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Hat tip to Rod Dreher (http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/) for the post.

What do you think, especially the libertarians who post here.

Essentially, libertarians believe that each person “owns” his own life and property

Libertarians are clueless about the nature of property.

"By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society." --Thomas Jefferson

I consider myself a Reagan Conservative and I do not support big government Republicans or compassionate conservatives.

Today, Libertarians are the ones who are pointing out the perils of big government and the State.

Quote from the Great Man Ronald Reagan...

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path.”

My impression of Libertarians is that they want to be liberated of all responsibility to the state.

Yet the freedom and property that Libertarians have, exist because the state functions well enough to protect us from foreign enemies, and to enforce the rules of a free market place, and to ensure consumer safety, etc.

Libertarians want all of the benefits of a well functioning state, with none of the restrictions and without having to pay for it. If they ever realize their dream, we will descend to the level of Somalia.

Republicans want a balanced responsible government that is fun effectively, efficiently and openly, that is limited in scope without shirking essential responsibilities.

What do you think, especially the libertarians who post here.

No comment. 99 percent of these threads are just designed to call out the libertarians and spew "loserdopian"-type insults at them. And then demand a Republican vote.

Libertarians, of course, are primarily from the middle to upper classes of society. They are very often shielded from such behavior

This part hits the nail on the head, and is true of left-anarchists and communists as well. These philosophies compare our current system to a utopia yet-to-exist and find our world lacking. The utopia requires people to be peaceful and kind, as they are in their middle class suburbs. They have not been to parts of the world where that environment does not exist (or they were insulated by their American passport and American dollars).

I consider myself a conservative libertarian because I think issues of economic freedom/power are the most important, since they ultimately determine all other kinds of freedom. The problem with libertarian philosophy is an over-emphasis on individual freedom and not enough emphasis on institutions which would safeguard that freedom. More attention needs to be paid to the mechanics of a libertarian society, and to the many things that could go wrong. But I think it's important to at least have an idea that individual freedom is the *goal* of a society, just like the communists have equality-of-wealth as a goal. We need to at least have that ideal.

Libertarianism is the only POLITICAL philosophy compatible with freedom. When individuals subscribe to libertarianism as a POLTICAL philosophy, it doesn’t follow that they don’t have any other beliefs that guide them in their personal and spiritual lives. If a political system, through it’s laws, does not hold that individuals own their own lives, then the battle of alternatives begins, and no matter what answer prevails politically, and ends up being enshrined in law, it will be diametrically opposed to the personal/religious/philosophical beliefs of many individuals, and thus interfere with their freedom to live their own lives according to their own beliefs.

If you don’t own your own life in the eyes of the law, the alternatives are either that the state owns your life, or that some version of “God” owns your life. Those of us who are vehemently opposed to the communist/socialist notion that the individual exists to serve the state and the state’s idea of a “good” society, are obviously appalled by the first alternative. But the second pits the specifics of different indivduals’ deeply held beliefs against each other, and unvariably result in laws which enshrine a religious/spiritual worldview that many people disagree with.

If the law holds that each citizen owns his/her own life, then each citizen can proceed to choose to “assign” his/her life to another owner: to the “God” of his/her belief, to the purely secular humanist society of communism/socialism, to the mystical concept of “the environment” (i.e. giving equal weight to the full spectrum of plant and animal life, rather than to the humans-only value of communism/socialism), to the pure objectivist pursuit of self-interest, or whatever. The only alternative to libertarianism as the philosophical basis for a political system, is that the law pre-empts the individual’s right to make these choices — a result which necessarily infringes on the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion, and in practice infringes on many other Constitutionally guaranteed rights as well, as those rights are limited and balanced in order serve whatever values the state has placed ahead of individual liberty.

The primary flaw in libertarianism is that it is rooted in an ethic of utilitarianism rather than virtue ethics. Without a person developing the corresponding moral character necessary for self-restraint, his liberty is bound to result in the harm of others. In fact, freedom without virtue is corrosive and will destroy everything within its range.

Where is the utility in harming others?

But from what source does the “ethical, virtuous” philosophy arise except from utility?
Wilson says that so-called “victimless” crime, the untended broken window, leads to more of the same to the harm of all.
But this is an appeal to utility (do it to preserve what we value) rather than an appeal to virtue (do it because it is right whether you ever can detect any benefit).
Utilitarianism is favored because it avoids the messy explanations of who shall set the standards of right and wrong and on what basis.
Utilitarianism can be atheistic but virtue must admit a to higher origin. Which is why most of what is called virtue and ethics is just utilitarianism with piety on its face.

Without a person developing the corresponding moral character necessary for self-restraint, his liberty is bound to result in the harm of others.

The question is whether or not it's the state's responsibility to develop or enforce "moral character". There are other institutions in society other than the state who are better suited for moral development of individuals. The state can properly restrain itself to enforcement of violations of individual rights.

I like John Schwenkler's response to the article in the "Upturned Earth" blog:

Eudaimonia, whatever exactly it involves, may well be the state towards which we ought all to be developing; the libertarian, for whatever reason, simply thinks that it’s not the state’s business to make sure that we achieve it....

Definitely worth a read.