Well, perhaps a little over 1/3 - closer to 35%, at least according to the Libertarian Purity Test, where I end up at about 56/160. Assuming, of course, that you consider personal freedom to be "crazy". Given that I've got the the vice-president calling me a terrorist for thinking the government shouldn't spend more money than it takes in taxes, I think I'm actually pretty happy being where I am. Let's call it being 35% sane.
At a score of 56, the LPT results page tells me, "You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much."
Heh :-) Silly test. That's what blogs are for!
As for why only 35%... well, that honestly surprised me; I thought I was more libertarian than that. After thinking about it a bit, I'm pretty sure that I am... I'm just expressing a bit of patience.
Let me 'splain. No, there is to much to 'splain - let me sum up.
There's been a recent PSA making the rounds comparing Washington with drug addicts. As I was going through the test, I found myself thinking about that particular comparison. Get rid of social security, replace it with private accounts? Heck yeah! But... do it overnight?
Huh. You could, but there would be a good chance of what military commentators refer to as "collateral damage". Imagine the government as a junkie going through withdrawal, complete with DTs... and we're locked in the room with him. Oh, and he's at least twice our size, and has a baseball bat.
Yeah. Maybe there's a less immediately dangerous way to do this. While I may eventually want my drug-addicted friend who's been living under the I80 underpass to eventually have a good job, a wonderful spouse, a supportive family and a great life, I'm also realistic enough to understand that getting to that point is going to require some steps. A lot of steps, actually. For the first pass, I'd just be happy to get them out from under the overpass. We can tackle the major issues after we get them a bit of a bath, a good night's sleep, and out of the "Oh, wow, I didn't die last night" life they're enmeshed in.
In a very similar way, I think trying to go from 0 to 160 on the libertarian scale overnight would very quickly leave We, The People, up a certain creek, desperately searching for a paddle. Hence a lot of my answers on the quiz, and the reason I'm only 1/3 sane. I think I'd get up to 50/50 pretty easily, though, if you could reword some of those questions a bit. Consider the difference between these two questions:
"Should we abolish Medicare?""Should we limit Medicare to only those individuals who are currently enrolled?"
Both result in an end to Medicare. The second just makes it obvious that it's going to take a while, and that - in the meantime - we're going to have to figure out how to honor the existing commitment we're inheriting. I have similar feelings about social security, a lot of government agencies, and such. Cut them down, definitely, and keep cutting them down... but instead of slamming them all the way to zero in the space of a heartbeat, let's have a controlled deceleration to allow individuals the time to adjust.
Let's get the government out from under the overpass, first. Clean it up a bit. Then we can start talking about the really hard issues, once we're sure that it's in a place where just managing to survive from day to day isn't the best you can hope for.
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