I view them as throw backs to Thomas Jefferson liberalism. Lofty idealism that emphasizes personal freedom over constant nanny-state oversight. They tend to be anti-government and anti-control and pro-individual and pro-freedom.
The actual making of the sausage and the detailed approach to define them gets muddied pretty quickly because being libertarian means they can’t agree with themselves as to what they stand for as a political party. They are the ultimate “herding cats” party, which is why they will most likely never become a national party.
That being said, the vision of libertarians is similar to our founding fathers as far as their desire to remove government interference from day-to-day life and both the Republicans and Democrats tend to agree with them on different aspects and issues from time to time.
Libertarians are throwback to classical liberals Classical liberalism places a particular emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual, with private property rights being seen as essential to individual liberty. This forms the philosophical basis for laissez-faire public policy. The ideology of the original classical liberals argued against direct democracy “for there is nothing in the bare idea of majority rule to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or maintain rule of law.”[17] For example, James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections foClassical liberalism holds that individual rights are natural, inherent, or inalienable, and exist independently of government. Thomas Jefferson called these inalienable rights: “...rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”[21] For classical liberalism, rights are of a negative nature—rights that require that other individuals (and governments) refrain from interfering with individual liberty, whereas social liberalism (also called modern liberalism or welfare liberalism) holds that individuals have a right to be provided with certain benefits or services by others.[22] Unlike social liberals, classical liberals are “hostile to the welfare state.”[17] They do not have an interest in material equality but only in “equality before the law”.[23] Classical liberalism is critical of social liberalism and takes offense at group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights.[24] r individual liberty over a pure democracy, reasoning that, in a pure democracy, a “common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole...and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party....”
http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Ludwig von Misis was a classical liberal that had a significant influence on the libertarian movement in the United States in the mid-20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises
Ludwig von Misis was a classical liberal