From Libertarian presidential hopeful Darryl W. Perry at Free Press Publications:
Not many elected officials explain to their constituents the reasons they vote a certain way on a given bill. Even fewer are those who will explain their vote on every bill! Justin Amash seems to be doing just that, posting on his facebook profile an explanation for his votes.
Most recently, he explained his reasons for voting “present” on a bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline: “I voted present on H R 3, Northern Route Approval Act. The Keystone XL pipeline is a private project owned by TransCanada Corporation. This bill improperly exempts TransCanada Corporation—and no other company—from laws that require pipeline owners and operators to obtain certain government permits and approvals.
I support construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and holding it up for over four years (with no end in sight) for political reasons is wrong. It’s improper, however, for Congress to write a bill that names and benefits one private project, while doing nothing to address the underlying problems that allowed such delays to occur.”
He goes on to say, “My commitment to my constituents when I took office was that I may vote present on legislation in three extremely rare circumstances (this is the 12th present vote out of nearly two thousand votes in Congress): (1) when I could otherwise support the legislation, but the legislation uses improper means to achieve its ends, e.g., singling out a specific person or group for special treatment; (2) when Representatives have not been given a reasonable amount of time to consider the legislation; or (3) when I have a conflict of interest, such as a personal or financial interest in the legislation—a circumstance that hasn’t happened yet and I don’t anticipate happening.
H R 3 uses improper means to accomplish its laudable goal by singling out TransCanada Corporation and its Keystone XL pipeline for special treatment.”
Nick Gillespie of Reason.com says that Amash should be cloned, adding “If we can’t yet clone him, here’s hoping we can at least clone his commitment to principle, communication with voters, and simple courage to follow through on his campaign promises.”
While I agree with the sentiment behind Gillespie’s statement, I would like to see a more libertarian Congressman with similar qualities to be the pinnacle that others should strive to emulate. How, you may ask, can I disagree with one of the most libertarian member of Congress?
Quite simply, while Amash is arguably the most libertarian member of the US House that’s not a very high bar. According to On The Issues, Justin Amash is a 40/80 conservative on the Nolan Chart, which places him outside of the libertarian quadrant of the chart. Two of my biggest objections to Amash is his support for “securing the border” and punishing people who cross the border without first jumping through the legislative hoops and hurdles that are costly, time consuming and overly burdensome, without proposing legislation to ease or reduce the burdens. He is also an advocate for a balanced budget amendment that John Tammy of Forbes explains, “would legalize massive government as far as the eye can see.” Incidentally, Amash has never introduced legislation to actually reduce federal spending.
Despite my objections to some of Amash’s positions, I applaud Justin Amash for publicly stating his reasons for voting the way he does, and I would like to see more elected representatives follow suit. I just he were actually a libertarian.
Agreed with Matt Cholko, on all of those points.
I’m not a Justin Amash fan. However, I think all representatives should follow his lead and explain their votes.
Regarding the WSPQ, its an outreach too, and a damn good one. It’s not a scientific test, and the results should be viewed accordingly.
As for the Nolan Chart, its a simple, easy to understand way of graphing political positions. As an alternative, we could let Andy give us a detailed explanation of exactly how libertarian every person on the planet is.
There’s tons of different models like that out there.
There’s an essay by R.J. Rummel where he puts political philosophy in a triangle where communism, fascism and authoritarianism are along the bottom, and libertarianism is at the top
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/TCH.CHAP31.HTM
Cheers! Happy to help.
Paulie – it’s all good – I appreciate the critique actually – and you gave me incentive to put this whole thing on a square grid to make it visually more accurate. Cheers!
Best regards,
Steve Berson
I don’t mean to run your model down too much. It has some interesting mental mapping potential to get people thinking about some concepts. I still personally find the Nolan chart model to be more politically relevant, but that’s just me. I don’t consider myself a right-libertarian at all, although your model seems to point me in that direction.
Paulie – heehee – perhaps I should have posted a “map not to scale” or “some objects may be closer than they appear in the mirror” disclaimer on this!! – and yes, a square would be indeed be better!! – I chose the circle simply because it was a bullet target I found quickly as a fast way of making a meme – I run a political blog page in spare time and don’t have a ton of time to invest in graphics for it – and not out of trying to accurately pinpoint ideologies on it.
