The greatest failure of the Libertarian Party was after 9/11 a deep schism built between those in the Libertarian Party that saw attacks by Islam as wanton initiation of force (thus requiring a principled retaliation response), and those that believed the use of force by Islam was justified retaliation for initial transgressions by the the US (Paulists, etc.).
This fiasco illustrates that the Libertarian Party has skimmed members from Liberals and Conservatives with cleverly worded statements such as, "let peaceful people cross borders freely." The Libertarian that came from a Conservative background will wake up and realize that peaceful individuals can become a stampede, destabilizing the economy, and a peaceful person can turn violent without any warning.
The open borders concept would be fine if all nations were roughly equivalent but at the moment, open borders equates to an open invitation for hostile forces to invade and conquer simply by demographic superiority.
Even in Canada where the open border issue is not quite as evident a threat, this is the main reason why I can’t fully support the libertarian alternative.
I don’t mind the idea of no laws against marijuana although I don’t use it myself. Laws against stronger drugs need to be retained though. The main challenge about open use of marijuana (which is more or less a social reality in British Columbia even though our laws are not the same yet as in WA or CO) is to develop effective means of roadside testing for impairment equivalent to the alcohol breathalyzer test. Once that was in place, I see no real distinction to be made between alcohol and marijuana as legal choices. Heroin, cocaine or meth etc should remain illegal though.
If we could “do it all again” then probably the war in Iraq should have been pursued either more aggressively or not at all. But I tend to think we were right to go in there and remove Saddam Hussein. What we’ve chosen to do in Libya and Syria are worse mistakes and non-intervention or backing of a reasonably reliable alternative in place would have been the better options.
The best part of any libertarian platform relates to free speech and internet freedom. We had a good thing going in the first phase of the internet and now elites want to take all that away, too dangerous to let the average guy or gal have a place to discuss truth behind the backs of the schoolteacher class. Why, we might come to different conclusions. We might equate communism with Nazism, that’s what they fear the most. And they should, because that implies that communists should be driven out of any positions of influence and authority that they might hold today.