Economic Left/Right: 5.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.10
I would like think most people would have a small amount of libertarian in them, meaning they just want the government to butt out. When it comes to economics though, I realize people swing both ways on that. In reality, I think both sides think their way will help society the most. All we can do is look at what works and what doesn't, and learn from our mistakes. For someone to argue that wellfare works, we have to look at how long government handouts have been in existance, and have they really helped to lower the number of people needing assistance? And for someone to argue that private funded assistance, like charities, are the better route, we have to show that is a method has helped more poeple. Unfortunately, we have a mixed system, so it's hard to run those tests.
Being more libertarian, I just want the government to butt out, and quit hijacking all my damn money every month in the form of taxes. I could then do some serious donating to private organizations. And these private organizations would have to meet my standards of how a charity would run, or they wouldn't get my money. That's why most privately funded charitys do a better job of getting the money out the door to the people they help. ( I don't need examples of private charitys who squander money...I know they exist, I'm not dumb.) But by far, I think private charitys have less overhead, less bureaucracy, and do a better job of helping people.