Just what is a Libertarian?

Internet - Lost URL | FR Post 01-11-02 | Written by Deanna Corbeil

[vannrox]

Just what is a Libertarian?
(The party & philosophy)

Out of the many political philosophies that exist, one of the most misunderstood is libertarianism. It is frequently labeled part of the “extreme right”, or it is merely associated with drug legalization. Truthfully, there may be several definitions of the term, but in general, libertarianism encompasses all or most of the following: strong support of individual civil liberties, social tolerance, and private property; belief in the positive powers of the free market; and an espousal of constitutionally limited and greatly reduced government. To put it succinctly, the libertarian believes in the freedom of individuals to pursue their lives as they see fit, as long as they cause no harm to others, with minimal governmental interference.


Libertarian thought is rooted historically in the ideas of many of the Enlightenment thinkers, including John Locke, Voltaire, and Adam Smith, as well as many of the founding fathers of America, including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine. Many libertarians prefer to call themselves “classical liberals”. Their philosophy has also been influenced by writer Ayn Rand’s “Objectivism”, and various free-market economists, including Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises.


To more clearly illustrate libertarian thoughts and beliefs, it is helpful to see how these ideas would affect certain issues being debated at this time. Specifically,

Freedom of Speech,
The international scene (including military defense),
Taxation,
and, of course, Drug Prohibition.

(Keep in mind that libertarians, like most people, don’t agree on everything. In fact, their emphasis on individualism gives rise to a great deal of disagreement.)


Libertarians are strongly supportive of the civil liberties detailed in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. They maintain that the Constitution does not grant us these rights, but instead recognizes those rights we naturally possess by virtue of our humanity. Included in these rights is the freedom of speech. Unlike many other supporters of free speech, the libertarian sees it as having a connection with property rights. For example, many would claim that to deny the publication of a certain person’s ideas or works would be censorship. The libertarian would say that you can publish anything you would like on a printing press you personally own, but to force someone else to print it would be coercion.


Another area in which libertarians have a unique philosophy is that concerning international affairs, military defense, and police functions. Many in the libertarian movement believe that the only legitimate functions of government are to provide military protection and law enforcement. They would oppose those “entangling alliances” that Jefferson mentioned which lead to treaties like NATO and organizations like the United Nations. They believe these can lead to unnecessary entanglements with other nations, and may ultimately usurp the sovereignty of the individual.


When it comes to the issue of taxes, it is helpful to reflect on the libertarian’s view of property rights. The libertarian view is generally that an individual should have the right to do with his property what he will, as long as it is not causing harm to someone else. In this case, the property being considered is the money an individual has earned. If the result of your labor is money, then it belongs to you, not the government. If another individual came along and took your money from you without your consent, it would be considered theft by our legal system. The libertarian views it as no less a crime when the government takes your money without your consent via taxation. (In those cases where taxation is “necessary”, libertarians prefer the taxes to be low and only minimally intrusive.)


The aspect most often associated with its philosophy by people only marginally familiar with libertarianism concerns the subject of drug legalization. What should be remembered is that the libertarian advocates personal freedom, which they believe includes the right to make decisions concerning your own body. They would argue that today’s drug prohibition is very similar to the alcohol prohibition of the 1920’s, which helped spawn a great deal of criminal activity, profiteering for criminal gangs, and turned otherwise peaceful, law-abiding citizens into criminals. (Of course, if the use of drugs by an individual causes them to harm another, that person must take responsibility for their actions, and must make restitution or receive appropriate punishment.) They also believe that the “drug war” has largely been a failure in its goals, and has diverted law enforcement away from other, more serious crimes.


Libertarian philosophy can be applied to most any issue being debated in our time. By looking at the four areas of freedom of speech, international affairs, taxation, and drug policy, it is easy to see that libertarian thought at its most basic level agrees with Jefferson’s statement, “That government is best which governs least.”


Written by Deanna Corbeil

[FITZ]

I just don't see how a very limited federal government is going to really keep everyone toeing the Libertarian line if they didn't all feel like doing it. Some states and counties might rebel and how will that rebellion be crushed if there's not a big Libertarian army in place to force them back in line.

[FITZ]

I can see ending the WOD and most or all of the federal programs but just like in the Civil War, there were states which wanted to go off in different directions. If Massachusetts people voted for welfare programs can they be stopped?