Perhaps this disclaimer from my original post on this would help:
“Anyway – I’ve placed approximate points where I think some of the other political parties and ideologies we commonly discuss would fall under this revised political compass so that it creates a few “landmarks” while orienting to its concept – but please note that these are very open to debate and revision as these placements are indeed not definitive by any means.”
Anyway – the mapping of the graphic is not really the vital point of this alternative political compass – instead it is the idea that in the 2-D model mapping of the political spectrum neither the confused muddle of “left vs. right” nor the biased to right-libertarianism question regarding “economic liberty” really makes a compelling insight to me as the question of where people stand in the spectrum regarding the question of “private property” – e.g. whether they believe “property is a right” or “property is theft” – or somewhere more likely in the middle where they believe in a mix of both private property rights balanced with protections of a public commons.
Best regards,
Steve Berson
In addition to those: LP is too close to centrist along the spectrum from statist to anarchist on your chart. The party as a whole is not anarchist for the most part, although some of us are, but I’d say we are better than slightly half way from absolute statist to anarchist even with all the moderate libertarians involved.
The circular shape makes Stalinists close to the middle on the spectrum of purely public to purely private property; in fact, very little private property was allowed, and very conditionally. There’s no way to stick someone on the extreme of both axes at the same time due to it being a circle rather than a square or diamond shape.
Martin – good points!
Steve Berson,
Both charts are interesting, and capture some elements of reality. I would call the position you name neo-feudalism something else, such as propertarianism or individual property rights. The distinction you draw between statism and collectivism makes sense, although it takes some explaining. However, I don’t see your “neo-feudalism” as similar enough to actual historical feudalism to warrant that name.
The Nolan chart doesn’t guide people to choose libertarian. See it and the World’s Smallest Political Quiz in action some time; most people choose other categories, and while a fair number do fall in the general libertarian quintile, that is a far thing from a 100/100 libertarian (especially if the number of questions is expanded), The number of 100/100 libertarians when administering the test to the general public is usually low single percentage, and would likely be lower with more questions.
Paulie – I strongly suspect the out of hand dismissal your reply gives to this proposed alternative political compass is based on me not making clear the pole parameters to you – as your response indicates to me a complete misunderstanding of what each of the poles in fact refers to in this compass.
First off it is NOT “feudalism” on one extreme – it is “NEO-feudalism” – which for the purpose of this compass is defined as meaning what to me would be an extreme position advocating the privatization of absolutely everything – that is absolutely every piece of land, water and resource would have an individual “owner” with absolutely nothing remaining as a commons – and also the extreme position that each “owner” would have absolute authority and no accountability to others within their property. As such – this NOT the “Statism” of a centralized authority having power over private property owners as we have in our current nation states – NOR is it in any way “anarchy” because this is not the absence of hierarchy since property owners would have absolute power over non-owners within their properties, and no accountancy to any other property owners or non-owners either. Please note that “neo-feudalism” is not a position that I see being advocated by any current popularized ideology but is merely taking the position of privatization to an extreme (which again is why it is an extreme of one of the poles!)
Second – “Total Collectivism” for the purpose of this compass does NOT necessarily refer to State control over all property – so again would not necessarily be a position advocating for the type of centralized authority we know in our current nation-state paradigms – but instead would refer to what to me would be an extreme position advocating for the sharing (e..g collective ownership) of absolutely every possession, land, object or resource on earth – where absolutely everything would be considered “commons”. Again this is not really a position I see advocated by any current popularized ideology – (which again is why it is an extreme of one of the poles!)
I’d note in support of this thesis that anarcho-syndicalists would fall towards “collectivism” in the compass – as they are against the private ownership of deeded capital (although generally are fine with the ownership of personal possessions) yet are against a State authority and hierarchy.
And since this word tends to be loaded – for the purpose of this compass – “absolute anarchy” refers to a state where there is absolutely zero government and zero consensus to any rule of law – e.g. no general acceptance of ideals such as the N.A.P. or any judicial bodies – simply individuals all acting according to their own beliefs and self interests and competing with any means they choose (including violence).
and on the other extreme complete “authoritarian statehood” (where government controls every aspect of life) which is the one pole I believe you understood from the get go 😉
Anyway – in this compass I’d say all 4 extreme positions describe a position pushed to a literal absolute – and as such each of the extremes represents a type of potential tyranny – with the center in this compass being a place where a limited government would work to protect both individual rights as well as a public commons.
