Ho boy...

Their foreign policies are all about, you guessed it, leaving people alone. They think that it isn't our place to tell other governments how to operate. Today we give tons of money to Africa, but only so our politicians look good. Most of what we donate goes to war-lords, and actually makes things worse there. Private charities do a much better job of keeping track of the money. That's why I think its much more important to donate to things you think are important on your own instead of expecting your government to solve the world's problems, and that's the same logic followed by the libertarians.

Well I think Russia has just recently (or might still be in the process of, I'm not positive) of adapting from Communism to Capitalism. Communism is a beautiful idealolgy, I for one would love to live in a world where I worked as well as I could and got what I needed, but it involves handing control of everything to the government, and as libertarians have observed, that doesn't work.

Libertarianism hasn't really been a mainstream political ideaology anywhere that I know of. Correct me with evidence if I'm wrong. So I'm not sure what mistakes they've made that need to be scapegoated.

Furthermore, all parties think highly of themselves. Democrats and Republicans bicker all the time about how their ideas are the best no matter what. Republicans didn't care what the majority of people wanted when they entered the war in Iraq. Democrats don't care that the majority of people want to drill for oil off-shore. Both of them assume they know best. Does that make them anti-semites?

Today's government tells us a lot of things we have to do their way, a lot of things we can't do, and a lot of what they say is unnecessary. That's why the libertarians think we could have more freedom if we shrunk down government.

The founding fathers were close to libertarians, and they don't hesitate to bring that up. Is that wrong? Its not a distortion, and the documents those guys you seem to dispise left us have governed our country for a good 300+ years now.

We have the right to bear arms, and thats another liberty libertarians feel we should hang on to. Gun control only keeps law-abiding people from having guns, its not that complex of a concept. And yes, they believe that guns should be used in defense, and frankly if your family or yourself were in danger, you would use a gun to defend yourself or loved ones.

They don't believe in starting violence or infringing upon other's liberties, just having the right (which was given to us by those rascaly founding fathers) to defend yourself should something like that happen.

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Woodrow Wilson

Not to mention fascists tended to embrace arms control....

Libertarianism has its problems, but being too controlling really isn't one of them.

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Man up.

hook line and sinker. Lets have a pot on how many posts qwail goes through before he pulls anchor.

Well, to be fair the connections the poster makes (the top ones anyway- toeward the bottom he's grasping) focus on the philosophies behind non-control that lead to certain forms of libertarianism ("objectivism" at least) being sort of philosophically like-minded with fascists.

Of course other libertarians are philosophical kin to utopian communists and other liberal groups.
And in either case, the difference- which is what makes it "libertarianism" by definition is the belief on the role of government in the process.

Libertarians who are akin to fascists believe in the government stepping back and allowing the powerful to control and manipulate the weak (though they tend to put it in prettier terms- Rand was good at that).
Libertarians who are akin to socialists believe in letting the government step back and allow people to solve social problems on their own.

Really it is revealing about how libertarianism itself contains major ideological differences in its members that rival that between liberals and conservatives.
In fact these different schools (crudely right-wing o left-wing libertarianism) reflect the beliefs about the effects of libertarianism that liberals and conservatives oppose it for!

Liberals generally oppose too little of government because they think right-wing libertarians are correct- and the loss of power will lead to the mass exploitation of the weak by the powerful.
Conservatives generally oppose too little government because it will disrupt the order of society and remove the elites from their positions of "righteous" control, believing as the left-wing libertarians do.

Essentially each school of libertarianism is the polar opposite of just the group you'd expect it to be- but will be ideologically similar in that it will have similar beliefs on the nature of a small state society.

left-leaning libertarians oppose fascists (authoritarian right) because they seek to destroy what the fascists seek to create...
But in ideological terms they oppose right-leaning libertarians- who want what the fascists want in some sense... but operate on the same means as them and make allies of convenience.

The same relationship exists between right-leaning libertarians and communists.

So you have to admit, it's food for thought... but equating the two flat out is just as dumb as equating liberals to fascists.

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Well that got shut down fast hahah

I think everyone pretty much agree's this topic is way off base. Libertarians in California probably have far different veiws than Libertarian in South Carolina, and different needs, people should be able to decide for themselves what their local government policies will be, not by one size fits all federal policies. If the good people of California want to legalize drugs, more power to them, (this should be decided in California "NOT" Washington D.C.), likewize if South Carolina wants to legalize automatic assault rifles, that should be left to the people it effects "them". Too many people have drank the coolaid put out by the powers that be. This type of propaganda will continue as long as there are control freaks, and power mongers controling our government. " read some of Ron Pauls literature and talk to some Libertarians before you judge", but remenber in the Libertarian party you will hear different veiws on just about every subject, not a one veiw party doctrine.

Well, the same is true for Republicans and Democrats really.
It's just a bit obscured because those parties have huge party organizations with mainstream "leadership", often dumbing the platform down to the most mainstream level.

If the LP became big, we'd likely see the same thing.

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Libertarianism and libertarianism aren't without their flaws. Our highway system is a blatant example that sometimes the government should do things for us outside of the basics.

Of course, I like the libertarian cause today because in this day and age some slashing back into our bloated government would do us some good. That's not to say we should ditch everything, but I firmly believe our government would be better off if the libertarians got at it for a couple of years.

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Woodrow Wilson

If the Fed. were reduced and more power given to the states, the polices that materialised would be local therefor easier to control and change depending upon circumstance. If the Libertarian party ever did gain control the power shift would be big, states and localities would decide what forms of taxation to use, what social programs to implement or drop, etc. The Fed of course would be over things that effect the nation as a whole.

Well, to give you an idea of why I think that's not such a good idea...
I agree with cutting government and making it more efficient... but I also do not view a lot of programs as "frivelous" or in need of being removed.
The problem is that when people approach the problem of cutting budgets from the standpoint that programs need to be removed- for the sake of removing them... we set ourselves up for changes that in the longrun will not necessarily increase efficiency and may just end up weakening programs that have merit.

Libertarians do not seek to optimize programs. They seek to slowly dispose of them. The means shape the ends.
They will not address the problems that lead to inefficiencies. Rather they will assume the programs are themselves inefficiencies and focus on cutting their scope rather than their inefficiency.

It's similar to why I believe liberals should take ownership of welfare reform rather than conservatives. If we admit to the inefficiencies and problems and how programs are not doing what they should, we can alter them to do what they should and for less cost.
By not doing that we leave it to conservatives and libertarians... who seek only to destroy the programs altogether on ideological grounds.

__________________
That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.