“Conservatives believe in defending America. Libertarians do not.”
That’s not true. Yes, for the Reason Foundation (which I like), Ron Paul, et. al. sure, that’s a true statement. That is *not* true for all libertarians and would venture a guess that this is a minority (but well-funded) group within libertarianism. I’m a libertarian with the good understanding that:
1. Protecting personal liberties is the primary duty of the federal government. Not banking, not the environment, not education, not employment, and not stopping personal decisions that harm the individual, no matter how galactically stupid. When the feds dig their hands into these areas, they inevitably invade on our personal, God given liberties.
2. The only way the government can ensure our liberties is by actively fighting all enemies, foreign and domestic.
3. Supporting other nations with free markets and free peoples strengthens our freedoms. Israel rocks and they have my support; not because they are Jews or they are Israel or they are “God’s people,” but because they are the only nation in the Middle East that understands the basic concepts of freedom. The rest of the loons over there want to (and have) come here and take away the very freedoms the government should protect. Oh yeah, and the Israelis kick a$$.
There are plenty of libertarians out there who would take all the money going to Departments of Education and other useless bureaucrats and get it to defense. You can’t have personal liberty without a strong defense. Unfortunately, scumbag bureaucrats dole out wasteful contracts to their friends, which doesn’t help defense, but gives it a bad name.
Now you may continue your bashing of Ron Paul’s foreign policy positions without saying he speaks for all libertarians.
Since the creation of modern libertarianism in America back in 1971, Ron Paul has been the most high profile Libertarian/libertarian of the last 40 years. And Reason magazine is the major mouthpiece of libertarianism as disseminated by the Libertarian Party.
The Godfather of modern libertarianism is Murray Rothbard. He would disagree on your #2 and would call you more a neoconservative, not a true libertarian.
I see you as a neo-libertarian -— a factional thinker and hopelessly confused!