[bluefish]

Excellent point. In essence, you have stated as many of us feel. I am personally tired of seeing the "Gosh darn it, Libertarians are a bunch of Liberals" vanity posts which do nothing more than demonstrate the overwhelming ignorance of the original poster with respect to the political spectrum, the beliefs of various labels that lie along it, and the problem with trying to compare one label to another with respect to any one individual. Also, I am sick of seeing the ignorant assumptions about all of an individuals personal beliefs based on their identification with a particular political label as well.

I have a strong faith in God and I do not do drugs or believe that homosexual marriage should be recognized by law. However, my distrust of the government causes me to lean towards libertarianism. What the Social Conservatives who bash libertarians don't realize is that many of us simply want to continue to believe and act as they do, without government intrusion. Many of us fear that the Liberals, with all their agendas, have a greater hold on the government, and we appropriately respond by trying limit governmental power. We recognize that we have to allow some things we don't believe in because we want to preserve our ability to engage in and practice those things that we do. I don't want a government trying to create a utopia on the left or right, because the balance of power shifts back and forth. To protect our freedoms, we are better off with a much weaker "power" that does the shifting.

[Arkinsaw]

To protect our freedoms, we are better off with a much weaker "power" that does the shifting.

Thats the key. If I had to sum up my philosophy in a few words I would say that:

The parts of the Constitution dealing with the powers of government should be interpreted more narrowly, while those parts of the Consitution dealing with individual rights should be interpreted more broadly.

Part of the problem, for instance, is that leftists desire to interpret the 2nd Amendment narrowly and the 1st Amendment broadly while some social conservatives desire to interpret the 1st Amendment narrowly and the 2nd Amendment broadly. They attempt to use the Constitution to promote the freedoms dear to their own philosophy and give short shrift to those freedoms that do not apply to their own lifestyle. This is the reason for much of the schizophrenic behavior of the ACLU for example.

[Boxsford]

Yours is a most excellent, reasoned, and sane post. Believe it or not, conservative Republicans began to look too liberal,phoney,shallow, etc. for me and I started looking at libertarian views. I like what I see.