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Patrick Quealy adds: The first two polls asked whether "Communism is the greatest threat to human liberty." This time, we also asked whether "terrorism is the greatest threat to human liberty." The number of respondents who regard Communism as the greater threat is four percentage points higher than the number who regard terrorism that way. That didn't surprise me, because I figured it reflected the age and experience of our respondents: the commonest age indicated by respondents was 67, and the average was 55.
I am 27, and I only barely remember Soviet Communism being a terrifying threat. By the time I was old enough to be politically aware, the Cold War was over. Before long, the militia movement in the mid-'90s, and then 9/11, made terrorism the new bogeyman. I guessed that people my age and younger would have the same experience, so I looked at the responses of those my age or younger.
I was surprised to find that two answered affirmatively to the Communism question, and none to the terrorism question. In fact, at the other end of the age spectrum, of the 34 repondents who specified an age of 70 or older, more believe terrorism is the greater threat (eight for terrorism vs. seven for Communism). The age groups I picked are arbitrary and too small to have statistical significance, but I'm a bit surprised terrorism didn't stick out as the new threat for everyone, and that the threat of Communism has such tenacity even for younger people.
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The United States should remove all restrictions on immigration.
The subject of immigration remains controversial within the libertarian community. Advocates of open borders correctly maintain that a reasonable and consistent libertarian philosophy is incompatible with significant restrictions on human migration; advocates of significant restrictions can counter that 1) in our semi-socialist state, immigration has artificially high external costs, and 2) political philosophies are never actually followed consistently.
Unfortunately, this statement's wording is too broad to allow us to draw sweeping conclusions about libertarian opinion on the subject. Respondents who indicated that there should be no restrictions on immigration can't truly believe it. They've assumed the qualifier "significant." (Before you object to my assumption, envision the reductio ad absurdum of several thousand foreign soldiers crossing the border while claiming to be peaceful immigrants.) Some respondents who advocate more or less untrammeled immigration may have refrained from checking this statement because they did not assume any qualifiers. Of course, respondents who want significant restrictions on immigration will also disagree with the statement; we have no way of accurately determining the proportions.
It does seem likely that the percentage of respondents in favor of significant restrictions on immigration has at least doubled since the time of the first poll, as it is unlikely that the percentage of respondents who don't assume reasonable qualifiers — and who can blame them? — has increased markedly enough to account for the bulk of the change.
There is a God.
When one considers that polls indicate that at least 73% and as much as 94% of the U.S. population believes there is a God, the reason for the common assumption that libertarians are nonbelievers is clear. A sizable and growing minority of respondents believe there is a God.
An employee of the state is a receiver of stolen goods and therefore is committing an improper act.
The direction of the change in response to this statement is exactly what one would expect given the respondents' move from the anarchist to the minarchist philosophies, but the magnitude of the change seems excessive. Some 13% of poll respondents believe both that some level of government is appropriate and that state employees are ipso facto committing an improper act.
Perhaps those respondents believe employees of a proper government would be paid from donations; perhaps they believed the employees of a proper government would be volunteers. Perhaps some did not trouble themselves with the details.
One can accept government services (food stamps, subsidized housing, use of roads, etc.) without committing an immoral act.
This statement seems to have been designed so as to minimize its utility. How else does one explain the inclusion of both the use of roads and the use of food stamps? Some respondents treated this as though it were multiple choice, which it should have been.
If the state expropriated all wealth and one could not exist without accepting stolen goods, it would be moral and proper to accept such goods (i.e., live within the system).
A curveball. Although respondents today are more likely to believe some level of government is appropriate, they are slightly less likely to believe one should accept anything from a totalitarian state, even when one's survival is at stake. Respondents whose view of what they should do is in accord with what they doubtless would do account for 63% of our sample.
A proper government would have an absolutely isolationist foreign policy.
More evidence that libertarian opinion is moving in the wrong direction — towards more government. More than two thirds of the resondents believe the United States has, or at least might have, some good reason to meddle in the affairs of other countries.
Several respondents indicated that the proper foreign policy should be described as non-interventionist.
It is always wrong to initiate force against another human being.
In the first Liberty Poll this statement was "No person has the right to initiate physical force against another human being." The second Liberty Poll (ten years ago) changed the statement to its current form, and 50% of those respondents indicated agreement.
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Patrick Quealy adds:
Between 1988 and 2008, the proportion of respondents who believed it is wrong to initiate force against another human being dropped by 50 percentage points. The percentage who believe the U.S. should remove all restrictions on immigration dropped by 40 points. Both changes were graduated, with the percentage falling substantially both between 1988 and 1998, and again between 1998 and 2008, which may reflect a readership that's inexorably becoming pragamatic — as the Libertarian Party is believed in some quarters to be doing.
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Do all men by their nature have a right to life? Liberty? Property? The pursuit of happiness?
Overwhelming majorities of respondents in each of the three Liberty Polls have agreed that all men by their nature have each of the listed rights. Not overwhelming enough, in my opinion.
Some respondents (about 6%) did not indicate that all men possess any of the listed rights. This might stem from a disagreement over the meaning of rights, and is easy to reconcile with a generally libertarian philosophy.
