Hi All
How odd - I came up as left-liberal - closer to libertarian than extreme left-liberal. Not that the
test will tell you much as it steered away from the more difficult areas of abortion, euthanasia,
capital punishment etc. The one thing that most of these surveys don't seem to cater for is
that most choices will have various proviso's attached.
Conscription - not a good idea for various reasons. If you have an army, and let's face it the
main role of an army is to perfom violent acts and not to act as peacekeepers, then you want
one that does it's job properly when it needs to. Most conscriptees won't be happy about
performing violent acts or being put in situations where they might get killed and hence do
not operate as efficiently as a volunteer army.
Media Control - Unfortunately the comms media (radio, TV, press, Internet) , as with many
industries will abuse the power that it has (which is enormous, Rupert Murdoch hasn't built his
empire for fun) and will need at least some controls put on it. I agree that these should be
minimal but there should be some. Is it acceptable to be slandered by Newscorp? Should
advertisements contain outright lies? Should paedophile activity be accepted on the net?
Sex - if you're a consenting adult and of sound mind then I can't see any reason why you
shouldn't do whatever you want as long as it's in private (home or clubs). I wouldn't be
overjoyed about stepping over fornicating couples in the local shopping centre (mall).
Drugs - as with Sex, what you do in private is your own business. By private I would also
include bars, parties, raves etc. where I would be happy that it is well contained as with
alcohol. Oh yeah and a minimum age limit for purchase and consumption :). What about
tobacco products though. There seem to be an awful lot of of regulations here for a harmless
weed :) I've seen supposed libertarians go virtually apoplectic when discussing this issue.
Freedom of movement - how do the US contingent feel about this, given that you have some
of the most repressive immigration conditions in the world (probably about the same as the
UK though to be fair). Personally I'm quite happy for complete freedom of movement, no
borders whatsoever and would quite happily do away entirely with the concept of country,
nation etc.
Subsidies to business - None whatsoever to privately owned sector but quite happy about
subsidising services such as transport, utilities etc. but I don't think these should be in the
private sector anyway.
Free Trade and tariffs - virtually every western country has plenty of tariffs. There is no such
thing as free trade mainly because all the coutries (without exception) that profess to support
free trade generally mean in one direction only - their own. Europe and the States could not
survive without the incredibly repressive tariffs and import restrictions they impose on many
foreign imports and it's a gross hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.
Minimum Wage - if a firm won't pay the generally pathetically low minimum wage on offer in
most countries then as far as I'm concerned that firm should be shut down. If it can't pay the
minimum wage it'll shut down soon enough.
End Taxes - yeah, right! Ok who's gonna go first? Who's going to pay for the military to
protect you from the invading hordes that will overrun you?
Entirely privately funded foreign aid - this is the funniest one yet. First you screw them then
you help them. I seem to remember some time back reading that those coutries that receive
foreign aid generally pay at least 10 times the same amount back to the countries that
provide the aid. Perhaps this could be seen as a discount scheme.
What is odd about a number of the questions is the language that's used and the
assumptions made.
Subsidies to business - does this include the huge subsidies to the military/aerospace
industries. Forty billion dollars for the stealth bomber!!! Someone somewhere just got
shafted.
And how much did we and the French pay for Concorde? The Eurofighter?
As far as I can see this is no more than welfare for the already wealthy.
Other examples of this abound and as has been pointed out what you mean in the US by
Socialist and what a European means are completely different.
Phew! My longest post for a while.
Horse
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