Replies

For the record, I no longer describe myself as a libertarian, not only because the philosophy has been hijacked by some of the very people you describe, but also because it is an unnecessary neologism for the very principles our republic was founded upon.

I tend to come down very hard on libertarians, but this is probably a case of rivalry between cousins, for I used to be a libertarian, but have since abandoned the position philosophically. I describe myself as "Neo-Ciceronian", and land somewhere at the crossroads between classical republicanism and classical liberalism. I left libertarianism because I felt that libertarians themselves often did not think through the logical consequences of many positions that they espouse, and in the name of "liberty", would actually create an environment where the individual could be just as tyrannous to other individuals as the government is. The whole "private roads" position was what formally did it for me.

I'm big on Lockean-style commonwealth ideology. Government is needed, but it is government which acts as a result of being instituted by a body of individuals, the commonwealth, for the purpose of providing mutual protection, from each other as much as from outside agents. The purpose of government is to provide a stable and peaceful mode of existence (i.e. eliminate the "state of nature") which will allow each individual to then pursue their natural liberties to life and property, without the assault on their liberties that other individuals in a "fre-for-all" natural state would present.

Hence, the role of government should be arbitrative, not regulatory.

That's very close to my own philosophy, which is why I at times describe myself as a "small r" republican (and once, bizarrely considering your comment, a "neo-Catonian".. Cicero talked too much). I'm also a "big R" Republican, but that only describes party affiliation.

The libertarian movement itself is made up of both anarcho-capitalists, who advocate a free-market system with no government (which I believe is impossible to sustain in the long run), and those who advocate a strict, limited constitutional government which is only involved in protecting liberty and enforcing contracts. My view of libertarianism is that it's an idealistic philosophy that needs to be tempered with a healthy dose of realism in order to be an effective governing philosophy.

Generally speaking, I default to the libertarian position on most issues unless I'm convinced that government intervention is needed in order to preserve liberty in society as a whole and in the long run. This, of course, causes me to take positions that would cause many card-carrying Libertarians to label me a "statist", though, to me, it just means I'm reasonable.