[republicuk]

You should try online political compass test or the nolan chart, it's not amazingly accurate but it gives you a good idea of your own political persuasion, if you don't feel you fall into any particular concept you might be what's known as a centrist.

Don't get wrong these labels aren't that important, they only serves as a general description.

[The Immortal Goon]

I would argue that the Nolan Chart, which was created specifically to push libertarian Newspeak to change over three centuries of political consistency and be able to say that communists are Nazis—despite the fact libertarians traditionally have supported fascism when it's come:

Like:

The deeds of the Fascists and of other parties corresponding to them were emotional reflex actions evoked by indignation at the deeds of the Bolsheviks and Communists. As soon as the first flush of anger had passed, their policy took a more moderate course and will probably become even more so with the passage of time.

This moderation is the result of the fact that traditional liberal views still continue to have an unconscious influence on the Fascists...

It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.

Friedrich von Hayek loved Pinochet and the violence and terror that went into slaughtering the innocent in the name of the market:

Like Friedman, Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet the avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a "transitional period, " only as long as needed to reverse decades of state regulation. "My personal preference, " he told a Chilean interviewer, "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism." In a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende." Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet’s regime weren’t talking.

So loved was Pinochet's torture chambers and death squads by free-market anti-government libertarians, that they invited its architects into their embrace as avatars of libertarianism. Milton Friedman's legacy at least understands the bloody record and now advocates that:

Democracy Is Not The Answer

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state. It has substantial systemic flaws, which are well-covered elsewhere, and it poses major problems specifically for libertarians:

1) Most people are not by nature libertarians. David Nolan reports that surveys show at most 16% of people have libertarian beliefs. Nolan, the man who founded the Libertarian Party back in 1971, now calls for libertarians to give up on the strategy of electing candidates! Even Ron Paul, who was enormously popular by libertarian standards and ran during a time of enormous backlash against the establishment, never had the slightest chance of winning the nomination. His “strong” showing got him 1.6% of the delegates to the Republican Party’s national convention. There are simply not enough of us to win elections unless we somehow concentrate our efforts.

2) Democracy is rigged against libertarians. Candidates bid for electoral victory partly by selling future political favors to raise funds and votes for their campaigns. Libertarians (and other honest candidates) who will not abuse their office can’t sell favors, thus have fewer resources to campaign with, and so have a huge intrinsic disadvantage in an election.

Libertarians are a minority, and we underperform in elections, so winning electoral victories is a hopeless endeavor.

Emergent Behavior

Consider these three levels of political abstraction:

Policies: Specific sets of laws.
Institutions: An entire country and its legal and political systems.
Ecosystem: All nations and the environment in which they compete and evolve.

Folk activism treats policies and institutions as the result of specific human intent. But policies are in large part an emergent behavior of institutions, and institutions are an emergent behavior of the global political ecosystem.

But sure, as long as they redefine rhetoric, and not action, then Hitler was a right-wing pinko even though they supported him/would never support him (depending on what panders better to the public).

So, in short, avoid the Nolan Chart. It's pure propaganda.

[republicuk]

I would argue that the Nolan Chart, which was created specifically to push libertarian Newspeak to change over three centuries of political consistency and be able to say that communists are Nazis—despite the fact libertarians traditionally have supported fascism when it's come:...

But sure, as long as they redefine rhetoric, and not action, then Hitler was a right-wing pinko even though they supported him/would never support him (depending on what panders better to the public).

So, in short, avoid the Nolan Chart. It's pure propaganda.

I think all you've done is demonstrated how inaccurate it can be but you've failed to convince me that its a libertarian propaganda tool.
I did warn that it is not highly accurate nor are these labels that important.

[Soixante-Retard]

republicuk, TIG is just a bitter communist.

[Redalgo]

@Republicuk: I concur that the results of such quizzes need to be interpreted with caution, given their many limitations. In the past I’ve taken quite a few of them out of curiosity. The outcome of the political compass test is usually quite close to (E: -6.5, S: -8.5) for me while Nolan charts tend to place me all over the left / liberal corner depending on the particular quiz’s questions. They can at times be helpful, while at others creating more questions than they provide answers.

For example, political quizzes of varied - albeit usually mediocre - degrees of quality have described me as a left-libertarian, democratic socialist, international socialist, Bennite, social democrat, social liberal, classical liberal, Rousseau democrat, cosmopolitan, and pragmatic leftist. Some offer up recommendations for political parties to back - in my case groups as moderate as the Democratic Party in the States, or as radical in comparison as Parti de Gauche overseas in France.

Fortunately, I’ve already developed a thorough understanding of who I think ought to get what in society, and why. The trouble just tends to be simplifying how I explain it – making it something succinct lay folk can understand in conversation. Expressing ideas in a short, well-organized way can be tricky for me!

@Soixante-Retard: Perhaps that would be for the best, aye. Someone as prone to ruminating over ideas for hours and becoming distressed over not always having satisfactory answers to questions as I occasionally needs a reminder that, in the greater scope of things, my time and energy would probably be more wisely devoted to other pursuits. Cheers!

[Happyhippo]

Perhaps that would be for the best, aye. Someone as prone to ruminating over ideas for hours and becoming distressed over not always having satisfactory answers to questions as I occasionally needs a reminder that, in the greater scope of things, my time and energy would probably be more wisely devoted to other pursuits. Cheers!

If there ever was a liberal socialist it`s you