# Where do you stand politically?



## tck13 (Nov 4, 2005)

Here is an interesting quiz. What are you? Libertarian? Conservative? Liberal?

This quiz is supposed to be an accurate representation of your political views. I was surprised, I didn't score the way I thought I would.

https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

I wish there was a poll feature! (I miss SF!! Hurry back!!)


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## KenR (Jun 22, 2005)

Not that many questions to get a full and accurate representation. But as a quick and dirty guide I came up as centrist (within the libertarian quadrant). About what I figured.


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## Hanseat (Nov 20, 2004)

That's to what it works out for me. The different political spectra are pretty interesting though- in Germany I'm considered pretty conservative (in the liberal party FDP), when I spend a year in the US I was pretty much the left wing in any political discussion...


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## Doctor Damage (Feb 18, 2005)

Scored 80 on personal issues, 60 on economic issues. In the libertarian 'field'.

DD


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## chorse123 (Apr 14, 2004)

I stand in the voting booth.


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## tck13 (Nov 4, 2005)

Does anyone think this is an accurate representation? I thought I was more liberal but apparently not.


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## Yckmwia (Mar 29, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by tck13_
> 
> Does anyone think this is an accurate representation? I thought I was more liberal but apparently not.


Hard to say . . . .

"Patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and power. It is good enough for the people" Emma Goldman


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## bigCat (Jun 10, 2005)

Definitely libertarian. Didn't even need to take the quiz...


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## Thracozaag (Sep 5, 2002)

Chalk up another Libertarian here.

koji


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## KenR (Jun 22, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Yckmwia_
> 
> Hard to say . . . .


LOL!


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## mgnov (Jan 11, 2006)

Hardcore statist, it would appear.


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## Gong Tao Jai (Jul 7, 2005)

They put me way out on the far edge of Libertarian. I think of myself as a very moderate Libertarian.


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## JLibourel (Jun 13, 2004)

Hmmm...I was rated "Liberal." Got a 60 on the Personal, 20 on the economic. My rating would come as a surprise to most people I know!


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## Bradford (Dec 10, 2004)

I am rated as a Libertarian...

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%. 
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%.


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## bosthist (Apr 4, 2004)

Hmmmm....you don't think the creators of the quiz want everyone to grade out as libertarians do you?


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## AlanC (Oct 28, 2003)

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 50%. 
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 90%.



I'm not a libertarian _per se_, although I do believe in small government. My overall views are probably further right than the chart goes.


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## Stuttjukken (Jan 14, 2006)

The conservative side of centrist, I think. In Norway it will be centrist.

Short and stout/heavyweight busdriver in Bergen, Norway. My favorite clothes are polywool trousers.


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## ChubbyTiger (Mar 10, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by AlanC_
> 
> Your PERSONAL issues Score is 50%.
> Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 90%.
> ...


Same score as AlanC. I'd like to term myself as a Classical Liberal.

CT


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## 16128 (Feb 8, 2005)

I always get all radical around taxtime.

*"Buy the best, and you will only cry once." - Chinese proverb*


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## Fogey (Aug 27, 2005)




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## Mitch_n_match (Feb 12, 2006)

This test - I've seen it in many forms - tends to skew libertarian, much of which has to do with the way the questions are presented.

I vote right of center, but in the tests I always come up libertarian.

A friend of mine, who doesn't vote, seems to be generally liberal, but tests totalitarian.

It is interesting to confront persoanl leanings in questions that actually make one think about the application of his or her ideals.

Mitch

Pax,
Mitch


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## Joe Frances (Sep 1, 2004)

Primarily Left libertarian, with a rather personal skew to conservative on some issues, and Green on a few others. Sort of a TR Republican or Truman, Farley Democrat, with a little bit of Edmund Burke thrown in.

Joe

PS A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, as Ralph Waldo would say.


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## n/a (Sep 4, 2002)

100% LIBERTARIAN

That said, is it okay for UK members to take part?


Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: _Song_​


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## iammatt (Sep 17, 2005)

90% on both and damn proud of it!


