If Gary Johnson is representative of libertarians, then libertarians have no business holding office. Johnson is an abortionist, sodomite- lover, an open-borders pedagogue, and blames America for Muslim violence.
Thankfully, the von Mises/Murray Rothbard/Hayek/Lew Rockwell strands of libertarianism are beneficial to our discourse. It’s a shame that the Libertarian Party has always been such a trash heap.
Libertarians cover a pretty broad spectrum of folks. More so than the caricatures you often see described here. I’m very libertarian in a lot of my outlook. To me, I don’t see how the non-aggression principle cannot be extended to babies in the womb, but somehow, others do. On the other hand, I can’t see abortion being made outright illegal, as I have serious reservations on how the law would deal with miscarriages. Do we really want parents to have to prove a negative in those cases?
I don’t go for the idea of open borders either, because I figure a nation without borders isn’t a nation.
I’m with them on the drug war thing mainly because of the damage I see it doing to our constitution and rule of law, not to mention the corruption of all levels of government it encourages. I believe in a more Randian economic model, because in general, more freedom is better than less freedom, though I probably wouldn’t go quite as far as she would. I figure crony capitalism is a blight on the nation, and is only possible because the government has vastly overstepped its bounds (at all governmental levels).
John Locke described the reason we need at least some government quite well in his second treatise. I think is ideas about the need to restrain it are apt as well.
I can’t say that I understand the blanket antipathy some on this forum feel for libertarianism. It seems to me they often get it confused with libertinism, as if you can’t seek liberty without being a libertine.