I have been referring many people to http://www.politicalcompass.org. While not a perfect solution, it at least adds a y-axis of libertarianism/authoritarianism to the mix. After years of political schizophrenia which saw me moving between the Democratic and Libertarian parties, this site termed my views as part of the libertarian left, spot on in the chart point with Ghandi, ML King, and Dennis Kucinich. My poli-schizo dance ended, and I have been sleeping better ever since.

:)

Recently, I’ve had some similar problems while debating the draft on a local blog (one of our local Democratic candidates proposed reinstating a draft and/or national service for “egalitarian” reasons). Some contributiors tried to make a (poor) populist case for a draft that sounded like Charlie Rangel’s. When I referred to the draft and national service as unconstitutional forms of involuntary servitude, the Progressives started making strawman insinuations about my patriotism that could have come straight from Karl Rove. And they did so without a hint of irony. Perhaps they’ve been reading Woodrow Wilson when they’re not visiting Michael Moore’s website. It was very, very depressing.

I don’t understand this. What’s anti-libertarian about corporations and/or private citizens choosing, of their own free will, to part with their own money in an effort to advocate for greater economic and/or personal freedom?

This is a constant challenge for libertarians. For example, people assume that, when the Republicans are villains, then the Democrats must be heroes, instead of assuming more logically that the Republicans are villains and the Democrats are either villains, heroes or neutral, depending on the issue. (And vice-versa, obviously.) That becomes particularly noisome when one side’s view gets some publicity and people assume that the other side must have the opposite view (whatever that would mean) when, in fact, stripping away the rhetoric, both sides have essentially the same view. Or, one side is caught in a lie, so the other side must be telling the truth, etc.

BTW, this is the same phenomenon that we so often see in in press accounts of justice cases. We hear how an officer works hard dodging bullets for the community, is a family man, etc. and we are supposed to assume that the defendant is therefore a bad guy, though the officer’s pillar-of-the-community status has no bearing on the disposition of the defendant. Or, we hear that pot was found in the defendant’s home, so we are to supposed to assume that he’s a drug user and that the officers are good guys who were justified in carrying out the violent military-style raid, even when the raid was never to catch a pot smoker.

Say what you want about people from Kansas, but they’re smart enough to know that a guy who writes a book called “What’s the matter with Kansas?” is not their friend.

As for the shoddy research, I suspect this book was rushed out for the pre-election fervor.

Its way better then mindless ideologue who defends their “side” with religious vigor.

Wear their insults as a badge of honor.

I heard this guy interviewed on NPR and he came off as a pompous “I know what’s better for you than you do” guy who thinks that his shallow understanding of the issues he talks about is much deeper than everyone else’s, but since he loves us so much, he’ll be glad to arrogantly tell us what we really mean to say. And he really didn’t seem to grasp that there was any difference whatsoever between a libertarian and a conservative.

I laugh real hard every time I read about these people who haven’t a clue as to where you really stand on the issues when trying to put a box around you on them.

Nothing like knee-jerk reactions coupled with poor to non-existent research.