Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a political philosophy emphasizing liberty and property. A libertarian believes in minimizing in all aspects of life, both economic and personal.

Libertarians support an expansive view of liberty as the proper basis for organizing civil society. They tend to define liberty as the freedom to do whatever one wishes up to the point that one's behavior begins to interfere with another's person or property. At the point of interference, each party would become subject to certain principled rules for adjudicating disputes, generally accepting that one who has demonstrated a proven lack of respect for the rights of others should be subject to sanctions, including possible constraints on their freedom. They believe that liberty is the right of every individual.

Libertarians generally defend the ideal of freedom from the perspective of how little one is constrained by authority, i.e., how much one is allowed to do (also referred to as negative liberty). This ideal is distinguished from a view of freedom focused on how much one is able to do (also called positive liberty).

There are more libertarians than members of the Libertarian Party. Libertarians tend to use the word "libertarian" (small "l") to refer to the philosophy, and "Libertarian" (capital "L") to refer to the party.

Libertarianism is not the same as conservatism, although some conservatives have adoped libertarian financial rhetoric. Libertarians tend to view liberalism as a philosophy advocating less government interference in private morality and more government control of business, and view conservatism as a philosophy advocating more government interference in private morality and less government control of business, while they view libertarianism as advocating less government control, period. Neither the Democrat nor the Republican parties are particularly well aligned with libertarian thought. The Republican party, in particular, although adopting libertarian rhetoric of small government in the Reagan years (leading to the popular adage "a Libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs"), has been active in destroying liberty in the United States, implementing big government policies antithetical to the libertarian ideals. As an example, libertarians are in general opposed to the USA PATRIOT Act, which increases government power and removes protections on the liberty and privacy of Americans in the interests of enhancing security, while conservatives in general support the USA PATRIOT Act, since security is seen as being more important than personal liberty and privacy.

While all libertarians agree in general on the principles of the desirability of maximizing individual liberty and avoiding excessive government intereference with the operation of the free market, individual libertarians have opinions that differ wildly within these general principles.

The Libertarian movement gives great emphasis on the United States Constitution, regarding it almost as a of infallible wisdom. Libertarian interpretations of the constitution do however tend to differ greatly to those of the majority of Americans and the United States U.S. Supreme Court.

Notable Libertarians

The novelist Ayn Rand advocated a philosophy of Objectivism, embodying some libertarian thought, although differing from libertarianism in many ways. Some of her novels, such as Atlas Shrugged, have become icons of the libertarian movement.

Robert A. Heinlein, Science fiction author.

Penn & Teller, stage magicians turned libertarian evangelicals preaching atheism and promoting irresponsible behavior such as prostitution and drug abuse in their Showtime series, which sports a name that cannot for reasons of good taste be expressed here.

Tim Baddor, a standup comedian who resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Most notable is his connection with liberally biased syndicated radio talk show The Bob and Tom Show on which he gives a weekly segment titled Vague But True.