I think it is important to have an ideologically consistent philosophy. You shouldn’t play up the importance of society protecting consensual behaviors in one part of life - the freedom to drugs etc… - and then turn around and take it away in other parts of life.

If you do wish to give and take freedom like that, then of course you are going to have some strong disagreements with me and Daryl!

You say that like I should be concerned. I concede that there are still aspects of my philosophy I’ve not totally settled on, but your methods of argument so far have done little to sway me to your points of view on many, many topics. If anything, they leave me aghast.

I consider myself a libertarian (lower case “L"), but like Les have problems with some of the Libertarian (upper case) Party’s planks.  Read more here (the link function doesn’t seem to be working, sorry):

http://www.twopercentco.com/rants/archives/2005/02/libertarians_an.html

No political platform is wholly without flaws, unfortunately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_libertarianism

But libertarianism, in general, is closest to my beliefs. 

--Joe

That reminds me, I need to re-add the Two Percent Co. to my blogroll.

Joe, your essay on the problems you have with the Libertarian party pretty much matches my list of complaints with the party. Which is why I tend to use the little “l” when using the word libertarian.

Like you, Les & Joe, I find the official platform of the Libertarians to be too extreme in many cases, but, it does come closer to my true beliefs than the two major parties. I’ve beginning to come to the conclusion that the only way I’ll be happy with a political party is to create my own, so I’m working on doing just that with some friends here in Michigan. We intend to call ourselves The Rationalist Party is it ever gets off the ground.

Joe, your essay on the problems you have with the Libertarian party pretty much matches my list of complaints with the party.

(blush) Thanks for the compliment, but I didn’t write that essay.  I came across Two Percent Co.’s website and was puzzled by a statement where they said they were all for personal responsibility and the government keeping its nose out of our business, but that they disagreed with the Libertarian Party platform--that’s all they said.  I wrote them and said I thought the LP was for the same things they were, so why did they disagree with them?  Two Percent then wrote the essay to explain--until then, I really didn’t know the LP was so ... extreme.

I think libertarianism makes a better principle than a party.  I also see it as a gradual process.  If all consensual crime laws were taken off the books in one go, there’d be absolute chaos.  This would eventually settle once the novelty wore off, but it still be a gigantic mess.

--Joe

I think libertarianism makes a better principle than a party.  I also see it as a gradual process.  If all consensual crime laws were taken off the books in one go, there’d be absolute chaos.

I actually agree with you competely on this point!

Having said that, my druthers would be to slowly evolve towards radically smaller government that would be pretty similar to the LP platform. For example, the two percenters favor registering gun owners but I think that is dangerous. As Lyndon Johnson once pointed out, the test for a government policy is not how it could be used, but how it could by misused. The most important reason to support the right to bear arms is a defense against the government itself. I don’t want the government to have lists of gun owners anymore than I’d want them to have lists of jews or homosexuals.