:

Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.

Take that, you statist swine.

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20Comments

  1. 1.

    Oliver

    March 11, 2004 at 3:51 pm

    Anarchist! Go march with your buddies… :)

  2. 2.

    keith edge

    March 11, 2004 at 3:58 pm

    I got a 68. Anything higher is getting into anarchism. “perfect libertarian”, my ass. Realism needs to come into play at some point.

  3. 3.

    The Lonewacko Blog

    March 11, 2004 at 5:12 pm

    The Lonewacko Blog took this test and got a 20. Yet, we aren’t statists or “liberals,” we’re just realists.

    Anyone who gets a high score on this test is nuts.

    After taking this test, I began thinking, “is there a difference between extreme libertarianism and feudalism?” Unfortunately, it seems that a couple of commentators at Willis had the same idea. Once again, that doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a coincidence.

  4. 4.

    Mason

    March 11, 2004 at 5:17 pm

    57

  5. 5.

    Ralph Gizzip

    March 11, 2004 at 7:44 pm

    56

  6. 6.

    Myria

    March 11, 2004 at 8:40 pm

    “Anyone who gets a high score on this test is nuts.”

    Nothing like reasoned debate and discussion, eh? Funny how often the right and the left just seem basically the same. “Agree with me or you’re nuts (or evil, or both)”.

    *yawn*

    Myria

  7. 7.

    TM Lutas

    March 11, 2004 at 10:19 pm

    I find myself positively rational, thank you very much. Not only that but I’m fairly well read about how many of these ‘radical’ proposals are the law of the land in this country or that with good results in the real world.

    134 was my score

  8. 8.

    Matthew

    March 11, 2004 at 10:38 pm

    42

    I like a lot of what the Libertarian say but they just carry everything way to far. It’s too bad I wish there was a viable third party. I voted for a Libertarian once for State Rep. He got less then 10% of the vote. I’ve been a registered Republican since I turned 18. They have dissappointed me. But I usaully see them as better then the alternative, the Dems.

  9. 9.

    Slartibartfast

    March 11, 2004 at 10:54 pm

    I covet 42. It has special relevance to me. Can we swap? I scored 41.

  10. 10.

    Emperor Misha I

    March 12, 2004 at 12:04 am

    58

    Of course, being an Evil Despot, I should’ve probably scored 0.

    Hmmm… I need to work on that.

  11. 11.

    The Lonewacko Blog

    March 12, 2004 at 1:42 am

    Capybaras – the world’s largest rodents – freak me out.

    But, anyway, “nuts” is meant to be shorthand for “something that 98% of the U.S. populace would immediately reject without any possibility of further discussion and which lead to the Libertarian Party getting 1% or 2% of the vote even in local elections.”

    Examples: privatizing all public lands, privatizing sanitation, fire, and other local services, abolishing immigration laws, abolishing medical licensing (???), abolishing worker safety regulations, privatizing highways (presumably all highways not just some), privatizing the police, etc. etc. etc.

    Those ideas are “nuts.” That is unless you want to return to those halcyon days of feudalism.

  12. 12.

    Matthew

    March 12, 2004 at 1:46 am

    Slartibartfast I’d be willing to swap my 42 for a pint of Guinness. :o)

  13. 13.

    smith

    March 12, 2004 at 4:31 am

    My results:
    “Your score is… 13
    “You are not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. You are probably not even a liberal or a conservative. Just some Nazi nut, I guess.”

    i can’t believe i got a lower score than oliver.

  14. 14.

    platosearwax

    March 12, 2004 at 6:04 am

    31. I find it hard to believe that my “libertarian credentials are obvious” when I consider myself just a bit too liberal for most libertarians.

  15. 15.

    ape

    March 12, 2004 at 8:45 am

    US economic success was founded on a substantial public realm and good regulation of industry and commerce. Commerce cannot function without confidence. This applies just as much to regulation against fraud and monopoly as it does to communist ‘nationalization’.

    I have heard it pointed out that the US state holds, and always has held, more assets that the New York stock exchange. Like in the UK, this was a foundation of success.

    Countries which have tried eliminating their public realm, eg, Argentina, have fared disasterously.

    Anyone who scored high in that test really is nuts i’m afraid – in the sense of being deeply misguided. I’m not sure what this view is to do ‘left’ and ‘right’. I may be wrong, but i got the impression that abortion was glossed over. Other than that, however, a high score would not be fundamentally ‘right-wing’. (Isnt Buchanan on the right? Dont the right oppose recreational drug use?)

    It would, however, be fundamentally nuts.

  16. 16.

    TM Lutas

    March 12, 2004 at 9:51 am

    The Lonewacko Blog – An interesting nom de plume from which to spout about nuts. The libertarian ideology generally gets somewhere between 15%-35% in support depending. It’s hardly in the 1%-2% range than you posit. But the US has an electoral system that will always have 2 major political parties plus some minor, mostly irrelevant 3rd parties. The Libertarian Party, has chosen purity over practicality and limits itself in ways that make its vote scores so pathetic. It’s a function of how they run their campaigns, not the attractiveness of their ideas.

    For instance, they could easily rescind their ban on cross-endorsements without changing their ideology one bit and become a major political player in the state of New York. This decision has no ideological component, merely a strategic one and they’ve chosen their irrelevance.

  17. 17.

    tom scott

    March 12, 2004 at 12:16 pm

    Sometimes I read something from the CATO Institute that enthuses me about libertarianism. Then I head to the meetings of the local libertarians where there discussions are limited to legalizing pot or doing away with the curfew laws. Reason Magazine was a great read during the days of Virginia Postrel. Now under the guidance of Nick Gillespie we read about how great the Beatles were and how wonderful Eminem is. Libertarianism is great in principle, lousy in application.

  18. 18.

    The Lonewacko Blog

    March 12, 2004 at 5:55 pm

    “An interesting nom de plume from which to spout about nuts”

    Thanks, those who fixate on the name usually do so because they don’t have an argument.

    But, not in your case! However, it should be pointed out that Harry Browne got a whopping 382,869 votes in 2000, for 0.37% of the electorate. Same year, governors: all 8 were between 0 and 2%. The VT candidate got 664 votes, and all those people probably are wondering, “But, there are 665 LP voters in VT! Who’s the traitor?”

    On a slightly related note, a recent CATO panel discussed the Bush/Fox amnesty. Dan Griswold said in effect that all those guestworkers he wants to bring in will be too tired to worry about voting. Ideas like that are truly American ideas, they’re just in the wrong century.

  19. 19.

    thai transexuals

    July 9, 2004 at 6:52 am

    Commodum ex iniuria sua nemo habere debet – No person ought to have advantage from his own wrong

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks

  1. Dean's World says:
    March 11, 2004 at 11:25 pm

    Libertarian Purity (Rosemary, the Q.O.A.E.)

    72 on the Libertarian Purity Test. Eh, who knew? My score, according to this test, means: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your…

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