It is not nearly as easy to understand why some respondents believe that men have some but not all of the listed rights. Most baffling is that almost 4% of respondents think that men have some of the listed rights but not the right to life itself.
Problems
Few libertarians would argue that mainstream Republican or Democratic philosophies are internally consistent. Democrats' concern for the poor clashes with their desire to enfeeble the only system (capitalism) that has been shown to alleviate poverty. Republicans' desire for less intrusive government clashes with their support of laws turning consensual activities into crimes.
If the responses to the questions in this section are any indication, natural-rights libertarians also have some philosophical inconsistencies, at least at the extremes. Reductio ad absurdum is an appropriate tool for analyzing a philosophy that claims to derive its rules from clear, universal principles.
The contrived situations in the problems below won't shed as much light on a utilitarian-based libertarian philosophy.
Suppose that a parent of a newborn baby places it in front of a picture window and sells tickets to anyone wishing to observe the child starve to death. He makes it clear that the child is free to leave at any time, but that anyone crossing his lawn will be viewed as trespassing.
Would you cross the lawn to help the child? Would helping the child violate the parent's rights?
The overwhelming majority of respondents would cross the lawn to help the child. My opinion is, again, not overwhelming enough. I'm not sure which is worse — that almost 5% wouldn't help the child because it would in their view violate the parent's rights, or that over 4% would not help the child even though they do not believe it would violate the parent's rights.
The second question is of some importance only if one is concerned with the details of a moral framework. In every Liberty Poll to date, at least one respondent has added what I consider the most natural response. "Who cares?"
Response to this question was similar in each of the two earlier Liberty Polls.
Suppose that a parent decides to experiment with a radical new diet for his newborn child.
Should you prevent the parent from trying the diet, if you had good evidence it would endanger the child's health? Suppose that you had good evidence that the diet would endanger the child's life?
This pair of questions elicited a few calls for clarification. What, exactly, is meant by "endanger" the child's health or life? A diet that slightly elevates the child's lifetime risk of coronary disease (and thus slightly reduces the child's life expectancy) could be said to endanger the child's health, and possibly the child's life.
What qualifies as "good" evidence? A double-blind study in which lab rats' lifespans were halved? Anecdotal evidence that conforms with one's own experiences?
And what does "prevent" mean in this context? Presumably it means something other than "persuade" — the second question, especially, would not be much of a dilemma were that the case. Does an unqualified "prevent" imply "by any means necessary"?
Somewhat surprisingly, given the ambiguity of the questions, response has varied relatively little across the three Liberty Polls. In the initial Liberty Poll 41% of respondents indicated one should prevent the unhealthy diet and 62% of respondents indicated one should prevent the diet that endangers the child's life. In the second Liberty Poll the numbers were 30% and 61%, respectively.
Again, because of the question's ambiguity, one should not draw any overall conclusions solely from its response. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the response for this question follows this poll's trend of moving towards a willingness to condone interventionism in general.
Suppose that you are a security guard for a large shopping mall. A terrorist has threatened to drop a bomb from a balcony into a crowd. He is moving toward the balcony's railing carrying an object that you believe to be a bomb. You have a gun. He has a hostage between himself and you (he knows that you have identified him). You have only a few seconds to react. Which of the following most accurately reflects the action you consider appropriate?
You should fire a gun at the terrorist only if you are certain that you will miss the hostage.
You should fire at the terrorist if there is a reasonable chance that you will miss the hostage.
You should fire through the hostage, if necessary.
Although almost 40% of poll respondents believe that it is always wrong to initiate force against another human being, almost 80% of poll respondents (85% of this question's respondents) indicated a willingness to shoot through an innocent individual if necessary. The simplest way to reconcile this is to assume we have some closeted utilitarians in our sample.
Suppose that you are on a friend's balcony on the 50th floor of a condominium complex. You trip, stumble, and fall over the edge. You catch a flagpole on the next floor down. The owner opens his window and demands you stop trespassing.
Which of the following statements reflects your beliefs?
You should enter the owner's residence against the owner's wishes.
You should hang on to the flagpole until a rope can be thrown down from above.
You should drop.
In each of the earlier Liberty Polls, about 15% of respondents indicated that one should wait for a rope, and about 1% indicated that one should drop. "Should" is not "would," and I wonder whether anyone believes he would in fact drop in such a situation.
I also wonder about those waiting for a rope. What do they consider the appropriate action should the rope fail to materialize? There's only so long one can hold on to a flagpole, after all. They may as well enter the condominium — the insane wing of Objectivist society has excommunicated them anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, the definitive answer came from the respondent who indicated she would enter the condiminium "and prolly smack him [the owner] for being a butthole."
Suppose that your car breaks down in an unpredicted blizzard. You are trapped and may well freeze before help can get to you. You know that there is only one house within hiking distance. You hike to it. The owner, a frightened woman whose husband is absent, refuses to admit you (she has no phone, so asking her to telephone for help is pointless).
Which of the following statements reflects your beliefs?
