Your Libertarian Purity Score
Author’s Note: This test is flawed in some ways. It’s geared more towards anarchists than minarchists, which is what I am. Both are closely related to libertarianism. Any transition from a statist society, which we currently have, to an anarchist society would be very violent, which is why I espouse minarchy. Violence is only justifiable in self-defense.
Your score is…
122
What Your Score Means
0 points: 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.
1-5 points: You have a few libertarian notions, but overall you’re a statist.
6-15 points: You are starting to have libertarian leanings. Explore them.
16-30 points: You are a soft-core libertarian. With effort, you may harden and become pure.
31-50 points: Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.
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.
91-130 points: You have entered the heady realm of hard-core libertarianism. Now doesn’t that make you feel worse that you didn’t get a perfect score?
131-159 points: You are nearly a perfect libertarian, with a tiny number of blind spots. Think about them, then take the test over again. On the other hand, if you scored this high, you probably have a good libertarian objection to my suggested libertarian answer. 
160 points: Perfect! The world needs more like you.
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winghead.comi think it sounds like a fake name too.
http://www.winghead.com
my dear libertarian trevor, who hates my lazy capitalization habits.
xxoo
Mine was only 84
I believe though that the one problem with libertarism is that it does not convey its message properly or is bashed by the conservatives and the liberals alike.
But Hey.. I keep plugging.. LOL
Same score here Frank.
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.
Isn’t that the truth.
Whereas my friends tell me to shut up, or give me blank stares. But they’ll come around to my way of thinking, because libertarians make really good friends when the going gets tough.
I don’t mind getting bashed by the right and left staying solidly in the middle on the road to freedom.
I have realized that I was a libertarian way back. Less government in social issues as well as fiscal issues. But, sometimes government investment makes a lot of sense. Moderation in most political ideas seems to make much more sense in the long run. If we let extremists of any ilk gain control of government we are bound to suffer.
Imagine the religious right pulling our society further to the social conservative direction we will have more and more laws that reflect the moral beliefs of one religious group. This isn’t any worse than environmental extremists shutting down US business in order to restructure the entire US infrastructure with tight government controls.
However, investment in education for our children will surely pay off in the long run. Privatization of education has been a failure because the output is not tangible in the same way a manufactured product is. Only the companies that hire the graduates can judge whether the education was a success, and they aren’t going to report the salaries offered to these people. Therefore there is a true hole in the method needed to measure whether a school is performing up to an acceptable standard.
Sorry about the long winded reply, but your post got me thinking… How extreme should we be?
This is why states rights are so important. Education is the single most important factor in determining what a child will become, unless that child is born with a mental defect or some sort of debilitating chemical imbalance.
If you’re going to insist that public education works, then at least agree that we should have 50 independent public education systems. Let’s try throwing the federal government out of education.
The method needed to measure whether a school is performing up to acceptable standards – count the number of Asians who live in your school district would be my suggestion of determining how good a school is. I realize I’m stereotyping, but that doesn’t change the fact that Asians generally come from a culture that values education above everything else. That is why Asians are disproprotionately successful when compared to any other ethnic group in this country.
What you value determines who you are and what you have. I value the quality of the education. I don’t care who is delivering the lessons, but I certainly dread any system where there is only one choice – especially when it’s got a fancy name to cover up the stench of feces. No Child Left Behind should be renamed No Student Left Alone to Learn, No Taxpayer Left Fiscally Solvent. What garbage.
To answer your question, “how extreme should we be,” well, that should be decided individually, then on the local community level, and to a lesser extent at the state level, and every now and then, when we really need to at a national level. We’ve got it mostly bass ackwards.
Thanks for stoppping by, Dr. Forbrush.
Actually we have many more times 50 education systems. Each local district in many states use property taxes to fund individual districts. The point is the chaos from this system. One can argue that individual districts know where to spend the money best, but the districts get different amounts of money per student depending on the wealth of the district. Poorer students are more likely to fall through the cracks if they live in poor districts with poor resources. These students drop out and become criminals unable to work at a high paying job to afford the lifestyle advertised by corporations.
Wherever the funding comes from isn’t so important if there is a method to equalize the per student funding so we all don’t have to pay for it in the future. Also, some unified structure is needed to establish the standards so that a student in California could be desirable to an employer anywhere in the country, not just at a farm in the Central valley.
Dr. Forbush,
You want to equalize the per student funding across the country? Can you explain exactly how that would improve education? We’ve been increasing funding and standarization for decades now, and the trend is that education is getting worse.
Most other technology producing societies are way ahead of us in math and engineering. They spend way less money per student.
This is more about individual family values (or the complete lack of any) than it is about national equalization of an education system.
We are breeding ignorant and slovenly ne’er do wells in scary quantities, and it has nothing to do with inadequate funding.
I was given a figure that California spends Massive ammounts of money per child.. yet many students never make it to graduation in high school..
So I am like Trevor.. I want a explanation that since the Department of Education in the federal government was created.. why has education in this country gone down so massively?
Frank’s comments reminded me of something I once heard – that home schooled children are the highest achievers, statistically, and that college love recruiting them. I wonder if the reasons behind this could be quantified. Home schooled children get the least government indoctrination, this much I know.
I know or am friends with several people that were home schooled, not one of them have even attended college at this point. I really do think it comes down to how a child is parented and if you spend time with them helping them do their homework, answer questions etc. A part of it I think is hereditary, but, we all know that a lot of kids break that theory right in half.
I think it’s a combination of parenting skills and just plain laziness on the kids part.
In my opinion, education is one of the single most important things a government can provide funding for. But, the government won’t let the majority of people get “too smart” because we know what happens then…
Genetics is in that mix too Recipher. But overall, I think people are heavily influenced by the environment they are exposed most too.
And you’re right. The government doesn’t benefit from smart people. At least not a plethora of them. Who needs government if everyone is smart and independent?
True. I think a lot about this subject. Lately I’m been wondering whether or not a human society does need a little brainwashing. People panic about the stupidest shit and there are a great percentage of assholes on this planet. I think education could curve something like this though.
Now, I think that the perfect society involves more small business, people working together at a micro level. The reason for this is the fact that both our options now are fucked. With government you have corruption and inefficiency. With privatized (and public) run programs, they are extremely efficient, sometimes corrupt and only concerned about one thing: profit. I think a combination of a government that’s actually run by the people and non profit business for programs, medicine etc, we would have an interesting mix. It’s not that I’m against capitalism, I just don’t think people should be able to make money off money, it doesn’t make sense financially. I’m not talking about bonds, interest etc.
Not trying to same I’m a communist, but, everyone political system has good points. It seems lately that the word democracy is beginning to lose it’s meaning.
Sorry for the rant.
This place is all about the rant. It’s an alternative to punching one another in the head when we disagree. The rant is always welcome here.
hillsdale.eduI know I’m late to this conversation, but if Recipher is still around I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Walter E. Williams and recommend that you read this lecture he recently gave. It explains in a brilliant manner the good that capitalism and a free market can bring to everyone, rich or poor. He also explains why the persuit of profit is not a bad or “evil” objective. He’s also a hell of a funny guy!
I cringe whenever I hear people talk about “non-profit” health care or education and such. If you want to live on nothing, more power to you. Just don’t interfere with my “persuit of happiness” when that persuit helps a lot of people.