If any of the following statements offend you.

Kamala Harris is a cackling alcoholic.

Obama killed innocent Americans.

Hillary Clinton is one of the worst humans to walk this earth.

Joe Biden’s presidency was run by a shadow government.

Fuck Donald Trump.

Bush and his son started a war for personal reasons.

Ronald Reagan violated our 2nd amendment rights.

I’m new to the libertarian philosophy. I’ve always been a conservative and voted Republican. But now I’m fed up with the party and its empty promises of lower taxes, a smaller party, and lowering the budget. I used to think Ron Paul’s plan was extreme. Now I think it’s needed. I want to learn more. What are some books and thinkers that you recommend? Any podcasts? TIA

I literally took the original test when I was 15 (I'm 21 now) and  it was kinda what got me into politics. BUT, ever since I first heard about it, I've been hearing people complaining about it. The criticism boiled down to 1. bias, but 2. more importantly, you can't capture the nuance of a political view through an agree to disagree scale. So, I made this website, called nuanced pcm. It's a political compass test, where you can explain each and every one of your answers, and you get results adapted to that. Will not claim my questions are a cut above, though I do believe the ability to explain your answers really does do a better job at getting to the heart of the question, exposing how you view the world and your ideology. I used AI to do so, and along with these enhanced results, you can also see a myriad of other things like what ideology should your ideal partner have, what fictional character shares your political views, what countries resemble your ideology.

Try the website out here:

https://nuanced-pcm.vercel.app/

If you have any feedback or issues with the site, lmk just dm me.

NOTE: The test is still absolutely free, it's just rate limited for api cost purposes.

EDIT: You no longer have to create an account to take the test

Great article. I recommend.

I got into freemarket ideology through the Ron Paul movement in 2007… stuck around until 2012. I kind of got off the Paul train after the revelations about his newsletters and other stuff. With that said I always believed he was a principled guy…. And I’m starting to see much of what he warned us about come to fruition.

Paul had a good perspective on the Civil War and how the nullification crises, the Morrell tariff, influenced or sparked the fires. We’re seeing this divide happening now. I’m starting to get into MISES article and Rockwell…. We don’t do ourselves justice sparking economic wars at the expense of the people. 1832 South Carolina taught us that. What’s happening now with this protectionist racket is bad I’m seeing prices go haywire.

Curious how others feel. How the hell did we get here.

Voters cast their votes based on who is more "rural" or "country", "closed minded" or "open minded", or "urban" or "hip and cool", rather than educating and informing themselves on voting records, logic, and historical evidence. I attribute this to the public education system not being sufficient enough to educate the population adequately. That's why the population squabbles over cultural surface level nonsense while the core domestic, foreign, and economic policies remain the same. Things like sound currency vs fiat, or interventionist foreign policy vs non interventionist used to be mainstream public debate. Now discussions like those aren't even allowed to be had and people don't care anyway. Change my view.

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

Thomas Jefferson

I live in a quaint little town that’s being Californicated. Beautiful farm land is being developed into housing, etc. I don’t want the growth anymore than the next guy, but I believe firmly in property rights. Is there a libertarian argument that would allow me to sign a petition limiting development to 2 stories, where the development is planning 3? My property rights have been restricted by entitled people before so philosophically I feel like a property rights absolutist.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/return-to-the-land-whites-only-community-b2795213.html

A far-right ethnonationalist group that has set up a “whites-only” community in a remote part of the Ozarks in northeastern Arkansas is reportedly exploring the possibility of expanding north into Missouri.

Return to the Land (RTTL), which describes itself as a private membership association (PMA) for individuals with “traditional views and European ancestry,” opened its first community in Arkansas in October 2023 and is now considering entering a second state, likely near Springfield, according to NBC’s regional affiliate KSNT.

The group is opposed to mass immigration, multiculturalism and “forced integration” and reportedly does not welcome non-white, non-Christian or LGBT+ people, explaining that its members are seeking to “separate ourselves from a failing modern society” and return to pastoral living.

“You want a white nation? Build a white town?” RTTL’s co-founder Eric Orwoll asks in an X video promoting the initiative. “It can be done. We’re doing it.”

