A litmus test, outside of its use in chemistry, is considered to be “a decisively indicative test”.  People use litmus tests in politics.  Some people have lines they won’t cross.

I have my own libertarian litmus test.  It may not be 100% decisive, but it is pretty close.

A true libertarian litmus test would just ask if someone agrees with the Libertarian Party pledge:

“I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

The problem with the pledge is that there are many Libertarians (large “L”) who have signed the pledge but who don’t actually follow it.  They are Libertarians, but they are not small “l” libertarians.

You can also ask someone on the street if they advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.  Some people will say they do not support the initiation of force (violence), yet they really do.  If they truly didn’t support it, then they would be libertarian.  They don’t understand that supporting government action, outside of strictly defending life and property rights, is an advocation of violence.

Simple Political Questions

I wrote a post back in 2015 about Edward Snowden.  I wrote about a good litmus test regarding someone’s stance on liberty.  I wrote the following:

You can ask someone two questions and get a pretty good idea of their overall political philosophy.

1) Do you think Edward Snowden committed treason?

2) Do you think we need more government control over healthcare?

If someone answers no to both questions, he is probably a libertarian, or at least somewhat libertarian leaning.  If someone answers no to the first question and yes to the second, then he is a leftist.  If someone answers yes to the first and no to the second, he is probably a conservative.

Again, this isn’t a perfect test.  I’m not saying that everyone who answers “no” to these questions is a defender of the non-aggression principle or libertarianism.  But someone who answers “no” to both of these questions is at least someone who is generally favorable towards liberty.  It is probably someone who we should consider an ally in moving towards a more libertarian society, at least from our current starting point.

Replacing Snowden with Assange

Julian Assange was recently arrested by the police in the United Kingdom after the Ecuadorian government revoked his asylum.  Assange will likely be extradited to the United States.

There were some people who originally taunted Assange and his supporters saying he just had to face his original rape charges in Sweden and that there were no official plans to extradite him to the United States.  This has already been proven untrue.  It was completely justified for Assange to fear extradition all along.  The phony rape charges were an excuse to get him into custody.

Assange’s true crime in the eyes of the state is that he has helped to expose the truth.

The U.S. government, just like most other governments, has elements of it that lie and engage in criminal activity.  This is especially true of the U.S. government because of its vast resources. That is the one downside of free market capitalism.  While we obviously don’t have a fully free market, the previous relatively free market of many generations has provided great wealth, which has enabled the government to consume vast amounts of resources, including for evil purposes.

Assange has exposed criminal (including murderous) activity within the U.S. government. Criminals don’t like to be exposed.  Therefore, Assange is a major enemy of the criminal class, who are the biggest proponents for locking up or executing Assange.

Wikileaks exposed the criminality of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, shooting people from a helicopter as if it were a video game.  This is murder, yet it is Assange who is charged as a criminal for exposing the murders.

Assange has exposed the deep state and their spying, murdering, and treasonous activities. He has continually poked at the political establishment.  It is amazing how little attention is paid in the establishment media to what he has exposed.  It was shown that CNN was telling Hillary Clinton the questions in advance of a debate with Bernie Sanders.  Imagine if this had been Trump.  Why don’t we hear of the Clinton campaign and media collusion?

Since Assange is in the news, it gives me a good perspective of where people stand politically. I have a friend on Facebook who is a self-identified socialist.  I consider him to be a cultural Marxist.  Yet, on the issue of Assange, we agree.

Going back to my libertarian litmus test, I could update it with Julian Assange.

1. Do you think Julian Assange should be prosecuted by the United States government for exposing secrets?
2. Do you think we need more government control over healthcare?

The second question could be changed to several other things such as a question on the minimum wage or on tax rates.

But it is amazing how you can just ask two questions and get a pretty good idea of where someone stands politically.  There may be a few outliers who would answer “no” to both questions yet is really bad on some other issues. 

You might even find a few people who answer “yes” to both questions, yet you can find some areas of agreement.  I would still say that someone who answers “yes” to both questions is basically an authoritarian, but it doesn’t mean they will be bad on all issues.

How do your friends and family answer these two basic questions?