Quoth Brian Holtz: > BM) As for what is "libertarian," it still remains unanswered. (BM > > The answer is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketliberal/message/1976. > It doesn't involve the Nolan chart.
It's also not "the answer." It's a list of competing answers and unsupported claims (such as "the dictionary defines" -- which dictionary, and why is its definition to be taken as definitive versus the other definitions, if any, in that dictionary, or the definitions offered in other dictionaries?). There are a number of possible definitions of "libertarian" -- and while I'm more than willing to admit that the 0apsolutist definition is not useful for comparatively rating candidates for political office, I don't see that a candidate's score on the World's Smallest Political Quiz is necessarily especially useful for that either. For one thing, there's no such thing as "the" World's Smallest Political Quiz. There have been various versions of WSPQ, with various questions used for the scoring. Change the questions, and any individual's score may very well change. For another thing, there's the question of weighting. Is there any particular reason to believe that no issue is more important, or more indicative of a libertarian orientation, than any other issue? For example, let's take two hypothetical politicians and give them the current WSPQ. Each of them scores exactly the same, except on two questions: - One politician picks the "right" answer to the question of the draft -- he won't support it under any circumstances. However, on the question of cutting taxes and spending by more than 50%, he fails -- he's only willing to go 49%. - Another politician picks the "right" answer to the tax/spending question -- he proudly advocates a 51% tax/spending cut. But, he also wants to make it the law of the land that every American, upon turning 18, be trained as a rifleman and pull a two-year tour as a grunt in Baluchistan, on pain of imprisonment for failure to report for induction. The WSPQ says these two politicians are equally "libertarian." I'm pretty sure I could come up with a version of the WSPQ, and support my characterization of the questions/answers as indicative of a "libertarian" or "non-libertarian" approach to various issues, which would reverse the relative scorings of Paul and Kucinich. Not that I think that Kucinich is "more libertarian" or even "as libertarian" as Paul -- I don't -- but if the standard of "proof" is scores on a 10-question test which will necessarily cover only a small range of issues out of many, I could probably "prove" it. Question: Do prominent self-identified libertarians happen to score "libertarian" on the test as framed, or is the test framed to make sure that prominent self-identified libertarians DO score "libertarian" on it? No, I'm not questioning the personal integrity of Marshall Fritz, Sharon Harris, et al. But sometimes there's a tendency to design research tools in a way that gives you the answer you were looking for, rather than the answer that is correct.