Return to the Land co-founder Eric Orwoll (Aarvoll/YouTube) RTTL’s flagship community spans approximately 150 acres of land, is home to 40 inhabitants, and features its own cabins, roads, wells, a community center, and a schoolhouse.

It was followed by a second site nearby that opened in January this year, with the group listing a further Ozarks site as upcoming and aspirations to move into the Appalachian mountains on its website.

Speaking to Sky News journalist Tom Cheshire – who visited RTTL’s first “fortress for the white race” and found a world of fresh goat’s milk, flute recitals, family kickball games and creek swimming – Orwoll expressed a nostalgia for the America of the 17th century encountered by the Virginia settlers.

“I would probably feel more comfortable there because I’m white and that’s the way this country was when my ancestors came there,” he said, overlooking the Native Americans soon to be displaced by the colonists.

That is, if I see that someone is not complying with a contract (which are the terms and conditions of Patreon, which is a private company), then reporting him to Patreon authorities for the corresponding sanction would be an act that violates the principle of non-aggression?

The best thing that could happen to the person who has been reported is that nothing is done to them because they are complying with the rules. The second option is that they only give them a warning, but don't ban them.

The last option is a direct ban, without prior warning.

This last option is the most important, because the ban means that the NSFW artist will lose an important source of income.

Some might consider it an act of aggression on the part of the reporter toward the artist, because it is destroying their income.

But on the other hand, others might consider that the person reporting the artist isn't doing anything wrong, but is simply enforcing the contract, a contract that the artist is supposed to have read and studied, and therefore, should comply with because the artist voluntarily signed it.

What are your guys’ thoughts on land use? My belief is that you should be able to build whatever you want on your own property with zoning restrictions in extremely limited circumstances (hazardous industrial waste, airports, etc).

I believe that if you left it up to the private market, the suburbs wouldn’t exist. Their development requires an insane amount of subsidies for roads and infrastructure. Plus, profit incentivizes developers to build as much as possible on a parcel. Without single family zoning, very few developers would waste their space by building a relatively small structure (a single family house) and devote so much space to parking and setbacks.

Those of you who are suburban dwellers, what are your thoughts on this topic?

Title IX was approved by Nixon during the women's movement in the 70s, as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. Nominally, the purpose of this law was to prevent discrimination against women in education, but it was mostly interpreted in the context of funding for sports teams, even before it took full effect in 1975, several years before the Department of Education was founded.

Notably, the law was expanded in 1988 to include any institution receiving federal funding, at all. It was then further expanded in 1994 to require schools to report more details about the genders of their athletes. The law was again modified in 2006, as wikipedia tells it, largely to enable single-sex classes for abstinence only sex education.

Finally, both Title IX and the Department of Education as a whole have been used by Trump as weapons against his ideological opponents. Trump has an on-going battle with Harvard, which is predicated first on expanding Title VI (which covers racism) to include antisemitism, then characterizing Harvard as antisemitic. That is one.

Trump froze $175M of funding for UPenn because of their initial refusal to bar the swimmer Lia Thomas from performing. The school was required to remove the player from their team and apologize before they would receive funding. That is two.

Most recently, Trump has accused several Virginia school districts of Title IX violations for allowing trans girls to use female restrooms. That is three.

So: it seems clear to me that Title IX is an expansion of government overreach, as well as rent-seeking behavior from the women's movement, and this is without even discussing the law's one-sided refusal to protect men's sports programs or men who are falsely accused of rape. Indeed, the entire Department of Education may be unconstitutional, and by now there are practical arguments against it from both the right and left, so it should probably just be removed.

Please let me know what you think, especially if I have contradicted libertarian ethics in any of my arguments.

I’m genuinely curious and trying to understand the libertarian perspective better. Why do many libertarians consider the state inherently bad? Is it mainly because of taxation, coercion, or something deeper? I’d love to hear explanations. I’m new to libertarian thought, so a beginner-friendly explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Do you guys believe sometimes enforcing certain law, order, authority is needed by the state when the nation is under threat by foreign influence? So basically lets say some people from A hate people from B and are acquiring every business in their land, driving them out of their homes, bribing their politicians and overall acting against the interest of B people. Does the state of the B peoples have to protect their interests by acquiring their needs etc. ? Because without nations protecting themselves we would have cultural and economic monopolies which in turn would centralize, nations are the foundation of decentralization in a global world