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Author: Michael Sertic

The Makeover, Advocates Edition

Written by Michael Sertic on . Posted in News. No Comments on The Makeover, Advocates Edition

NEWSFLASH The Quiz (World’s Smallest Political Quiz) gets HUGE traffic during presidential campaigns!

That spells opportunity! We can start “engaging conversations” about the virtues of self-government.
  • My last report explained why we need a Quiz UPDATE. You’ll see our new questions below!
  • In the report before that, we dreamed of a FRESH tool to engage millions in conversations, selling the ideas of self-government. I’ll show you how that dream of Quiz Engagements is NOW a reality!
That would be enough for one report but we’ve added two pages to this letter to bring Breaking News… Our first Quiz Engagement is causing progressives to reconsider their views in a libertarian light! Let’s get into the exciting details… The Advocates made the last Quiz update in 1998. Two years later, the presidential candidates were George W. Bush, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, and Harry Browne. What were the issues?
  • By DC beltway standards, the budget was “balanced.”
  • 9/11 hadn’t happened, so things like the Patriot Act and Real ID didn’t yet exist.
  • Gore campaigned against the Digital Divide – a scheme where big government was going to give everyone dial-up internet access!
The point is, things change. Our tools must change to stay relevant.

It’s time for a Makeover.

It’s time to rip out the pumpkin-colored shag carpet, haul out the harvest gold appliances, and tear down the wood paneling! Out with the old, in with the new. We gave the entire Advocates for Self-Government organization a 2020 Makeover! We just…
  • Published 3 new Quiz questions (see below) and optimized The Quiz for mobile devices
  • Created a User Profile system for users to save and share their results
  • Developed a customer journey using character illustrations for each political type
  • While we were at it, we gave the website a rebranding and a fresh coat of paint
Why? Because we want to be so “2020 campaign season-friendly” that we break records! Even more important… We’re tackling the most important initiative since The Advocates put The Quiz online (1996). That would be our Engagements. Two letters ago, our Board Chair explained:
  • 40,000 people take The Quiz every month.
  • We should have interactive engagements to talk with Quiz-takers.
  • These engagements should be tailored to Quiz-takers’ results.
  • These engagements should move people towards self-government.
Let me put this all together. Then you can fully appreciate what we’ve been up to. First, we’ve replaced three questions. The left-right assumptions have shifted on national ID, international trade, and corporate welfare. As I explained in my last letter to you…

It’s important that The Quiz have integrity and produce reliable results.

For one thing, The Quiz is popular in high school and college classrooms. Thousands of students take it each month. We want that to continue and expand. Moreover, when The Quiz gets shared at a booth or in an online forum, there’s always one person in the crowd that suggests we “pushed” them to a result – that The Quiz is “biased.” For these reasons…
  1. We commissioned two econometricians to conduct a “regression analysis.” From that, we determined that those three questions no longer contributed to an accurate result and that the new questions (below) did a better job.
  2. We also surveyed users. We asked them if the results matched their expectations. Overwhelmingly, they said YES. * Please share these two points with anyone who suggests that The Quiz is biased.
Here are the three UPDATED questions…
  1. Government should not target, detain, and deport undocumented workers.
  2. Taxpayers should NOT be responsible for student loan debt.
  3. Government should not be responsible for providing healthcare.
I bet you can instantly see it: These questions will resonate better with 2020 voters. And our makeover plan includes updating the deluxe Quiz cards. As I write this, we’re sending the final design proofs to the printer. I want YOU, our longest time Advocates to…

Be THE FIRST people in the country to get the UPDATED Quiz Cards!

