There is no harm in being a libertarian moderate if you can get away with it?

As I’m one of those people who doesn’t easily fit into most categories, I’m always intrigued by the various political litmus tests that float around, and today I found a new one. While the home page called it the “Social Values Test,” my results — described as “Political Values” — follow:

Radicalism        58.25

Socialism          12.5

Tenderness       37.5

These scores indicate that you are a tough-minded moderate; this is the political profile one might associate with a jaded materialist. It appears that you are skeptical towards religion, and have a pragmatic attitude towards humanity in general.

Your attitudes towards economics appear laissez-faire capitalist, and combined with your social attitudes this creates the picture of someone who would generally be described as libertarian.

To round out the picture you appear to be, political preference aside, a pragmatist with few strong opinions.

This concludes our analysis; we hope you found your results accurate, useful, and interesting.

Unlike many other political tests found on the Internet which base themselves on untested (and usually ideologically motivated) ideas, this inventory is adapted from Hans Eysenck’s own political inventory which was developed after extensive empirical investigations in the 20th Century.

Well, I think it might be a mistake to call the ability of seeing both sides “moderation,” because I know what I think about most issues; it’s just that my opinions don’t fit neatly into the various spectra, and code language annoys the hell out of me. I cannot, for example, accurately describe myself as “pro choice” or “pro-life,”  and I found it impossible to answer many of the questions without reading in assumptions, so when this happened I would simply check the halfway point between “Disagree Strongly, and “Agree Strongly.”

I guess I can see why the authors would consider that “moderation,” but I’m moderately unconvinced that it is accurate.

And what do you do with a question like this?

There is no harm in traveling occasionally without a ticket if you can get away with it.

Does the question refer only to travel that normally requires a ticket, such as air travel or public transportation? I just drove back and forth from the East Coast, and while I had to take toll “tickets” from the machines and pay the tolls at the end, I could have avoided the tolls had I been willing to drive on the less convenient non-toll roads. In general, I think it is immoral to engage in fair-cheating, if that is what the question asks, and I would never do things like jump a style to avoid paying. However, on a number of occasions over the years I have ridden on crowded trains and buses and not been asked for a ticket even though I had one, and if I have been in a hurry I have just gotten off trains rather than track down a conductor and possibly miss a stop. Whether that constitutes “getting away with” anything, I don’t know, but I haven’t lost much sleep over it. But notice that the question does not ask whether failure to pay is immoral, but only whether there is harm, which is a more complex question. Harm to whom? These entities are generally taxpayer funded and wasteful, and the same trains are going to run regardless of who gets on or off. I see empty buses (or buses with only a few people aboard) all the time. So, while a free ride can certainly be seen as harming the taxpayers, if the free rider is also a taxpayer is he not harming himself as much as anyone else? And what about people whose rides are taxpayer-subsidized? Why should so-called “homeless” people be allowed to ride free, for example? If I don’t think that is fair, then am I a sucker if I pay?

A question like this would have been even more interesting:

There is no harm in being treated in the hospital without paying for it if you can get away with it.

Is there? Beats me. I guess depending on your perspective, there are a lot of harmful people out there.

Another loaded question was this one:

Capitalism works well.

I could write an entire post about the phraseology and the implications, but I won’t. I’m pro-free market, even when I don’t like the results, but what bloody box do I check?

I have to say, I get awfully tired of seeing endless perspectives, realizing that the human mind is basically hopeless, and seeing over and over again that arguments are a lost cause.  So I’m probably more annoyed than moderate.

Maybe more exhausted than annoyed… But if I am exhausted to the point of moderation, does that mean I am only moderately exhausted?

I don’t know. On the bright side, this test seems to provide evidence that it is possible to be a libertarian and a moderate at the same time.  Who knew?