New freedom quiz
Posted by Richard on June 23, 2006
The Orange County Register, America’s most libertarian general-circulation newspaper, came up with a new test you can take to determine how libertarian or authoritarian you are. They call it the freedom IQ test. It consists of 20 questions, and they’re more detailed, specific, and much more verbose than the 10 questions in the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, which the Advocates for Self-Government have been circulating for more than 20 years now.
The Advocates’ quiz strikes me as the superior tool, though, in several respects. For one, it distinguishes between economic and personal liberty, and it places people on a two-dimensional political map (that’s it to the right) that’s far superior to the traditional one-dimensional left-right axis. For another, the Advocates’ quiz has many years of research and refinement of the questions behind it, and political scientists have demonstrated that it’s remarkably accurate.
Since 1985, when Marshall Fritz took David Nolan’s two-dimensional political map, added 10 questions to determine where you fit, and squeezed the whole thing onto the two sides of a business card, the Advocates have distributed over 7 million printed quizzes. More than 4 million people have taken the quiz on the web since it went on line in 1995.
But, hey — the OC Register’s freedom IQ test is fun and interesting, too. Check them both out.
(HT: LP Blog)
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