We’ll send you one of these “first edition” cards for each tax-deductible dollar you give. $50 gets 50 cards. But the Makeover doesn’t stop with a rebranded website and an updated Quiz! It’s this next innovation that really excites us! We’ve launched The Quiz Engagement Program! I’ve got a lot to tell you about that. Our first engagement is called the Human Respect Test. How Does This Engagement Work? Imagine you’ve just taken The Quiz. Your result is plotted and displayed on the Political Map (insert the Nolan Chart). But we don’t stop there! There’s an engaging question. At Advocates HQ, our team calls that a “Grabber.” It’s tailored to you, based on your Quiz answers and political type. When you respond to the Grabber you’ll see new ideas about self-government. You’re “engaged” at the moment when you’re most interested. But this isn’t merely a set of arguments. You’ll enter… A Vivid Experience What else would you expect from a 2020 Makeover? Your experience will be visual. It’ll be emotional. And it will be a voyage of self-discovery. When The Advocates put The Quiz online in 1996, online tests were a rare, new concept. Not anymore! Why are there so many self-surveys now? Their power comes from the fact that the Quiz-taker learns something about themself. Our research has shown that people are wired towards values commonly associated with where they land on the Political Map. Their temperament and life experiences create a “political persona.” People who click the Grabber for the Human Respect Test will discover their political character in the form of a Comic Book Hero! Do you think people will want to learn what comic book hero they are? By making this a visual, self-discovery experience, Quiz-takers should be both better engaged and more likely to share The Quiz. Imagine them sharing it directly with their friends or through social media, thanks to this fun new approach. From there, we’ll invite each Quiz-taker on a soul-searching, Socratic journey. The Respectful Approach Emerging research demonstrates that a technique called Moral Reframing makes a message more persuasive. Simply put, we’ll speak to Quiz-takers in their moral language. You want our self-government message to be as convincing as possible, right? This journey will graciously and gradually connect Quiz-takers with fresh ideas like…
  1. Voluntary systems are respectful, while…
  2. Coercive systems rely on contradictions that are at odds with Right vs. Wrong.
Consider a Progressive person having just completed The Quiz. She values compassion, equality, and social justice. She often frames political issues in the language of “oppressor vs. oppressed.” Can we speak her moral language? She wants to extend healthcare to all, especially the poor. That usually means increasing taxes, especially for the rich. Of course, her personal values would never permit her to grab a gun and go seize someone else’s property. There’s a disconnect because, politically, she’s quite willing to abandon her personal moral code. She delegates the weapon-wielding and theft to agents of the State.

Can we warmly and even entertainingly appeal to her true values and help her connect the dots?

After all, aren’t compassion, justice, and concern for the poor GOOD things?

Our first engagement, the Human Respect Test, respectfully engages not only progressives, but also conservatives, moderates, libertarians, and even authoritarians. We want to help each of them to see, in a captivating and non-threatening fashion that…
  • In their day-to-day actions, they respect the happiness of others…
  • BUT there’s a disconnect between their individual values and their political behaviors.
  • Every day, they respect their neighbors – except election day, when they support coercion.
If we could show them that disconnect and successfully cause them to openly question their political actions, even reverse course, would you want that?

What if I told you that was ALREADY starting to happen?

We’re just a few days into this process. Let’s consider the Quiz-takers who score Left-progressive. They engage with the Human Respect Test, and so far…

More than 2/3rds move to endorsing the voluntary position!

I really want you to understand what just happened. First, we surveyed their positions in The Quiz. Next, they landed in the progressive sector of the Political Map. Then, they experienced our first engagement, the Human Respect Test. The result? They reversed course! One of these progressives took to the popular online discussion forum, Reddit, to explain their “conversion”…

I wasn’t sure how a progressive opinion would be viewed through a libertarian lens, but I got 100% on the human respect score. I could see the point [and] it [has] me thinking…

Could some kind of “voluntary tax selection” process allow us to choose what we pay for? I would pay for social programs and schools. I would choose rehab programs over the war on drugs and prisons. I’d choose to pay social workers over cops.

I’m genuinely asking, because what we’ve got now just ain’t working.

