Difference between revisions of "Libertarians are neither right wing nor left wing."
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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| + | Libertarians are simply pragmatic conservatives who have a moral focus on non-interference by the government, according to George Lakoff. | ||
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| + | The Political Compass and [[The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz]] claim to work with two axes, but they really have only divided one axis into two types of freedom, economic and social. However, no research shows that this division is really valid in terms of grouping like-minded people together. Literally dozens of other charts with other choices for axes have been proposed, sometimes with many axes, also with no real support. You could just as easily make a chart with equality divided into two axes, social and economic. Or you could use Amartya Sen's division of freedom into two axes: development versus abandonment. These unscientific classifications are merely propaganda: for example, the drawing of the 5 sections with equal areas and libertarianism on top overemphasizes libertarianism. The "2d" explanation of the quiz is not there to give people 'a better representation of peoples' opinions than the old 1-dimensional "left-right" spectrum.' It is to place an extremist position "on the map" to make it look as credible as other positions. | ||
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| + | Pew Research has found 11% of Americans that self-identify as libertarian, but also finds that their views are very similar to those of Americans at large. By reducing the group to 5%, they get a better fit to conservative economic views and liberal social views, but of those "many members of this group diverge from libertarian thinking on key issues, including about half who say affirmative action is a good thing and that stricter environmental laws are worth the cost.". So about 2% might pass a libertarian purity test based on those issues. | ||
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| + | But the real question is whether libertarians really have liberal social views. They do (mostly) on a very few topical issues that they trumpet. But there are a large number of big liberal social issues that they generally (or very frequently) oppose: | ||
| + | * democracy | ||
| + | * public service | ||
| + | * equality | ||
| + | * racism | ||
| + | * protective regulation (especially for drugs, rather than prohibition or unregulated use) | ||
| + | * the list goes on and on.... | ||
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