And the right have Ayn Rand.

ITT: discuss why Rand sucked.

There's a girl at my college with a voice like a man, and her surname is Burford.

Her nickname is Big Bad Burf. I nearly died the first time I heard that.

What school of economics do you subscribe to? Who is your favourite or least favourite economist?

I'm probably in the Chicago School alongside the likes of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, and more specifically monetarism. I do have a healthy respect for the Austrian School, for all the scorn heaped upon it.

Favourite economist(s): Milton Friedman; F. A. Hayek.

Least favourite economist: Ha Joon Chang.

Take this test if you're not sure: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-economic-school-of-thought-test

It seems mildly accurate. I got:

Balanced Freedom
23 Keynesian, 54 Chicago, 54 Austrian

You are in favor of a free market, and quite a bit of individual freedom. That said, you don't really fit in any one school of thought. A little Keynesianism, a little Chicago School methods, and a bit of Austrianism all sprinkled around. You just know you want a working market, and you support it, but you have no consistent methodology guiding you.

Some of them are fucking horrible, too. Can sleeping tablets affect your dreams?

Terrorism Act (2000) - extended detention limit to 7 days without charge for terrorism suspects. The broad definition of terrorism allowed police to legally stop and search a Ph.D. student and journalist protesting an arms trade fair in Canary Wharf.

Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) - allows government full surveillance powers of all kinds of communication. On average, about 30 warrants a week are issues.

Civil Contingencies Act (2004) - allows government, in times of "emergency", to deploy armed forces in any part of the country during peacetime. Also allows property to be confiscated without compensation.

Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act (2001) - in response to 9/11, this piece of legislation allows the government to indefinitely detain foreign nationals suspected of terrorist activities without trial.

Terrorism Act (2006) - following the 7/7 bombings, this allows people suspected of terrorist activities to be detained without charge for 42 days.

R v Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar (2014) - was going to be the first trial held entirely in secret. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales ruled that the names of the defendants and the outcome must be made public, but the rest of the details will remain in secrecy.

I'm personally opposed to it. I do, however, support free banking.

Up until the age of thirteen I was probably a moderate conservative, simply adopting my grandparents' opinions.

I then developed an interest in politics, specifically the social aspects and things pertaining to liberty. I became a  Marxist-Leninist Communist.

It was from their that I eventually became an Anarchist-communist, and I would drift between there and anarcho-socialism.

Becoming mildly interested in psychology pushed me towards statism, and I eventually rejected anarchism and turned to libertarian socialism.

Flirting with ideas of the human condition and happiness I looked at fascism and authoritarianism, but never developed any level of support.

It wasn't until I actually began studying economics that I turned to capitalism. Since then, I have returned to a relatively anti-statist position and my views have been influenced by reading and listening to the likes of Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, Paul Krugman, Ludwig von Mises, Ron Paul and Scott Sumner.

I'm usually uncomfortable identifying as a libertarian since I don't hold the deontological, "moral" foundations like Ron Paul, and am of a more consequentialist streak like Milton Friedman. I'd rather identify as a monetarist or a Conservative (although I'll probably end up voting UKIP).

*sigh*

One of them was stupid and absent-minded enough to put a glass back into the cupboard in just the right way, so that when I opened the cupboard it came toppling down.

It smashed on the counter and left cuts all down my upper leg.

Fucking cunts.

I'm sure I don't need to fucking spoon-feed you in order to get a discussion out of this.

Have your parents ever done something this stupid? Have you ever done something like this? Have you ever cut yourself on glass, or similarly injured yourself?

Live a little.

They don't necessarily have to be your role models, they could just be popular public figures.

Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution.

Friedrich Nietzsche was bipolar and, maybe, misogynistic.

Malcolm X was racist.

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was addicted to heroin.

Tommy Cooper was actually a horrible person off the stage.

Rammstein are closet Nazis.

Nigel Farage appeals to xenophobics and racists.

George Orwell was fucking terrible at satire.

Trying to read Tolkien is like watching paint dry at times.

Lovecraft's writing can also be quite static.

George Carlin, for all his wit and perception, was at times very unintelligent and pessimistic.

Michael McIntyre's humour is simply childish.

Hitler didn't actually save the German economy. In fact, he probably fucked it up big-time.

Milton Friedman abandoned monetarism towards the end of his life.

Margaret Thatcher, although being one of our greatest PMs, was still a Statist.

This was posted back on b.next a couple of time but I thought it'd be nice to bring it here. There's an edition for the US, UK, Canada, Australia and India. Do whichever ones you want:
http://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz
http://uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz
http://canada.isidewith.com/political-quiz
http://australia.isidewith.com/political-quiz
http://india.isidewith.com/political-quiz

I got:
 
US - 92% Libertarian, whom I side with on healthcare, the economy, the environment, domestic policy and social issues explicitly. I apparently side with Greens when it comes to foreign policy and immigration.

UK - 87% UKIP and 86% Conservative, whom I side with on everything except domestic policy, which belongs to the Greens.

Canada - 56% Conservative.

Australia - 37% Labor.