Now, you can experience the Human Respect Test too! But BEFORE you go try it, I have one more important point to make. These exciting new improvements didn’t happen by accident. We needed a skilled Makeover Team. I secured the talents of…
  • A full-stack developer
  • A graphic designer
  • An experienced libertarian writer
  • An illustrator
  • An integrated marketing communications specialist {insert a makeover team image?}
You can vividly see the results of their work when you visit our website! But I’m looking at their invoices right now. And the work isn’t quite finished. Every new website comes with little things that need enhancement and fixing. Those tiny items are the difference between success and failure during the upcoming campaign season. We know the names for 2020: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Jo Jorgensen. We know the issues, so we have the right questions on our famous Quiz. But will we maximize the opportunities that come in a Presidential election cycle to…
  • Help people discover where they’re at on the Political Map?
  • Engage them on a vivid journey of self-discovery?
  • Expose them to the powerful message of persuasion over coercion?

Will we have the capacity to deliver? Will you help us take full advantage of the election season opportunity?

Right now, we’re printing the first batch of new Quiz cards. I’ll send you one card for every dollar you donate. $100 equals 100 cards.

When you make your tax-deductible contribution, you’ll be amongst the first handful of people in the U.S. to have these new Quiz cards! Our online store won’t have them for weeks. But you can have them in a few days! Show them to friends! Thank you for helping us with our updated Mission to equip people to understand, embrace, and advocate the values of self-government.   Mike Sertic, President Advocates for Self-Government P.S. Our Advocates Makeover includes an updated Quiz, a sharp, refreshed website, and our first Quiz Engagement. Numbers are just coming in on the Human Respect Test, and they’re impressive. 68% of users are choosing respect over coercion. 440 people signed up to join our email list in just the first week! Of course, we want you to check it out. But your financial support is needed to maximize our 2020 election season opportunities.
Change

How Self-Government Can Be the Change You Wish to See

Written by Michael Sertic on . Posted in Communicating Liberty, Liberator Online. No Comments on How Self-Government Can Be the Change You Wish to See

I recently heard someone regurgitate the quote that is typically (and evidently, wrongly) attributed to Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  I sighed and found myself annoyed.  But why? Change It’s not as though it’s a bad piece of advice. It’s probably because I imagine the person saying it wearing lavender-tinted tea-shades and swaying back and for the sound of Lennon’s Imagine, all the while praising the virtues of socialist societies like Venezuela and Cuba.  (Obviously, that should shed some light on my own personal biases.)   Upon reflection, though, it’s good advice, assuming the change you want to see in the world is more libertarian, less authoritarian.  And if you’re reading The Liberator Online, I’d say there’s a good chance that’s the case. The other reason why we’re likely to roll our eyes at this mantra is that so few of us actually heed it.  The trick to taking this advice, I’m learning, is to understand two related but distinct concepts: locus of control, and sphere of influence.  Let’s focus on locus of control for now. Locus of control (LOC) is a psychological term developed to assess an individual’s feeling or sense that they are empowered and in control of their own life outcomes.  Thus, a person with a strong internal LOC believes he mostly responsible for how good his health, wealth, status and overall well-being are.  It seems likely that people who adhere to this internal view of LOC share at least some libertarian values.  Conversely, those with a strong external LOC (like Germans, apparently) tend to hold more fatalistic, even nihilistic attitudes that can slowly chip away at the productive and moral capacity of a nation.  I’d be willing to bet there’s at least a moderate correlation between external LOC people and socialist economic policies. So how does an understanding of LOC help libertarians to effect change in the world?  First, it reminds us that some people fundamentally do not view the world through our paradigm of freedom of choice and self-government.  We should remind these folks when possible of historical examples of the potential power each person is capable of in taking a stand and making a difference for themselves and countless others. Second, work to practice self-government (defined in this sense as self-rule or self-mastery) in the aspects of life over which you have direct control, if you’re not already doing so.  For example, a while back a was frequently awakened in the middle of the night by a loud noise disturbance of private landscapers working nearby my home.  My initial thought, in my frustration, was to call government code enforcement and have them shut these landscapers down.  But that didn’t seem in concert with my libertarian values.  Instead, I contacted the owner of the landscaping company and we came to an agreement that satisfied both of us—he still fulfilled his contractual cleaning services, and I was able to sleep peacefully.  Such a resolutions weren’t guaranteed, of course, but how often do we think about settling such issues ourselves? Through this encounter, I put the onus of responsibility on myself to see if I could achieve the desired outcome I was looking for without shifting it to a third-party agent who may ultimately have used threats of force of fines against the company.  That is one small example of self-government in action, and something that I need to remind myself of in situations involving social conflict.  To the degree we are able to tap into the strong internal LOC that we as libertarians tend to hold and not outsource decision rights and authority to third-party agents who hold a monopoly over the use of force, the more effective we will be in actualizing the change we want to see in the world. Let us know about examples in which you have consciously abstained from involving third-party government agents to settle a dispute or solve a problem that you were able to accomplish yourself. We’d love to hear them.
dream