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## Will (Jun 15, 2004)

Libertarian.
80% on personal issues.
100% on economic issues.



------------------------
Fortuna elegantes adiuvit.


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## bigCat (Jun 10, 2005)

Positive answers (agree, maybe) are the "libertarian" ones, so the test is skewed towards that.

How People Have Scored

Centrist 30.16 %

Right (Conservative) 7.49 %

Libertarian 34.86 %

Left (Liberal) 18.85 %

Statist (Big Government) 8.64 %
................................................................


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## iammatt (Sep 17, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by Mitch_n_match_
> 
> This test - I've seen it in many forms - tends to skew libertarian, much of which has to do with the way the questions are presented.
> 
> ...


There is a simple explanation for this. Most people tend to vote either on their economic beliefs or their social beliefs, not both. A libertarian would find their economic beliefs more aligned with the right (free choice) and their social beliefs (free choice) more aligned with the left. A totalitarian would be anti-choice on both sides. The left tends to be anti-choice economically and permissive socially. A totalitarian who votes on economics is generally a Democrat.


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## gmac (Aug 13, 2005)

Liberal with a small l and capital L



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## gmac (Aug 13, 2005)

Hey, that's not what I scored!

I'm not Hitler, honest! Messed up the image post somehow......


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## jasonpraxis (Mar 29, 2005)

Personal = 100.
Economic = 80.

I guess I'm a libtertarian too.


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## Coolidge24 (Mar 21, 2005)

Personal=0
Economic=70

Conservative, of course.


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## Harry96 (Aug 3, 2005)

I've taken the test many times. As usual:

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 100%. 
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%. 

The questions may be phrased to skew libertarian, but the test is still valuable, if for no other reason than to provide a visualization of the fact that there are more ideologies than left and right, liberal and conservative (which today are so close together that you couldn't slip a sheet of paper between them anyway). 

I don't know if society really has as high a percentage of political libertarians as the results suggest, but I've often said that, outside of true criminals (meaning those guilty of committing victim crimes where someone's body or property have been violated), the mafia, and some who work for government, EVERYONE lives their lives as libertarians, regardless of what they believe their political leanings to be. As a random example, no one who believes in rent controls would personally walk up to his landlord, stick a gun in his face and say, "I've decided that my rent is going to be x from now on, and if you don't agree to it, I'll shoot you."


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## tiger02 (Dec 12, 2004)

I think advocating the draft may have pushed me right of center?

Tom

Hrm, that should show personal 60, economic 80


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## Sweetness (Aug 25, 2005)

The test obviously wants you to go Lib. b/c the way the questions are worded, i.e. "government handouts."


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## rudiddy (Aug 10, 2005)

Holy mackerel, am I the only conservative on the board?

ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS, The political description that 
fits you best is...
CONSERVATIVE
Your PERSONAL issues Score is 30%. 
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 70%. 

Cheers!

Patty


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## Coolidge24 (Mar 21, 2005)

> quote:_Originally posted by rudiddy_
> 
> Holy mackerel, am I the only conservative on the board?
> 
> ...


As per my score you are far from alone.


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## tck13 (Nov 4, 2005)

This website - https://grid.ontheissues.org/Issue_Grid.htm -is actually where I found out about this quiz. The site lists the current office holders and their view on all of the issues (using the grid). Ralph Nader really seems to buck the trends of all of the other candidates. I was surprised at Bush, he seems to be "centrist" at times. I thought he was much more conservative than he appears on the grid.


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## globetrotter (Dec 30, 2004)

I came out firmly in the center


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## jbmcb (Sep 7, 2005)

Pesonal 100%
Economic 90%

One notch away from the top of the chart.

I'm cutting up my driver's license as I write this 


Good/Fast/Cheap - Pick Two


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

I refuse to take the test. I'm an Anarchist.


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## Patrick06790 (Apr 10, 2005)

As far away from politicians as possible.

Is there no field of human endeavor uncontaminated by the Lizard People?


