My political views most closely identify with the Libertarian viewpoint (though I concider myself an independant). I just wanted to get other people's thoughts on these views, while educating you on what Libertarianism is.
This description taken from WikiPedia is pretty accurate:
Principles
The central tenet of libertarianism is the principle of liberty, namely individual liberty. To libertarians, an individual human being is sovereign over his/her body, extending to life, liberty and property.[17] As such, rights-theory libertarians define liberty as being completely free in action, whilst not initiating force or fraud against the life, liberty or property of another human being. Thomas Jefferson stated, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." Jefferson also said "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." These concepts are otherwise known as the law of equal liberty or the non-aggression principle.[18][19]
Libertarians generally view constraints imposed by the state on persons or their property (if applicable), beyond the need to penalize infringement of one's rights by another, as a violation of liberty. Anarchist libertarians favor no statutory constraints at all, based on the assumption that rulers are unnecessary because in the absence of political government individuals will naturally form self-governing social bonds, rules, customs, codes, and contracts. In contrast, minarchist libertarians consider government necessary for the sole purpose of protecting the rights of the people. This includes protecting people and their property from the criminal acts of others, as well as providing for national defense.[20][21]
Libertarians generally defend the ideal of freedom from the perspective of how little one is constrained by authority, that is, how much one is allowed to do, which is referred to as negative liberty. This ideal is distinguished from a view of freedom focused on how much one is able to do, which is termed positive liberty, a distinction first noted by John Stuart Mill, and later described in fuller detail by Isaiah Berlin.[21]
Many libertarians view life, liberty, and property as the ultimate rights possessed by individuals, and that compromising one necessarily endangers the rest. In democracies, they consider compromise of these individual rights by political action to be tyranny of the majority, a term first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville, and made famous by John Stuart Mill, which emphasizes the threat of the majority to impose majority norms on minorities, and violating their rights in the process. "...There needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them..."[22]
Some libertarians favor Common Law, which they see as less arbitrary and more adaptable than statutory law. The relative benefits of common law evolving toward ever-finer definitions of property rights were articulated by thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Richard Epstein, Robert Nozick, and Randy Barnett. Some libertarian thinkers believe that this evolution can define away various "commons" such as pollution or other interactions viewed by some as externalities.[citation needed] "A libertarian society would not allow anyone to injure others by pollution because it insists on individual responsibility."[23][24]
[edit] Natural rights and consequentialism
Libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard view the rights to life, liberty, and property as Natural Rights, i.e., worthy of protection as an end in themselves. Their view of natural rights is derived, directly or indirectly, from the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.[25] Ayn Rand, another powerful influence on libertarianism, despite rejecting the label, viewed rights as grounded in people's rational faculties.[citation needed]
Consequentialist libertarians such as Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and James M. Buchanan justify rights on pragmatic as well as, or even instead of, moral grounds. They argue that individual liberty leads to economic efficiency and other benefits, and is thus the most effective means of promoting or enhancing social welfare. They accept the use of some initiation of force, such as a State that violates the non-aggression principle by imposing taxation to provide some public goods and some minimal regulation.[26][27]
[edit] Libertarian policy
Libertarians strongly oppose government infringement of civil liberties such as restrictions on free expression (e.g., speech, press, or religious belief or practice), prohibitions on voluntary association, or encroachments on persons or property. Some make an exception when the infringement is a result of due process to establish or punish criminal behaviour. As such, libertarians oppose any type of censorship (i.e., claims of offensive speech), or pre-trial forfeiture of property (as is commonly seen in drug crime, tax evasion (or tax resistance) and computer crime proceedings). Furthermore, most libertarians reject the distinction between political and commercial speech or association, a legal distinction often used to protect one type of activity and not the other from government intervention.[21]
Libertarians also oppose any laws restricting personal or consensual behaviour, as well as laws against victimless crimes. As such, they believe that individual choices for products or services should not be limited by government licensing requirements or state-granted monopolies, or in the form of trade barriers that restrict choices for products and services from other nations (see Free trade). They also tend to oppose legal prohibitions on recreational drug use, gambling, and prostitution. They believe that citizens should be free to take risks, even to the point of actual harm to themselves. For example, while most libertarians may personally agree with the majority who favour the use of seatbelts, libertarians reject mandating their use as paternalistic. Similarly, many believe that the United States Food and Drug Administration (and other similar bodies in other countries like Health Canada in Canada) shouldn't ban unproven medical treatments, that any decisions on treatment be left to patient and doctor only, and that government should be limited to passing non-binding judgments about efficacy or safety, if it is allowed to do anything at all.[21]
Some libertarians believe such freedoms are a universal birthright, and they accept any material inequalities or wanton behaviour, as long as it harms no one else, likely to result from such a policy of governmental non-intervention. They see economic inequality as an outcome of people's freedom to choose their own actions, which may or may not be profitable. However, many libertarians believe that extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands is a result of state intervention, and that liberty ultimately leads to a more diffuse distribution though not necessarily an equal one. Many libertarians, including Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard, consider that the most fundamental government grant of special privilege involves the legitimization and protection of fractional reserve banking through the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. They therefore call for the abolition of the Federal Reserve System.
I don't agree 100% with everything Libertarians believe, but my views most closely align with them on matters of liberty, property rights, and limited goverment control over the individual. I believe that people should be able to make their own decisions withoug the government (nanny state) trying to protect them from themselves at every turn. I think taxation should be minimal to provide necessary services and protection, but no more. I believe the goverment has no right telling me what kind of lightbulb I can buy, what time my kids need to be inside, how to parent, when a business can and cannot sell alcohol, etc.
Discuss.