The Embodiment of the American Dream

Written by Michael Sertic on . Posted in Liberator Online, Libertarianism. No Comments on The Embodiment of the American Dream

A fellow libertarian recently forwarded me a link to a quiz that he suggested I take. Since I’m always up for a good political survey (and easily distracted), I decided to give it a try.  With claims that it could predict “what factors were working in [my] favor and what [I] had to overcome to get where [I am] today,” I was curious to find out how I scored on on someone’s American Dream quiz. dream Before I go any further, I’ll state outright that I scored 60, meaning that I have been fairly fortunate and had more factors working in my favor than against me.  I have to say that I enjoyed taking the quiz, even though I find both the assumptions and purported research backing it to be biased. The rhetoric is that of the “it takes a village” and “you didn’t build that…” mentality, which is subtly inferable and reveals itself in the results content.  The results section is quick to provide links to material propagating various socio-economic myths, such as the systemic gender pay gap (which is far more nuanced an issue when all factors are considered). I have become accustomed to seeing this narrative pushed by various nonprofit organizations, marketing firms, and media outlets.  It is my perception that I am responsible for my successes and my failures, and I think this idea (related to locus of control) is a significant factor in determining an individual’s character and the amount of ultimate success (whatever success means for that person). I couldn’t help but wonder how libertarians as a group would score on the American Dream survey.  If I were forced to hazard a guess, I would bet that more libertarians would score on my side of the scale, meaning that they’ve been luckier and had fewer obstacles.  I base this both on my social interactions with other libertarians and on the unfortunate stereotype that we are callous toward the plight of the less fortunate (a stereotype with which I happen to mostly disagree).  I also don’t know many libertarians who have received government benefits (or at least many who like to talk about it). The embodiment of the American Dream is the age-old “rags-to-riches” stories in which a struggling but capable go-getter is able to shape his own destiny through hard work, resilience, and moxie.  Only until relatively recently did the phrase “equal opportunity” worm its way into the American lexicon and become associated with the American Dream. Libertarians (should) recognize that equal opportunity is a mythical construct as unnatural as equal outcomes.  And rather than continue to coercively intervene into the lives of American citizens in a foolhardy attempt to impose equality, we should seek to roll back the countless state interventions that negatively impact the very people they are trying to help. So go ahead and check out their survey—I’m curious to learn how libertarians score.  And speaking of politics quizzes, there really aren’t any better than the WSPQ!
USP

The Libertarian USP

Written by Michael Sertic on . Posted in Liberator Online, Libertarianism, Philosophy. No Comments on The Libertarian USP