You should force entrance, but in this case it would not constitute an act of aggression.
You should force entrance, even though it would be an act of aggression.
You should not attempt to enter the house.
Although the situation in this question is almost equivalent to the situation in the previous question, in each of the three Liberty Polls, respondents have been far more likely to respect the cabin owner's wishes. It is unclear whether this is because the owner's actions are here more reasonable, or because the death in this question is less immediate.
One respondent indicated that she would take shelter in the shed that she decided was adjacent to the cabin. A wise choice, as the shed is doubtless heated, stocked with food and hot cocoa, and equipped with satellite television. Another respondent, fresh from smacking the condominium owner, indicated she'd force entrance and that "she'd [the cabin owner] get over it."
Suppose that you live in a large city. Your neighbor constructs an atomic weapon. He assures you that he would detonate it only as an act of defense. You believe that he intends to commit an act of extortion. ("The city must pay $1 million, or I will detonate it.")
Which statement most clearly reflects your beliefs?
You (and your neighbors) should prevent the construction of the device.
You should put up your house for sale and move, and you are obligated to tell your prospective buyers of the situation. You should not interfere with his actions.
You should put up your house for sale and move, and you are not obligated to tell your prospective buyers of the situation. You should not interfere with his actions.
You should do nothing, since such a situation is unthinkable and, therefore, is not happening.
In the commentary to the first Liberty Poll, Bill Bradford wrote "[t]his problem is about gun control with bigger guns." This is one of the rare occasions upon which, in my view, Bill completely missed the mark.
The clear difference between this problem and an extreme version of a gun control question is the assumption of criminal intent. The (conventional) gun control analog to this question is "your neighbor is stockpiling small arms; you believe he intends to go on a rampage at the mall, . . . "
Recasting this situation with no assumed criminal intent would produce a much better tool with which to assess the perceived limitations of the right to bear arms; it would be interesting to see if a significant percentage of respondents would react differently to that situation.
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Patrick Quealy adds: In response to the question about one's neighbor constructing a nuclear device, 7% (in both 1988 and 1998) believed they "should do nothing, since such a situation is unthinkable and, therefore, is not happening." In its July 1988 analysis, Liberty termed this option "gibberish" and supposed those who selected it did so "in an attempt to evade the issue or perhaps out of an appreciation of its silliness."
This time, support for the option rose about 12 percentage points, gaining most of its support from points lost on the answer: "You should put your house up for sale and move. You should not interfere with [your nuclear-armed neighbor's] actions." I suspect many of these respondents regarded it as gibberish, or almost gibberish, but still concluded it was the best answer. That is reasonable if a greater proportion of our readership now approaches far-out hypothetical questions not as a libertarian giving a
technically correct answer,
but as a human being giving a reasonable answer to a very weird question. Both answers are fine with me — I'm just happy the percentage of people who would "prevent construction of the device" held steady at around 73%.
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Intellectual Development
The Liberty Poll includes a variety of questions the aim of which is to determine, as Bill Bradford put it, "just how did libertarians get that way?"
My political beliefs are based, at least in part, upon my religious beliefs.
Respondents are more than three times as likely to base their political beliefs upon either history, life experience, rational analysis, or economics than upon their religious beliefs.
For the respondents who are not particularly religious, this is to be expected. It is surprising though, that 27% of the respondents who believe there is a God indicate that their religious beliefs don't at all influence their political beliefs.
My political beliefs are based, at least in part, upon my understanding of history.
My political beliefs are based, at least in part, upon my life experience.
My political beliefs are based, at least in part, upon rational, philosophical analysis.
My political beliefs are based, at least in part, upon my understanding of economics.
For some reason, in the second Liberty Poll, only 36% of respondents included economics as one of the bases of their political beliefs.
About 1% of this poll's respondents gave no indication that any of the above subjects has had any influence on their political beliefs.
Who introduced you to libertarian ideas?
The choices in the first Liberty Poll were slightly different — "relative" was not a choice, and "advertiser" was — but it is still interesting that the percentage responses for "teacher" and for "parent" have each doubled. "Other" has tripled, and "writer" has declined by one fourth.
Do you consider yourself to be a libertarian?
Approximately 95% of respondents indicated that they consider themselves to be libertarians.
Before becoming a libertarian, how would you characterize your political beliefs?
The percentage of respondents who came to libertarianism from the Right was even larger (65%) in the first Liberty Poll, and fell to its current level in the second. Presumably the Right was more favorably disposed to individual liberty in the Reagan era, assuming the change is more than just a statistical anomaly.
If one describes the Left as socially and fiscally liberal, the Right as socially and fiscally conservative, and libertarians as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, it seems that libertarianism should appeal as much to Left as to Right. Clearly that is not the case. I suspect this is simply because there is no necessary conflict between social conservativism and allowing others to make their own lifestyle choices; whereas one can hardly support any of the programs that go with a fiscally liberal social policy while allowing others to choose whether to comply.
Respondents who came to libertarianism from the Right or Center were more likely to indicate belief in God (40% and 39% respectively) than those who came to libertarianism from the Left (22%).
Continue to part two of our poll results!
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