The Libertarian Purity Test

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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:02 pm

I got 39.

I didn't want to finish this quiz because this guy is obviously a nut. He thinks libertarianism is anarcho-capitalism. Funnily enough the last question actually asks you if you are an anarcho-capitalist. I think anarcho-capitalism is right wing insanity. I also don't like anarchy in general.

I think libertarianism is great. I think more freedom is something we should aspire to. I don't think believing the government is "inherently evil" is the same thing as more freedom.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Windy » Fri Jun 10, 2016 2:58 pm

Tesseracts wrote:I think libertarianism is great. I think more freedom is something we should aspire to. I don't think believing the government is "inherently evil" is the same thing as more freedom.


Let's start with a number: 262 million. That's the number of unarmed people the late Prof. R. J. Rummel estimated governments murdered in mass killings he termed "democide" during the 20th century.

And that's not even counting the two World Wars!
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby FieldMarshalFry » Fri Jun 10, 2016 3:24 pm

I got a 19, but that mostly seems to come from my approach towards drug policy and sex between consenting adults, a lot of that stuff sounded insane... do people actually believe that?
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:27 pm

I got a rock.

Seriously though, I can't take this test because it's tailor-made for Americans. In Hungary, libertarianism has very few followers.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Twistappel » Fri Jun 10, 2016 4:34 pm

20.

Although I was a bit iffy about the "vigilante justice" question. I think that should only be an option in extremely rare cases, where the state has essentially failed. And like Aquila, I ran into some slight problems in that the test assumes that the subject is in the USA, and uses the current state of politics as a baseline. I suspect my answer would have differed if I had answered some of the questions based on the political system in Australia.

Also, the only thing worse than the fact that I misread the thread title as "The Librarian Purity Test" is that I was excited about it.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Jun 10, 2016 9:01 pm

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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Grimstone » Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:15 am

FieldMarshalFry wrote:I got a 19, but that mostly seems to come from my approach towards drug policy and sex between consenting adults, a lot of that stuff sounded insane... do people actually believe that?


Yeah, we should totally criminalize sex between consenting adults and give kids felony records for being in possession of a relatively harmless substance(as an added bonus it's prohibition helps prop up criminal organizations, its a win win). Makes total sense.

I scored a 31, but I still don't consider myself to be a libertarian since you know, we shouldn't privatize everything(yes, I would love prisons/police/courts/etc to be solely motivated by maximizing profits, that's a GREAT idea/sarcasm), we shouldn't get rid of regulations, we shouldn't get rid of taxes, government, welfare, etc.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:50 am

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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Sat Jun 11, 2016 2:13 am

...
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 11, 2016 2:31 am

Ericthebearjew wrote:I'll just leave this here....

Milton Friedman and John Rawls have probably had more influence on my thinking than any other writers on politics.

From Friedman, I took the idea that individual choice is a right we should maximize as much as possible. From Rawls, I took the idea that even equality of opportunity (something movement libertarians at best pay lip service to) is inadequate for a just society, and we need to take into account innate differences in ability as well.

Friedman and Rawls likely aren't two authors who influence the same people very often, but then I've always been a bit odd.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 11, 2016 3:40 am

Windy wrote:
Tesseracts wrote:I think libertarianism is great. I think more freedom is something we should aspire to. I don't think believing the government is "inherently evil" is the same thing as more freedom.


Let's start with a number: 262 million. That's the number of unarmed people the late Prof. R. J. Rummel estimated governments murdered in mass killings he termed "democide" during the 20th century.

And that's not even counting the two World Wars!


Okay, I'm going to follow up with another number: 7 billion, i.e., the number of people the Earth can sustain because we don't all live as hunter gatherers without any organization structure. Or maybe that kind of overgeneralization doesn't really help us figure out what's good for people and what's not.

Anyway, I got a 15-ish. I'm pretty sure I've gotten less libertarian as time has gone on. The thing about libertarianism is that it seems a priori appealing, but (primarily on economic issues) starts to fall apart once you look at the data.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Crimson847 » Sat Jun 11, 2016 5:01 am

aviel wrote:The thing about libertarianism any radical ideology is that it seems a priori appealing, but starts to fall apart once you look at the data.


ftfy

See also: socialism, fascism, and fundamentalism.
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"If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them; but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby cmsellers » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:04 am

aviel wrote:The thing about libertarianism is that it seems a priori appealing, but (primarily on economic issues) starts to fall apart once you look at the data.

I don't agree with you entirely on this. I do agree with you in regards to both anarcho-capitalism and the "non-aggression principle." Attempts to argue from rather absurd first principles are one of the reasons I've never thought much of the Libertarian Party.

That said, I've noticed that members of the Libertarian Party tend to be much more willing to compromise on social issues than economic issues. Members tend to pro-police and divided on abortion and immigration, and can find libertarian justifications for these things when they want to. Johnson supporting anti-discrimination laws and Weld supporting the assault weapons ban were very grudgingly forgiven, while I imagine any candidate who said that we need the IRS and welfare is necessary to provide people equality of opportunity would be booed out of the room.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Learned Nand » Sat Jun 11, 2016 8:44 am

Crimson847 wrote:
aviel wrote:The thing about libertarianism any radical ideology is that it seems a priori appealing, but starts to fall apart once you look at the data.


ftfy

See also: socialism, fascism, and fundamentalism.

Well, libertarianism doesn't necessarily need to be extreme. But even when looking at policies not so nearly extremely as anarcho-capitalism, libertarian economic policies tend to point in the wrong direction, despite the a priori appeal of the notion that things tend to work themselves out.
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Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
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Re: The Libertarian Purity Test

Postby Aquila89 » Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:22 am



R. J. Rummel should not be taken seriously. He said that 40 million were killed in the Gulags which is higher than the total number of people who passed through them. His high estimate of deaths caused by the USSR was 115 million, when the whole population in 1926 was 148 million. He wrote that he revised his estimate of deaths in Mao's China from 35 million to 77 million after reading Mao: The Unknown Story, a popular history book that was heavily criticized by China scholars. He revised the number of deaths caused by colonialism from 870,000 to 50,870,000 in 2001, after reading a popular book on the Congo Free State - he hasn't heard about it before. That's how deep his study of the subject was.
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Last edited by Aquila89 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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