As I mentioned in a recent issue of The Liberator Online, the Advocates finished its move from Indianapolis to Sacramento last month.  A colleague of mine was sorting through the treasure-trove of materials and resources that the Advocates has collected over the decades and stumbled upon something he then passed along for me to read. USP What he shared was a powerful essay in the form of a pamphlet entitled “Persuasion versus Force” written by Mark Skousen in 1991.  In it, Skousen quotes an excerpt from the rather obscure book Adventures of Ideas written by Harvard professor and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead:
The creation of the world—said Plato—is the victory of persuasion over force…Civilization is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative.  The recourse to force, however unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilization, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals… Now the intercourse between individuals and between social groups takes one of these two forms: force or persuasion.  Commerce is the great example of intercourse by way of persuasion.  War, slavery and governmental compulsion exemplify the reign of force.
Skousen proceeds to acknowledge a truth all libertarians will recognize: “The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society.”  But, he adds, it is also a principle with which most citizens will agree, regardless of their liberal or conservative tendencies. My friends on the left and the right will not dispute that persuasion is preferable to violence and force.  If they did, I would likely reevaluate our friendship.  However, it seems that only libertarians consistently view socio-political events from the persuasion-force perspective, and it is only libertarians who reject wholesale the use of force to promote one social agenda over another (through politics or otherwise). In other words, it is within this framework that libertarianism’s unique selling proposition (USP) lies.  While it isn’t wrong to tout the fact that libertarians advocate for free markets, limited government, and peace, from a marketing perspective it leaves something to be desired.  After all, liberals and conservatives will, from time to time, pitch policy positions that align with the libertarian position—but not because they fundamentally reject force.  Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans regularly embrace force over persuasion whenever it is deemed politically expedient to do so. In my experience, the disconnect between people saying they reject force and then employing it through the political system is largely due to the fact that most people 1) do not recognize most forms of political coercion as being such (e.g. voting for and enforcement of bad laws), and 2) rationalize political coercion either as a defense mechanism against previous aggression (e.g. the “But he started it!” retaliation  argument), or as the only option (building roads).  It is our job as Advocates to continue to shine a light on these problems. To me, anyone who consistently rejects force and employs persuasion in their personal, social and political relationships is acting as a libertarian.  I am unaware of any contemporary competing ideologies or political movements in America that embrace and advocate for the “nobler alternative” of peaceful, voluntary persuasion.  This is the libertarian USP. Have your own take on libertarianism’s USP?  Write me at mike@theadvocates.org.  I’d like to hear about it.
liberty

What attracted you to the liberty movement?

Written by Michael Sertic on . Posted in Liberator Online, Libertarianism. No Comments on What attracted you to the liberty movement?

This is a question I enjoy asking people, for several reasons. One, it’s an ice breaker when meeting new folks at libertarian events, and people usually like to tell their story to other libertarians. Another is that I learn something about the person with whom I’m speaking. For me, their story is another data point that informs me how I might more effectively persuade others to become libertarian. liberty Like many Gen Y libertarians, my view of how the world operates was fundamentally and irrevocably altered by Congressman Ron Paul following his 2008 presidential campaign and the Campaign For Liberty. It is likely that I would never have been exposed to the libertarian ideas he was presenting were it not for the internet—specifically Youtube and social media. After watching every “Ron Paul destroys…” Youtube video I could find, I decided to take action and seek out some real-life libertarians in Sacramento. My online search connected me with Dr. Jim Lark, who was listed as the national LP’s student outreach contact. It so happens that Dr. Lark was also serving as Chairman of the Advocates for Self-Government. He graciously helped connect me with other libertarians in my community and also introduced me to Sharon Harris, the Advocates’ former and longest serving president. Upon deciding to start a Students For Liberty club on my college campus at CSU Sacramento, it was not long before my Operation Politically Homeless kit from the Advocates arrived in the mail. With the help of a few student volunteers I had already recruited, we proceeded to conduct several on campus OPH events over the next two years and further identified and recruited many more libertarians. I have heard it said that libertarians are not community-oriented and lack empathy and concern for their fellow citizens and neighbors. My experience coming into the movement and since has run completely counter to this narrative, and I attribute my sustained activism and commitment to libertarian principles over the last eight years to people like Dr. Lark, Sharon Harris, and the countless other passionate and caring people I have since met in the liberty movement. Social movements are as much about advancing political ideals and policies as they are about attraction to the people who promote them. In hindsight, it was the personal integrity to his political philosophy that initially attracted me to Dr. Paul—something that I had not seen from a politician before. It is an honor for me to able to work to attract and persuade people to embrace libertarian principles and to empower libertarians to be highly successful at presenting the ideas of liberty to the world. So, what attracted you to the liberty movement? Please write as and let us know at liberator@theadvocates.org. We’d love to hear from you.