(From the Liberator Online, Volume 18, No. 17. Subscribe today!)
“What is your political philosophy? It is an interesting question that few people really give time to think about.”
That’s how Judge Jim Gray — retired Orange County Superior Court judge and 2012 Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate — began a recent column in the Daily Pilot, a newspaper published by the Los Angeles Times which serves Newport Beach and Costa Mesa in Orange County, California.
After an amusing and enlightening comparison of sports to politics, Gray got down to the essentials.
He described “the libertarian values of both financial responsibility and social acceptance” and then asked the reader: “Are those your values too?”
He concluded by offering readers a way to find their place on the political spectrum: take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.
“I think you will find the results to be quite revealing,” he concluded.
Thanks, Judge Gray!
Judge Gray’s article offered nearly 100,000 Daily Pilot readers the chance to take the Quiz. Many of those who do will discover — perhaps for the very first time — that they are libertarians, or at least libertarian-leaning.
I know that most of you reading this don’t write newspaper columns or run for vice president of the United States.
But you, too, can quickly and easily help lots of other people encounter the eye-opening, enlightening power of the Quiz.
Here are two simple ways.
1) Share the Quiz on Facebook and through other social media. Take the Quiz online and right-click on the graphic that shows your results. Save the image and post it on Facebook and other sites. Add a caption along these lines:
“Here’s how I scored on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. Try it and see which political group agrees with YOU the most in the world of politics!”
Fast, easy, and guaranteed to stimulate interesting comments!
2) Put the Quiz as a signature in your emails. You’re probably familiar with signatures. These are the little quotes or sayings or personal notes seen at the bottom of email messages and online forum posts. Most email programs can be configured to generate them automatically. Signatures have been described as “email bumperstickers.”
Here are some suggested wordings for signatures featuring the Quiz.
- Are you liberal, conservative, libertarian — or other? It only takes a minute to find out! Try the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz online at: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
- Fun! Fast! Revealing! Try the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz at: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
- Who agrees with you in the world of politics? Find out by taking The World’s Smallest Political Quiz at: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
- Discover your real political identity in minutes — take the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz online at: www.theadvocates.org/quiz
Prepare different signatures for different audiences. Most email programs allow you to have a variety of prepared signatures ready. Make sure the signature you choose is appropriate for the person(s) who’ll be reading it. Also, variety is the spice of liberty — switch messages frequently so you won’t bore your regular correspondents.
If you email regularly, you can effortlessly and effectively reach a lot of people with these “email bumperstickers” for liberty.
How many people you reach with these two fast and easy e-methods depends on you, of course. How often you email. How many people you interact with on social media.
But you might be surprised by the numbers. And the Quiz is so intriguing and fun that many of the people you share it with will in turn pass it on to their friends, family and colleagues.
Even if you reach only a few people, you can make a huge difference. Many liberty activists got their introduction to libertarianism by a chance encounter with the Quiz — and they went from there to bring the ideas of liberty to many thousands of people.
If everyone receiving this article used these two easy and simple ideas, and reached just a few dozen people over the course of a year… that would add up to over a million people reached with the Quiz and the ideas of liberty.
And that doesn’t even count the ripple effect — the outreach that some of those you reach would in turn engage in.
Not bad for a few minute’s investment!