Libertarian Purity Test

National Review's Corner linked to this Libertarian Purity test. As others have said, I generally don't like on line testing, they tend to miss the subtleties invovled in more complex issues (is that too Kerry sounding??????). While I agree thats still the case with this one, the weighting of the answers, and the difficult positions it makes you take, were intriguing.

I ended up with a Score of 88 on a scale of 0-160. Its the upper edge of the class, but i think if I retested myself the score might change either downward or upward. Her's the description they gave:

51-90 points: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much.

A large part of my score being so low has to do with the war on terror. Since 9/11 I've reevaluated some of my priorities and as such, am mor ein favor of vigorous border protections and military intervention (plus I don't want to slash the militar's budget by 75%). Pre 9/11, my responses might have been slightly different.

In any case, while I thought I scored fairly middle of the road, it turns out I am rather high, at least compared to the folks at National Review. Ramesh scored a 73; Jonah scored a 41; and Rick Brookhiser scored a 40. Hmmmm. Try it out and let me know how you did.

I actually just took it again and scored 91. Not sure what I answered differently.

91-130 points: You have entered the heady realm of hard-core libertarianism. Now doesn't that make you feel worse that you didn't get a perfect score?

I decided to retake it, and see if I could replicate a pre 9/11 answer for you. Well, I scored 110.

I am a pretty hard core libertarian, though not as extreme as some, I guess. I basically believe the government should get out of the way, and exists only to provide the basic services needed for society to function (and as we develop more, I am generally agreeable to a slight expansion of power). For instance, the police, fire and military are all appropriate roles for government to maintain (as long as our military is defending us, and not prosecuting wars without provocation). The government is also helpful for constructing and maintaing roads and waterways and making sure the traffic lights operate properly. Thats about it.

UPDATE - I just took the test again after being linked to a great page collecting blogger scores and scored a 103.