[southern rock]

What would happen if some southern states tried to enact "blue laws" like they had at one time? Would the federal government have the right to override that?

No, the individual citizens of those states would, do, and always have. Now do you see why the 2nd amendment is so very important? It ain't for hunting.

Think about it like this. The more local the government, the more automony it posesses. And what is THE MOST local government? Why, its ME, the individual, my person, my house, my car etc.. It doesn't get more local than that. Therefore, I retain the most rights. No state, county, or fed, takes them away.

[vannrox]

The Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.


We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.


Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.


We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.


Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

[southern rock]

Some states and counties might rebel and how will that rebellion be crushed if there's not a big Libertarian army in place to force them back in line.

Let 'em go! What do I look like, Abe friggin' Lincoln?

[VaBthang4]

"Or perhaps more accurately, someone who understands the difference between morality and politics."

How completely Liberal of you. "Politics without morality" is a pillar of the Democratic Party.

[vannrox]

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2000, Anaheim, CA


I. Individual Rights and Civil Order


The Right to Keep and Bear Arms


The Bill of Rights recognizes that an armed citizenry is essential to a free society. We affirm the right to keep and bear arms and oppose all laws at any level of government restricting, regulating, or requiring the ownership, manufacture, transfer, or sale of firearms or ammunition. We oppose all laws requiring registration of firearms or ammunition. We also oppose any government efforts to ban or restrict the use of tear gas, "mace," or other self-protection devices. We further oppose all attempts to ban weapons or ammunition on the grounds that they are risky or unsafe.


We support repeal of all gun control laws and we demand the immediate abolition of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.


We favor the repeal of laws banning the concealment of weapons or prohibiting pocket weapons. We also oppose the banning of inexpensive handguns ("Saturday night specials"), and semi-automatic or so-called assault weapons and their magazines or feeding devices.

[southern rock]

If Massachusetts people voted for welfare programs can they be stopped?

It would have to be a privatly funded, voluntary program, because theft was a crime, last time I checked. Thieves should be arrested.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I guess the confusion is that Libertarian is both the name of an ideology and the name of a party. I'm trying to make the distinction in my arguements, but I keep getting replies dealing with politics, not ideology. I am a Conservative before I claim to be a Republican. There is a big difference. 227 posted on 1/11/02 3:08 PM Pacific by lormand

Fine, then.

Consider pro-life Libertarians to be conservatives of America's fundamental ideals: Life, Liberty, and Property.

That should be simple enough.

As to pro-abortion Libertarians, flog them all you like. I consider them to be as wrong-headed as you do. But have the intellectual honesty to identify them as "pro-aborts", thus zeroing in on your real bone of contention... tarring "libertarians" in general as "pro-abortion" is simply false, given that 3 of that Party's last 4 presidential nominees (Paul in '88, Browne in '96 and '00) explicitly favored the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

And such Falsehood on your part constitutes a Bearing of False Witness, a violation of the Ninth Commandment. Very bad ju-ju, morally speaking.

[vannrox]

Taxiation

National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2000, Anaheim, CA


II. Trade and the Economy


Taxation


Since we believe that all persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor, we oppose all government activity that consists of the forcible collection of money or goods from individuals in violation of their individual rights. Specifically, we:


recognize the right of any individual to challenge the payment of taxes on moral, religious, legal, or constitutional grounds;


oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes;


support the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, and oppose any increase in existing tax rates and the imposition of any new taxes;


support the eventual repeal of all taxation; and


support a declaration of unconditional amnesty for all those individuals who have been convicted of, or who now stand accused of, tax resistance.


As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.


We oppose as involuntary servitude any legal requirements forcing employers or business owners to serve as tax collectors for federal, state, or local tax agencies.


We oppose any and all increases in the rate of taxation or categories of taxpayers, including the elimination of deductions, exemptions, or credits in the spurious name of "fairness," "simplicity," or alleged "neutrality to the free market." No tax can ever be fair, simple, or neutral to the free market.


In the current fiscal crisis of states and municipalities, default is preferable to raising taxes or perpetual refinancing of growing public debt.

[vannrox]

Families and Children

National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2000, Anaheim, CA


I. Individual Rights and Civil Order


Families and Children


We believe that families and households are private institutions, which should be free from government intrusion and interference. We believe that government involvement in traditional parenting responsibilities has weakened families and replaced family-taught morals with government-taught morals.


Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their own standards and beliefs, without interference by government, unless they are abusing the children. We recognize that the determination of child abuse can be very difficult. Only local courts should be empowered to remove a child from his or her home, with the consent of the community. This is not meant to preclude appropriate action when a child is in immediate physical danger.


Because parents have these rights, a child may not be able to fully exercise his or her rights in the context of family life. However, children always have the right to establish their maturity by assuming administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians, and assuming all responsibilities of adulthood.


Parents have no right to abandon or recklessly endanger their children. Whenever they are unable or unwilling to raise their children, they have the obligation to find other person(s) willing to assume guardianship. Accordingly, we oppose all laws that impede these processes, notably those restricting private adoption services. In particular, we call for the repeal of all laws restricting transracial adoption.


A child is a human being and, as such, deserves to be treated justly. We oppose laws infringing on children's rights to work or learn, such as child labor laws and compulsory education laws. We also oppose the use of curfews based on age.


We call for an end to the practice in many states of jailing children not accused of any crime. We call for repeal of all "children's codes" or statutes which abridge due process protections for young people. .

[Architect]

He was responding to Harry Browne when he stated "primacy of liberty" in his - Freedom First -piece

Maybe so. But Goldberg has failed totally to address Hayek's point (while simultaneously claiming that he and Hayek are kindred spirits). Hayek believed that liberty was a means to an end - the determination of those societal forms which work best.

If you wish to deny the validity of libertarianism, you must address it on two fronts. Not only must you show other values which are more important than liberty, you have to show how coercive solutions obtain the ends you desire.

I submit that all forms of statism fail completely to meet Hayek's criterion.

Goldberg has posed a utilitarian objection to libertarianism. He claims that there are values which are more important than liberty. Fine. But he also has to prove that these values can be attained through coercion. I say, with Hayek and Mises, that libertarianism is the only way to determine what works and what doesn't.

[vannrox]

Government Debt

National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2000, Anaheim, CA II. Trade and the Economy.


Government Debt.


We support the drive for a constitutional amendment requiring the national government to balance its budget, and also support similar amendments to require balanced state budgets. To be effective, a balanced budget amendment should provide: .


that neither Congress nor the President be permitted to override this requirement; .


that all off-budget items are included in the budget; .


that the budget is balanced exclusively by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes; and .


that no exception be made for periods of national emergency. .


The Federal Reserve should be forbidden to acquire any additional government securities, thereby helping to eliminate the inflationary aspect of the deficit. Governments facing fiscal crises should always default in preference to raising taxes. At a minimum, the level of government should be frozen. .

[vannrox]

World Government

National Platform of the Libertarian Party Adopted in Convention, July 2000, Anaheim, CA .


IV. FOREIGN AFFAIRS.


Diplomatic Policy .


World Government.


We support withdrawal of the United States government from, and an end to its financial support for, the United Nations. Specifically, we oppose any U.S. policy designating the United Nations as policeman of the world, committing U.S. troops to wars at the discretion of the U.N., or placing U.S. troops under U.N. command. We oppose U.S. government participation in any world or international government. We oppose any treaty under which individual rights would be violated. .

[Redleg Duke]

So far, the responses to my flippant postings indicate proof positive that two primary requirements to be a libertarian are to first, be totally devoide of any sense of humor, and secondly, to be mindlessly assured of one's own infallibility!

Get a clue and get a life you folks! You should really have second thoughts about how seriously you take yourselves!

[Entelechy]

I could almost be a libertarian but a few things don't make sense. If you had an ideal libertarian country but open borders and another kind of people moved in who preferred socialism, they would vote for socialists and you'd lose your libertarian country.

Open borders are not supported by all libertarians. An argument has been made that in a country with public roads, open borders amounts to "forced integration." Of course, in a truly libertarian country all land is privately owned and thus no one can settle in the country without permission of existing land owners.

Also if a group of people wanted to have a "dry" county for example and got the majority to vote to have it that way, who can stop them?

A neighborhood could establish a covenant to bar the sale of liquor. A "gated community" or "town house park" is a reasonable facsimile of the type of communities that would exist in a libertarian world.

With very limited federal government, how will you keep communities in control so the individual can do whatever they please?

Property rights are the governing mechanism here. An individual is free to act with his own property, but must ask permission when on/using the property of another.