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## Brownshoe (Mar 1, 2005)

Lizard Person


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## Étienne (Sep 3, 2005)

> quote:Your PERSONAL issues Score is 80%.
> Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 30%.


Firmly a liberal (in the American sense of the term), hardly a surprise.


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## Joe Frances (Sep 1, 2004)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> 
> I refuse to take the test. I'm an Anarchist.


An anarchist with an interest in clothes? Hmm, which shoes would look best for the riot?!

JAF


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## crs (Dec 30, 2004)

Liberal.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 100%. 
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 20%.


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## Harry96 (Aug 3, 2005)

I'm an Anarchist. So are you. 
By Butler Shaffer

I have mixed feelings about the use of labels to describe philosophical views, whether of myself or others. It is difficult to avoid doing so because our efforts to understand and communicate about the world necessarily involve the use of words and words are, as Alfred Korzybski warned us, abstractions that never equate with what they are meant to describe. His oft-quoted statement that "the map is not the territory" offers a caveat whose implications for confusion are further compounded when addressing such abstract topics as political philosophy.

One philosophical abstraction that seems to befuddle most people is "anarchy." To those challenged by complexity â€" such as radio talk show hosts and cable-TV "newscasters" who are convinced that all political opinions can be confined to the categories of "liberal" and "conservative" â€" the word anarchy evokes an unfocused fear of uncertain forces. Images of bomb-throwing thugs who smash and burn the property of others are routinely conjured up by politicians and the media to frighten people into an extension of police authority over their lives. "Disorder" and "lawless confusion" are common dictionary definitions of this word.

That there have been some, calling themselves "anarchists," who have engaged in violence on behalf of their political ambitions, is not to be denied. Nor can we overlook the provocateuring occasionally engaged in by undercover policemen â€" operating under the guise of "anarchists" â€" to justify harsh reprisals against political protests. But to condemn a philosophic viewpoint because a few wish to corrupt its meaning for their narrow advantage is no more justifiable than condemning Christianity because a man murders his family and defends his acts on the grounds "God told me to do it!"

As long as a president continues to rationalize war against the Iraqi people as "operation freedom"; as long as the Strategic Air Command insists that "peace is our profession"; and as long as police departments advertise that they are there "to serve and protect," intelligent minds must be prepared to look behind the superficiality and imagery of words to discover their deeper meaning. Such is the case with the word "anarchy."

The late Robert LeFevre made one such effort to transcend the popular meaning of the word when he declared that "an anarchist is anyone who believes in less government than you do." But an even better understanding of the concept can be derived from the Greek origins of the word (anarkhos) which meant "without a ruler." It is this definition of the word that members of the political power structure (i.e., your "rulers") do not want you to consider. Far better that you fear the hidden monsters and hobgoblins who are just waiting to bring terror and havoc to your lives should efforts to increase police powers or budgets fail.

Are there murderers, kidnappers, rapists, and arsonists in our world? Of course there are, and there will always be, and they do not all work for the state. It is amazing that, with all the powers and money conferred upon the state to "protect" us from such threats, they continue to occur with a regularity that seems to have increased with the size of government! Even the current "mad cow disease" scare is being used, by the statists, as a reason for more government regulation, an effort that conveniently ignores the fact that the federal government has been closely regulating meat production for many decades.

Nor can we ignore the history of the state in visiting upon humanity the very death and destruction that its defenders insist upon as a rationale for political power. Those who condemn anarchy should engage in some quantitative analysis. In the twentieth century alone, governments managed to kill â€" through wars, genocides, and other deadly practices â€" some 200,000,000 men, women, and children. How many people were killed by anarchists during this period? Governments, not anarchists, have been the deadly "bomb-throwers" of human history!

Because of the disingenuous manner in which this word has been employed, I endeavor to be as precise in my use of the term as possible. I employ the word "anarchy" not as a noun, but as a verb. I envision no utopian community, no "Galtâ€™s Gulch" to which free men and women can repair. I prefer to think of anarchy as a way in which people deal with one another in a peaceful, cooperative manner; respectful of the inviolability of each otherâ€™s lives and property interests; resorting to contract and voluntary transactions rather than coercion and expropriation as a way of functioning in society.

