During the Y2K debate, I occasionally described myself as having libertarian leanings. Like most Americans, I enjoy my personal freedoms and suspect both conservatives and liberals have an interest in "making the rules." This said, I find pure libertarianism a bit silly as a political philosophy. In browsing, I found a link to the interesting "Non-Libertarian FAQ."

Enjoy.

Link

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), July 11, 2000

Answers

Decker is one of the smarter pollys, but he is running scared. He knows too many computer failures are occuring and that when y2k finally does hit, it will hit hard. He might 'GI' soon.

-- Alvin (aaa@aaa.bbb), July 11, 2000.

Having "libertarian leanings" is like being "sort of pregnant". Either you're a libertarian, which can be defined as follows: "While libertarians are a diverse group of people with many philosophical starting points, they share a defining belief: that everyone should be free to do as they choose, so long as they don't infringe upon the equal freedom of others.
...
What sets libertarians apart is that they don't make any exceptions to this principle -- not even for governments. "

(from The Libertarian Home Page)

or you're not. There is no third alternative.

-- truth teller (truth@teller.x), July 11, 2000.

Teller rhymes with:

Beller

Seller

Smeller

F? Feller

G? Geller

H? Huh? Oh My!

WELL, WELL, WELL.

-- Anon (anon@anon.anon), July 11, 2000.

There can be a big difference between a civil libertarian and a member of the Libertarian party.

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), July 12, 2000.

FWIW: An excellent libertarian mag is Reason Magazine. Excellent writing, all backed up with quotes from Kato and such.

They are also online at Reason.com

-- Not now, not like this (AgentSmith0110@aol.com), July 12, 2000.

Thanks, Ken. I'd recently read Harry Browne's platform and found a lot of wishful thinking, emotional rhetoric, and sometimes simply omissions of facts. I'm not suggesting that ALL politicians don't engage in the same, but I recognized these things within a quick timeframe. The site you linked reinforces the opinions I had and enables a quick reference for some facts that I would have had to research on my own.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000.

I lean in a libertarian direction, but I find the Libertarian party a ship of fools. I do enjoy Reason. As opinion rags go, it's fairly interesting.

As for Harry Browne, he's one reason the libertarian's are pegged at one percent of the vote. The other is the fragmentation of the party itself. The ideological purists are unwilling to compromise. The pragmatists are shouted down as 'sell-outs.' Bright people, no political savvy.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), July 12, 2000.

How about some specifics, Ken? I also have libertarian leanings insofar as their principles apply to limiting government, but some of their planks (on drugs or abortion, for example) seem to be nothing more than rationalizations of PC attitudes, rather than deductions from their philosophical statement.

Elbow

-- LBO Grise (LBO Grise@aol.com), July 12, 2000.