From the LP blog:
The Advocates for Self-Government recently made this very generous offer:
FREE OPH KITS FOR LIBERTARIAN STUDENT GROUPS: We’re giving our acclaimed OPH (Operation Politically Homeless) outreach kits to libertarian student groups FREE — if they simply promise to use them a minimum of three times a year and send us photos documenting their OPH activity. OPH — praised as the best recruiting tool in the libertarian movement — normally sells for $50.00. Contact us for information on getting your free OPH kit. Email: [email protected]
These kits feature the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz. I think the World’s Smallest Political Quiz is by far the best marketing tool ever created to help Libertarians quickly explain the difference between Democrats (liberal), Republicans (conservative), and Libertarians.
From the ASG website:
Each OPH Kit provides everything you need to supply a booth, including banners, posters, Quiz cards and even “how to” training materials, so it’s a snap to run a libertarian outreach program at your next big event – just add volunteers!
Want to learn more? Everything you need to know about running an Operation Politically Homeless booth is available in the OPH Training Manual. The manual is available online in PDF format only, so you’ll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software installed on your computer to be able to view and print the manual.
Download your FREE OPH Manuals
For details on the contents of the OPH Kit, as well as more literature to “recharge” your existing OPH booth, see the Liberty Store.
Minimum wage was a WSPQ question, but isn’t any more. They dropped it to include retirement savings
Yes, they also eliminated the immigration freedom question. They obviously want to make the results skew to show that there are more libertarian leaners than there really are and to avoid tough questions from quiz-takers.
It’s a mistake for Eland to distinguish “prosperity” from “liberty”. The brilliance of the Nolan Chart is that it explains the standard 1-dimensional left-right political “spectrum” as a slice across a 2-d space that puts economic and civil liberties on separate axes.
For this purpose, I did not mean anything so precise as Eland’s exact scale. I mean the functional equivalent of “economic liberty” by “prosperity” and of “civil liberties” by liberty. The point was that peace is the third dimension that should be added to civil and economic liberties, although I acknowledge that makes it harder to graph on paper.
It’s a little too simplistic to propose “peace” or “military spending” as an extra Nolan Chart dimension.
Not just military spending, but a whole set of questions covering military spending and foreign policy. It’s too simplistic to pretend that these are not vital issues or that they don’t exist, and it would also be too simplistic to fit them into one of the two domestic policy dimensions. By definition, any number of dimensions short of infinity is an oversimplification to some extent, but this dimension is no more an oversimplification than the existing two.
A tool for big-tent libertarian outreach should not try to pretend that either pacifism or anarchism is optimal libertarianism.
“Anarchism” is the extreme of any of the three dimensions – zero economic interventionism, zero government control over social issues, or zero military spending/foreign entanglement (although all three would have to be at absolute zero to be total anarchy). However, tendencies on each of the three scales towards freedom start well short of zero (or 100 if you are measuring the degree of freedom).
100/100 on 2-D WSPQ is not necessarily anarchism, and 100/100/100 on a 3-D WSPQ adding foreign policy noninterventionism as an additional dimension would not necessarily mean one is an anarchist either, and certainly a 100 on the non-military interventionism scale by itself would not indicate anarchism (in fact, such a score covers everything from isolationist authoritarianism to anarchism).
As for pacifism, neither a 100 score on the proposed 3d dimension nor a 100 score on the proposed 3rd dimension combine with the other two at 100 would mean one is a pacifist. Someone can support the idea of self-defense or even collective self-defense without agreeing that it should be made mandatory.
Better candidates for extra dimensions are described at http://knowinghumans.net/2009/01/extra-nolan-chart-dimensions.html.
I looked at those, and I don’t agree.
I think this is the most obvious missing third dimension.
But none of the various proposed extra dimensions are as important as the two Nolan dimensions, nor are any of them as useful for big-tent libertarian outreach.
I think the peace dimension I propose is at least as useful, or maybe even more, than the other two.
Minimum wage was a WSPQ question, but isn’t any more. They dropped it to include retirement savings; I include both.
It’s a mistake for Eland to distinguish “prosperity” from “liberty”. The brilliance of the Nolan Chart is that it explains the standard 1-dimensional left-right political “spectrum” as a slice across a 2-d space that puts economic and civil liberties on separate axes.
It’s a little too simplistic to propose “peace” or “military spending” as an extra Nolan Chart dimension. A tool for big-tent libertarian outreach should not try to pretend that either pacifism or anarchism is optimal libertarianism.
Better candidates for extra dimensions are described at http://knowinghumans.net/2009/01/extra-nolan-chart-dimensions.html. But none of the various proposed extra dimensions are as important as the two Nolan dimensions, nor are any of them as useful for big-tent libertarian outreach.
@ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Great points.
8 is a good answer to 6.
7: Minimum wage is a question on the standard WSPQ. Both your test and WSPQ miss numerous issues. Any such short quiz would.
The biggest thing missing on both is foreign policy/military spending. Ideally, this would be a third dimension to the diamond chart, to graphically represent something like Dr. Eland’s “Peace, Prosperity and Liberty” scale from Recarving Rushmore.
Debra, I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but I couldn’t resist plugging the good work of the LPSD — which has a stronger operation going than 2/3 of our states. I’m especially proud of the recent court victory of the LPSD’s Ed Teyssier: http://www.calfreedom.net/2009/10/san-diego-libertarians-defeat-citys.html
Brian , do you want me to blend a kitten??
Do the opposite of what San Diego Libertarians do? It would be pretty dumb for libertarians to do the opposite of the things described here:
http://www.calfreedom.net/search/label/LPSD
And that’s just in the last six months. What have you done for freedom lately, Mr. Lake?
AroundTheBlock, I agree that the WSPQ is too low-precision. You can get a 100/100 and still favor
* domestic surveillance
* government-sponsored religion
* campaign finance restrictions
* helmet/seatbelt laws
* denying marriage equality to gays
* outlawing all abortion
* banning private firearms
* socializing health care
* socializing schools
* minimum wage laws
* anti-usury laws
The Libertarian Majority quiz is based on the LP platform and packs 20 questions into the same space that the WSPQ uses for 10:
Libertarians need to act like Libertarians!
Pay close attention to San Diego County.
Mark down what they do. Then do the
exact opposite. No guaranteed success
but the forty years of stag – flation just
is not an impressive trac record!
Very generous of the Advocates. The LP needs to build student groups (who will provide the grunts for political campaigns and the talent to build the Party as they gain experience).
My two cents: I hope Advocates could tighten up the OPH questions a little bit (more explicit answers in order to fall in lib quadrant, more questions on topical issues). In my experience too many of the quiz takers too easily fall in the libertarian category who aren’t ready for participation in libertarian politics. The student groups need to identify the real “hot” prospects that will enthusiastically join the group, rather than pursue dozens of unlikely prospects.
Sure, the lukewarmers need to be contacted to hear a speaker, etc. but the OPH booth needs to be run to discover and engage the handful of students who may actually be interested in learning a lot more about the group and libertarianism.
Great idea. The Libertarian Party needs to engage in more outreach, especially on college campuses.
I like the OPH booth. It is fun to do.
FINALLY, what a great idea!
[get the youngsters interested
before the odd, odd, reform party
like bickering drives them away!]
The free market in action!