Libertarians

I sort of considered myself libertarian. But then there is this libertarian who was running for office somewhere and who for some reason was e-mailing me his various statements and letters to the editor, etc. And when I finally got around to looking at them, I realized I disagreed with a lot of he was saying. Anti-environmentalist, pro-corporate kinds of views. When I wrote to him, to ask to get off his list, and I told him he sounded more like a religious right republican than a libertarian, he wrote back with some surprise, saying that he scored 100-100 on the libertarian quiz and that he agreed with 100% of the libertarian party platform.

So, I figured I've better take that test and re-evaluate things a bit for myself. It is actually a rather good test, based on a more sensible political spectrum than the normal left-undecided-right thing. There are some important dimensions missing, which I'll get to in a moment, but it does make things more clear. The idea is that the Liberal Left wants people to be free when it comes to their personal behavior (but wants to control their money), and the Conservative Right wants people to be free when it comes to money (but want to control people's behavior and morals). An Authoritarian wants to control all of it, and a Libertarian wants people to be free both when it comes to money and personal morals. more >