As far as why you prefer the Nolan Chart – I’d venture that it is probable that this is because it fulfills a narrative that you support towards guiding people to choose “libertarian” – rather than necessarily its ability to describe the nuances of people’s actual political positions.
And for the record – I’m a supporting member of the Libertarian Party myself as I strongly agree with the LP on non-interventionist foreign policy; restored protection of civil liberties; a limited government whose primary purpose is protecting citizens from assault, theft, fraud or poisoning; balanced budgets; ending our failed “war on drugs”; and ending all subsidies and preferential treatment politico’s favored cronies receive – and find the LP is one of the best advocates for this.
Anyhoo – more elucidation on this chart as well as a thread of discussion of it can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/ultraradicalcentrists/photos/pb.195232963878579.-2207520000.1421442213./722285787839958/?type=3&theater
for any interested.
Best regards,
Steve Berson
I don’t really see feudalism as a counterpoint to statism. Three of your compass points – authoritarianism, collectivism and feudalism – sound like pretty much the same thing to me, or three versions of the same thing. And given that some of the most active members of the LP are anarchists, including me, I find the Nolan model to be more accurate.
For me the Ultra-Radical Centrist Alternative Political Compass offers a more telling stand on where people fall in their political stances that is not as framed in the right-libertarian bias that the Nolan Chart has. In this compass the first pole is total Anarchy on one extreme versus total Authoritarianism – with the second pole considers where people stand of property rights with total Collectivism (where there is no private ownership of property) on one extreme versus – versus Neo-Feudalism (where absolutely everything including all natural resources has a private “owner” exerting total control within his property) on the other extreme.
You can see where various political parties and ideologies might fall within this compass here:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/1475897_722285787839958_1785196480242428678_n.jpg?oh=f9f4de8b7e3959f46681e68e857d15f7&oe=552142D1&__gda__=1429195695_ebb94f48cad0ddd0befc2655a89497da
I think the WSPQ, Nolan Chart and OnTheIssues are useful, albeit not perfect. I would add a third dimension for foreign policy if I could.
I think OnTheIssues is at least in the correct ballpark of where it ranks politicians such as Amash.
My issue with the Nolan Chart is that it doesn’t reflect either political reality or ideological reality, in my opinion. Political reality is that very, very few questions on which a politician is asked to decide are “pro-freedom/anti-freedom” questions – they’re shades of grey. Ideologically, the chart is based on the premise that all decision-making should be placed on a freedom/less-freedom continuum of one sort or another, but people often make decisions orthogonal to freedom questions. I favor keeping the shape but making one axis “freedom” and one axis “worldview.” The first runs from “voluntary” to “coercive” and the second from “conservative” to “liberal.”
Just as I think “socially liberal, economically conservative” is wrong because it assumes libertarianism is not “a thing” but rather a compilation of other positions, I also think it’s wrong to treat, say, conservatism as being economically libertarian and socially authoritarian – besides the fact that such a statement isn’t even true: if it were, it would still have a false implication – that the ideology in question doesn’t “really” exist and can just be seen as an inconsistent combination of other ideologies.
Ah, okay never mind.
@Jed – the Nolan Chart is the chart, not a quiz. You’re probably thinking of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz that arguably leans libertarian. As Paulie said, On The Issues doesn’t use the WSPQ to rank Congressmen & Presidential candidates
But On The Issue doesn’t use attractive wording for the libertarian position, and it uses a broader set of issues, so I think it’s more likely to be accurate if anything.
Potentially so. However, there could also be a difference between how someone would answer the Nolan chart test, and how On the Issues would answer it for them based on their public statements & voting records. My comment about the Nolan chart being skewed toward libertarianism is that it makes the most attractive answer the libertarian answer, even if one wouldn’t be naturally inclined toward the libertarian philosophy.
If the Nolan quiz skews libertarian and if Amash only scores 40/80 on it, wouldn’t that mean he would probably score even less libertarian on a more comprehensive quiz?
I actually don’t find the Nolan chart particularly useful. It skews in favor of libertarianism in my opinion, and isn’t in-depth enough. I prefer longer tests such as the Political Compass, although none are perfect.