posted
After reading the Libertarian debate thread, I checked out the Libertarian party's web site and took a quiz to see if I was a Libertarian. Apparantly I am.
One thing in the party platform I disagree with is the legalization of drugs. The way I understand it, the Libertarian party supports legalizing all drugs including heroin, coke, and speed, as well as pot.
1. Are there any registered Libertarians at Hatrack?
2. How does one become a member of the Libertarian party? Is it simply a matter of filling out a new voter registration card?
3. What do Libertarians stand for, besides minimal government?
Posts: 4569 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
2. How does one become a member of the Libertarian party? Is it simply a matter of filling out a new voter registration card?
Exactly. You can put anything on the registration card, even make one up yourself.
3. What do Libertarians stand for, besides minimal government?
Minimal federal government pretty much sums them up. Even the drug policy is just an off shoot of that.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I would not trust their quiz, were I you - parties tend to skew these things in their own favour.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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While not a libertarian myself (officially or idealogically), I find the stances interesting. I tend to divide libertarians into two broad categories: economic libertarians and social libertarians. Maybe that's more a dividing of important issues, but the voices seem pretty distinct to me.
Economic libertarians are for tax-breaks to business owners, government deregulation of businesses, and global free trade. They'll talk a lot about Adam Smith and the invisible hand. Social libertarians generally support legalizing drugs, demystifying religion, and increasing personal liberties. Big social issues right now, judging from recent articles at Reason (a libertarian webzine) seem to be government seizure of private property through eminent domain (oppose), mandatory drug testing in sports (oppose), government wiretapping (oppose), city smoking bans (oppose), and gay marriage (support).
I imagine registering for the Libertarian national party is as simple as registering republican or democrat, but I don't really know.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Wow.... That was an interesting quiz. It's a fairly well worded quiz, but to earn more than a C+ they need to do a better job hiding the obvious bias. Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
The drug thing is about personal freedoms. Look at it this way... why should the government care about what you do in your personal life so long as it doesn't obstruct anyone else’s “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. And think of the significant amount of recourses (by this I mean money acquired as income taxes) that have been dumped in to the “War on Drugs” with little effect.
Prohibition has failed time and time again…
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Historian: Prohibition has failed time and time again…
By what measure? I mean, as a "social experiment" it's not really possible to quantify the effect of the prohibition. Maybe keeping drugs illegal is preventing thousands of ODs a year. Or maybe not. And maybe the monetary cost can't be justified. Or maybe it can. One-liners like this bug me, because they tend to oversimplify a pretty complicated issue.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Historian: Prohibition has failed time and time again…
By what measure? I mean, as a "social experiment" it's not really possible to quantify the effect of the prohibition. Maybe keeping drugs illegal is preventing thousands of ODs a year. Or maybe not. And maybe the monetary cost can't be justified. Or maybe it can. One-liners like this bug me, because they tend to oversimplify a pretty complicated issue.
I will concede that there are small victories, but the war will never be won.
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
If I remember correctly, in some thread over a year ago, lots of us took that quiz, and maybe two weren't called libertarians.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
While not a libertarian, I support a lot of their basic ideas - can't help it, I study economics for a living.
Libertarians can be described as socially liberal and economically conservative by the traditional political meanings of those terms: they think that the government should stay out of our personal lives for the most part - no regulation of morality - and that the free market tends to work better at solving problems than government bureaucracy.
I'm registered as an Independent rather than a Libertarian because I think the party takes their ideas a bit too far at times.
To step in on the drug war issue - well, most economists jobs' involve quantifying things that many people think are unquantifiable - and I believe that most economic studies have shown the War on Drugs to have a net negative effect - i.e. the costs are higher than the benefits. Most economists in D.C. are, of course, intelligent enough to not point things like this out to the politicians (except poor Mankiw).
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Derrell: 1. Are there any registered Libertarians at Hatrack?
Um... I think I may possibly be. When I registered to vote after moving to Illinois, I don't remember if they had the option or not. I might just be partiless, which is hardly the end of the world.
It's not as though I'm a big fan of the LP, either. When I was living in California, the LP candidate for Lt. Governor ran on a platform that consisted solely of ferret legalization. Now that's just embarrassing.
But anything to undermine the ruling party, with its Republican and Democratic wings.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I am not registered Libertarian despite the fact that of all parties I have looked at (Rep, Dem, Costitution, etc) the Libertarians are closest to what I think.
A relatively unbiased political test. Not the full spectrum, obviously, but does a reasonably good job of measuring where you are on the social and economic scale of freedoms.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Not exactly unbiased.. when you click on the people, yes, my dot is in the middle of Thomas Jefferson's face(I think that's thomas jefferson. My dot is in the way), but I'm between Charles Manson and the Unibomber? Surely there were better people to represent Libertarianism than them. And what's with putting John Skerry in the dead center?
Still, it put me about where I expected to be...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I didn't end up in my usual area. I'm pretty conservative, socially, but it put me between Kerry and Redford. I felt like a lot of the questions were poorly phrased, as well.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Well, I ended up a centrist. My problem with these tests are, I think the reason WHY I feel a particular way is going to color my political view, not just how I feel about it.
Posts: 880 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I can't believe I came out a social and economic liberal. I'm a centrist on the Democratic edge of the circle. How is that possible? If most people are middle of the road, I'm on the right sidewalk. That's got to be wrong.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
The test is NOTORIOUSLY biased, and is in fact used in many classes as an example of how to bias a test. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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