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I have a question about your last comment, "A man who truly loves liberty has a duty to die for it."

For whose liberty does this duty inure to liberty-lovers? Do I have a duty, as a liberty-lover, to fight Country X for the CountryXians who are oppressed by its government? Or is my duty confined to my personal liberty or the liberty of my loved ones?

I'm asking--not in a smartass way, but because I thought your post was good and I would like to see what you think.

It's a good and complicated moral question, in terms more general than liberty. To what extent does our commitment to GoodThingX require us to participate in the propagation of GoodThingX? Unfortunately, it has no general answer for all GoodThingsX, and in all situations for any particulars.

My answer for liberty is: I'm willing to give up my life for the liberty of those people who are exactly the people whose lives I would sacrifice myself to preserve. That doesn't sound like it would extend very far (for most people not much further than their families), but of course it does in practical terms because everyone put in this position has to measure proximate against ultimate danger, and most people determine the ultimate danger against a complicated milieu of history, context, personality, power of the enemy, etc. So, there's a widening circle including family, (some) friends, which pretty immediately extends to country. The compulsion to act falls off in intensity as we consider allies, innocents who aren't allies, and even adversaries.

That isn't to say no exertions should be made on behalf of liberty simply because we don't regard ourselves in a life-or-death situation. As a practical matter we understood the value of, say Radio Free Europe, or economic sanctions against the most oppressive regimes. Clearly, our liberty is safer when more people share liberty as their cause.

This sounds like an equivocating answer from someone who maintains that a person who loves liberty has a duty to die for it. Truly it isn't. Reflection, debate, and a measured policy are more important tools in the furtherance of liberty--or nearly anything--than passion. But I think too many people believe that all that's needed are the intellectual tools. When the danger is real, we need action as well. It seems to me, for example, that most of Europe knows how to talk great principles, but no longer has the vitality to actually defend its own civilization. I think this is a failing of the LP as well, which is why I'm no longer a Libertarian, but remain, proudly, a libertarian.