[Cato]

I strongly concur with your accessment of lormand's ridiculous statement.

Take care my friend,
CATO

[tpaine]

I'm not pro-abortion. - Prosecuting abortion as murder, with due process, is fine with me.

But constitutionaly, it cannot be prohibited.

[nicollo]

I hate it when it is done to my posts, but since its the author not a poster, I'll exercise some cut-n-slashin for a few points (if you're out there, Deanna, darlin', spank me). Here goes:

Out of the many political philosophies that exist, one of the most misunderstood is libertarianism.

Sorry, but I must: ye ole death by association. But Deanna (is that spelling a libertarian act? Albert Joseph, an early 1900s French anarchist who called himself, "Libertad," refused to either register his children with the State or name them, saying, "I don't give a damn, they'll pick one that suits them"), since you started it, associating yourselves with "Locke, Voltaire, Jefferson" (do you really want that scoundrel, Voltaire? He'd sure give cause to accusations of amorality), I give evidence of your marginality (not butter, but both slippery) to the sisterhood, anarchy. Marshall Shatz opens his book, "The Essential Works of Anarchism" with a similar lament -- for similar reasons:

"Anarchism, of all the major currents of modern social and political thought, has probably been subject to the grossest misunderstandings of its nature and objectives. Anarchism can trace its intellectual lineage back more than a century and a half, and political movements inspired by it have been appearing in most of the countries of the Western world for about a hundred years. Yet today it is still necessary to ask, just what is anarchism? In part, this confusion is the price anarchism has had to pay for being on the losing side of history.

Well, well... birds of feather. On to the lovely next:

"To put it succinctly, the libertarian believes in the freedom of individuals to pursue their lives as they see fit, as long as they cause no harm to others, with minimal governmental interference.

Deannnnnnne: must we truly talk about "cause no harm to others" ? For Kee-Ricests-Sake, why do you insist upon this? Put it into practice and watch government grow as your little "cause no harm to others" turns into zoning, 8-hour work days, anti-pollution regulation, DWI laws, and everything else that anybody ever asked a congressman to protect in the name of their own interests. How you gonna judge it? How you gonna enforce it?

But here's my fave:

Libertarian thought is rooted historically in the ideas of many of the Enlightenment thinkers, including John Locke, Voltaire, and Adam Smith, as well as many of the founding fathers of America, including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine. Many libertarians prefer to call themselves "classical liberals". Their philosophy has also been influenced by writer Ayn Rand's "Objectivism", and various free-market economists, including Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises.

What? I think you're missing someone: The single most influential philosopher upon the American Founding was Montesquieu. I guess he doesn't fit into your little schemes. On behalf of Madison, I apologize for the inconvenience.

O.K., just a few more before bedtime, I promise:

"Unlike many other supporters of free speech, the libertarian sees it as having a connection with property rights."

Madison settled it, and he weren't no libertarian:

"In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Rights are property."

Onward with the nonsense:

"For example, many would claim that to deny the publication of a certain person's ideas or works would be censorship. The libertarian would say that you can publish anything you would like on a printing press you personally own, but to force someone else to print it would be coercion. "

... umm, such as the names and addresses of jurors in a criminal trial? Or the code to your neighbor's daughter's chastity belt? Or do the limits to free love stop at... no, sorry, I forgot: to libertarians, children are free to choose.

"Another area in which libertarians have a unique philosophy is that concerning international affairs, military defense, and police functions."

Arghhh.... Never mind.

" When it comes to the issue of taxes, it is helpful to reflect on the libertarian's view of property rights... If the result of your labor is money, then it belongs to you, not the government.

Dat' Marx, Stirner, or Harry Brown? I get them so confused. A question: does labor exist in a vacuum?

Folks, this is anarchism and barely a modifier away from marxism. Inverted, it's outright marxism. Either way, it's guilty of the same crime: that society somehow destroys the individual. Anarchists do away with society altogether; marxists go the collective route for their compensation. Our libertarian here wants it both ways, with, of course, the usual, betraying, caveat:

"(In those cases where taxation is "necessary", libertarians prefer the taxes to be low and only minimally intrusive.)

Deanna's words, not mine.

Conclusion: I applaud it all. Such self-torture is most useful as a radical pull on modern statism. Politics may be the art of the possible, but the drift of politics is often the impossible dream.

Every little bit helps... I guess.