I am often asked if anarchy has ever existed in our world, to which I answer: almost all of your daily behavior is an anarchistic expression. How you deal with your neighbors, coworkers, fellow customers in shopping malls or grocery stores, is often determined by subtle processes of negotiation and cooperation. Social pressures, unrelated to statutory enactments, influence our behavior on crowded freeways or grocery checkout lines. If we dealt with our colleagues at work in the same coercive and threatening manner by which the state insists on dealing with us, our employment would be immediately terminated. We would soon be without friends were we to demand that they adhere to specific behavioral standards that we had mandated for their lives.

Should you come over to our home for a visit, you will not be taxed, searched, required to show a passport or driverâ€™s license, fined, jailed, threatened, handcuffed, or prohibited from leaving. I suspect that your relationships with your friends are conducted on the same basis of mutual respect. In short, virtually all of our dealings with friends and strangers alike are grounded in practices that are peaceful, voluntary, and devoid of coercion.

A very interesting study of the orderly nature of anarchy is found in John Phillip Reidâ€™s book, Law for the Elephant. Reid studied numerous diaries and letters written by persons crossing the overland trail in wagon trains going from St. Joseph, Missouri to Oregon and California. The institutions we have been conditioned to equate with "law and order" (e.g., police, prisons, judges, etc.) were absent along the frontier, and Reid was interested in discovering how people behaved toward one another in such circumstances. He discovered that most people respected property and contract rights, and settled whatever differences they had in a peaceful manner, all of this in spite of the fact that there were no "authorities" to call in to enforce a decision. Such traits went so far as to include respect for the property claims of Indians. The values and integrities that individuals brought with them were sufficient to keep the wagon trains as peaceful communities.

Having spent many years driving on California freeways, I have observed an informal order amongst motorists who are complete strangers to one another. There is a general â€" albeit not universal â€" courtesy exhibited when one driver wishes to make a lane change and, in spite of noncooperative drivers, a spontaneous order arises from this interplay. A major reason for the cooperative order lies in the fact that a driving mistake can result in serious injury or death, and that such consequences will be felt at once, and by the actor, unlike political decision-making that shifts the costs to others.

One may answer that freeway driving is regulated by the state, and that driving habits are not indicative of anarchistic behavior. The same response can be made concerning our behavior generally (i.e., that government laws dictate our conduct in all settings). But this misconceives the causal connections at work. The supervision of our moment-to-moment activities by the state is too remote to affect our actions. We are polite to fellow shoppers or our neighbor for reasons that have nothing to do with legal prescripts. What makes our dealings with others peaceful and respectful comes from within ourselves, not from beyond. For precisely the same reason, a society can be utterly destroyed by the corruption of such subjective influences, and no blizzard of legislative enactments or quadrupling of police forces will be able to avert the entropic outcome. Do you now understand the social meaning of the "Humpty-Dumpty" nursery rhyme?

The study of complexity, or chaos, informs us of patterns of regularity that lie hidden in our world, but which spontaneously manifest themselves to generate the order that we like to pretend authorities have created for us. There is much to discover about the interplay of unseen forces that work, without conscious direction, to make our lives more productive and peaceful than even the best-intended autocrat can accomplish. As the disruptive histories of state planning and regulation reveal, efforts to impose order by fiat often produce disorder, a phenomenon whose explanation is to be found in the dynamical nature of complexity. In the words of Terry Pratchett: "Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized."

"Anarchy" is an expression of social behavior that reflects the individualized nature of life. Only as living beings are free to pursue their particular interests in the unique circumstances in which they find themselves, can conditions for the well-being of all be attained. Anarchy presumes decentralized and cooperative systems that serve the mutual interests of the individuals comprising them, without the systems ever becoming their own reasons for being. It is this thinking, and the practices that result therefrom, that is alone responsible for whatever peace and order exists in society.

