Any of you define yourselves as Libertarians?

1MileCrash

Just seeing if there are others out there on this board.

G037H3

Mostly leftists on this board. They want the easy grant money.

DR13

Depends how you define Libertarian. I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Some people say this is Libertarian.

1MileCrash

That is exactly how I'd define libertarian.

DR13

Then yes, I am Libertarian. Some people also include things like Libertarians say that we should never engage in a war unless attacked (not like 9/11 attack but like by a real nation a la pearl harbor). Also, that Libertarians think that we should not send aid to other countries (goes with the theme of taking care of us first and not "wasting" money on others). I do not agree with these

mynameisfunk

I am Libertarian. To the bone. And, not to start a debate, but not sending aid to other countries, I can see, when put that way, how could you possibly agree with not helping your neighbor? The only problem I have with it, is the "forced to help" part. Without a governing body making the decision that "everyone is going to help and pay taxes to help these guys or GTFO," I think enough people who are willing and able to help put together a charity to help out for whatever cause they beleive in would certainly do so. But just because you and I want to help out the refugees in the mid east doesnt mean we should go tell the authority about the idea and force everyone to come alone and pay for it.

Jack21222

I was the chairman of my local Libertarian Party for a few years, but I left that post a few years ago. I still consider myself a small-L libertarian, though I am fairly left-leaning. I believe government intervention should be the last resort in solving a problem, but I don't necessarily believe that government should NEVER intervene to solve a problem. I'm socially VERY liberal, and fiscally moderate, maybe slightly to the right of center.

MATLABdude

In my observation (for what it's worth), small 'l' libertarianism is a Rosarch blot, meaning radically different things to different people. Whether that's might-make-right, corporatism, Randism, anti-corporatism / individual freedomist, anarcho-syndicalism, or some weird fusion of (usually Christian) fundamentalism (a.k.a. anti-homosexuality / abortion / drugs, with full-out willingness to implement attendant legislation) and anti-regulation / taxation (a.k.a. pro-corporatism). The last one might seem ridiculous (or maybe not--again, showing the many faces of libertarianism or at least my 'understanding'), but the big-L Libertarian (Tom Tancredo) who has the best shot at actually winning anything this go-around is just such a creature.

There was a comic I saw a while back which motivated this post:
http://www.leftycartoons.com/the-24-...f-libertarian/

And then someone else (maybe the same author?) came up with ones for progressives and authoritarians:
http://www.neatorama.com/2010/07/19/...uthoritarians/

Jack21222 (having been relatively somewhere up there on the LP hierarchy) will probably speak to the nugget of truth in the first comic, and the difficulty when it comes to getting down to brass tacks and actually herding "small-l" cats for "big-L" purposes.

Pythagorean

I used to be a libertarian when I thought freedom was all there was to life. I'm older now, I guess. I am now almost completely apolitical. I have no opinion on economics (I think most people who do don't know what they're talking about) and my social opinions lean towards liberal/libertarian (people should be able to be gay, worship spaghetti, do drugs, or otherwise engage in victimless activity).

Jack21222

EVERY political label can be a Rorschach blot. As your second comic points out, the same can hold true for conservatives and liberals as well. For the first comic, I've known libertarians of almost every flavor listed there, it's pretty accurate.

CAC1001

Being anti-regulation can mean being anti-corporatism, it depends. I consider myself mostly a small-L libertarian, or a classica liberal (using the 19th to early 20th century definition of liberal, not the version co-opted by the Left).

Libertarians do come in different flavors, though. For example, some are pro-choice and not much into religion at all, others are very much pro-life and fundamentalist Christians (i.e. Rand Paul).

czelaya

I never thought of myself as a libertarian. Matter of fact, I was pretty liberal. I believed that the government should reach out to those in need and that corporations were evil. That was until I started reading libertarian philosophy/history, and started learning that libertarianism was nothing new. Learning the difference between a pure democratic system versus a republic, helped further understand the pillars of libertarianism.

However, what really catalyzed my studies in political thought was learning about economics, and how the word capitalism is used wrongly and should be replaced by corporatism. Then, of course, you learn about taxation; the ever increasing scope of government; inflation and how it ties to governments over extending financial obligations via fiat currencies.

I just can't believe that over the last 4 years I went from Democrat to Republican to Libertarian. I can't believe how strongly I hold to libertarian values.

I think most people don't understand the concepts behind libertarianism because the first thing anyone tells me is that liberarians, in general, are anarchist, which they are not. There is definite role for government.

arildno

I don't have any respect for ideologies that are self-destructive, because they are..self-destructive.

Since Ayn Rand's philosophy&state conception does not acknowledge the validity of affective (alogical) attachments&demands, her entire project is self-destructive, since by all accounts&empirical evidence, loyalty to some particular state of order is not something generated by logic&reason alone.

Thus, in that particular way of seeing things, I'm not a libertarian.

Gokul43201

A quick way to make a rough approximation: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

I scored P=70% & E=60%, putting me on the boundary between centrist and libertarian.

Al68

Freedom, like many things, is often not considered important until one does not have it. And different freedoms are important to different people. Some are perfectly content without economic freedom, as long as they have the social freedoms they desire, while others are just the opposite.

I think the core of libertarianism is to not just believe in the specific freedoms that are essential to your own enjoyment of life, but to believe in the ones that aren't, because they are essential to someone else's enjoyment of life.

I see in this forum repeatedly a complete disregard for the liberties others hold dear, as long as the liberties they hold dear are never violated. Then they scream bloody murder.

Of course most are honest enough not to call themselves libertarians, but it seems to me that a non-libertarian simply has no standing to complain about some violations of liberty, after advocating others.

Proton Soup

i used to be a card-carrying libertarian. but what i came to learn over time is that it is less the Reardens and Galts of the world that are attracted to it, but the PR Barnums. want to sell a fraudulent product without government interference of regulation? want to sue people that warn others that your product doesn't work? are you some kind of chiropractor or other witch doctor? then the libertarian party is probably for you.

plus the fact that libertarians simply do not build great civilizations. unless you consider monarchs to be the ultimate manifestation of libertarianism, but they always resort to violence.

mugaliens

I'd let the party define itself, as they have here.

There's a lot of things I believe in, but most are cribbed from most parties, including Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independants. It's sort of a "take the best and forget the rest" approach to government.

In fact, I've already given it a title: The Whatever Works Best Party.

As for what's on my voter card, I think it's "unaffiliated."

Other possible titles:

The Un-Party

The Anti-Party-Cull

The Anti-Politic-Cull

I could go on, Lol.