Political thinking, by contrast, presumes the supremacy of the systems (i.e., the state) and reduces individuals to the status of resources for the accomplishment of their ends. Such systems are grounded in the mass-minded conditioning and behavior that has produced the deadly wars, economic dislocations, genocides, and police-state oppressions that comprise the essence of political history.

Men and women need nothing so much right now as to rediscover and reenergize their own souls. They will never be able to accomplish such purposes in the dehumanizing and dispirited state systems that insist upon controlling their lives and property. In the sentiments underlying anarchistic thinking, men and women may be able to find the individualized sense of being and self-direction that they long ago abandoned in marbled halls and citadels.

January 13, 2004

Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.

Copyright Â© 2004 LewRockwell.com

Find this article at: 
https://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer60.html


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## Doctor Damage (Feb 18, 2005)

Here's a fun quiz about where you will end up in the 'afterlife':


DD


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

What Harry 96 quoted. When I engage in civil disobediance, I dress well. The suit, centrally dimpled tie and polished shoes give my participation more impact than some 'black flag' anarchist parasite wannabe using crowd cover to engage in vandalism.Only cowards and poseurs run. I quietly stand to await potential arrest. Sadly, I have never been  The authorities assume I am an innocent bystander of social importance caught in the melee. Strolling into a corporate polluter's office and dumping toxic sludge on their rugs, desks and computers and casually walking out to the waiting mercedes in a suit is easy. Peter Graves has nothing on me but a cool theme song.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Purgatory? Isn't that Catholic for waiting to get a real company representative after pressing 1 for english 2 for spanish ad nauseum while listening to a jamaican steel drum ensemble play Havla na geela havla?BTDT


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## Badrabbit (Nov 18, 2004)

Double Post


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Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets. 
Anthony Burgess


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## Badrabbit (Nov 18, 2004)

Not that this is a surprise but here is mine:



Economic 100%
Personal 100%



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Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets. 
Anthony Burgess


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## LabelKing (Sep 3, 2002)

I am a monarchist-anarchist.

*"In truth, I am not altogether wrong to consider dandyism a form of religion."

Charles Baudelaire*


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## Fogey (Aug 27, 2005)

It says I will be a Guardian Angel [}]


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## whnay. (Dec 30, 2004)

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 50%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 60%. 



___________

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income." 
~Errol Flynn


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## Badrabbit (Nov 18, 2004)

> quote:_Originally posted by Yckmwia_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


After seeing where it ranks Yckmwia and myself, I'd say it is pretty accurate (at least where lunatic gun toting anarchists and pinko commies are concerned).

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Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets. 
Anthony Burgess


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## Badrabbit (Nov 18, 2004)

> quote:_Originally posted by Kav_
> 
> I refuse to take the test. I'm an Anarchist.


What exactly do you think libertarians are if not anarchists?

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Women thrive on novelty and are easy meat for the commerce of fashion. Men prefer old pipes and torn jackets. 
Anthony Burgess


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Libertarians? I was told by the school gang To smoke a cigarette in the library or get beat up. So I lit up a cigarette, took 3 puffs and slipped it under a heavy book just as the libertarian came cruising by, dress rustling like the increasing volume of a Destroyer's screws in a WW2 submarine epic. I'm sitting there casually waving my hand in animated guestures to a openmouthed student across the table pretending to explain The Epic of Gilgamesh in whispers. The warship, er libertarian moved off to a new threat to silence in the inner sanctum just as the book erupted in flames. I walked out quickly and was press ganged into the gang. That afternoon my current studies teacher said I was populist. I agreed, half the school hearing about my stunt and hailing me as hero.


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## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

Personal issues, 100
Economic issues, 20
Their designation, left liberal.
My own self-identification is anarchist-socialist. (It is the socialist part that distinguishes anarchists from libertarians.)
In light of the improbability of the establishment of an anarchist republic in my lifetime, I'd happily settle for a welfare state with a mixed economy, a bit, or a lot, like France.
Regards,
Gurdon


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