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They pretty much are. They don't want the government to do anything so they are.
[youtube MUVd6QYHvRU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVd6QYHvRU youtube]
Oh no, those crazy libertarians!
Jared watch the New York State gubernatorial debate:
http://utica-mohawkvalley.ynn.com/content/top_sto…
Now tell me that the Green Party's candidate and the Libertarian Party's candidate weren't the only two people up there who said anything that wasn't an empty platitude, one liner, or bat shit crazy.
Depends on the libertarians themselves.
But in general, no. There's a tendency to confuse a very small democratically accountable government with specific powers in that limited arena that we provide it some agency, and for which it is possibly ideally suited, or least somewhat more perfectly suited than some other social system, with a government that does nothing at all.
Given that there's a huge amount of government activity that is wasteful and unproductive, or expansive beyond its necessary powers and actions and thus should be severely cut or eliminated, the difference between the two as far as actual policies is pretty small, at least from the more mainstream end of the American political spectrum of liberals and conservatives.. .but it's plenty significant enough at the extreme end for libertarians to be self-segregating philosophically between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
That depends on who you talk to. I have a libertarian friend who is an anarchist. Then I know another libertarian who's close to a Republican on many issues. It just depends.
Most libertarians (what I suppose could be called the 'mainstream' of libertarianism) think that government should not be intimately involved in the everyday life of citizens. There is a difference between limited government function and the government "not doing anything."
Who are you calling an anarchist? I am not an anarchist!
I just want the government out of my bedroom, my wallet, my house, and . . . . Well, you get the idea!
I have a theory that there are basically three varieties of opinions.
1) Hayekian-Friedman libertarians. Basically pragmatic but always looking for ways to do something without a government player in the field if we can do so, far more so than those "free market" republicans we keep hearing wrecked the country.
2) Rothbard/Rand anarcho-capitalists, generally more reactionary than HF, which is why this has been the central split in the philosophy of classical liberalism for decades now. The two most obvious splits here are central banking policies and immigration usually (though these are hardly neat and clean breaks either)
3) "Traditionalists" – That is people who have no idea what libertarianism means but have heard it associated with the Constitution in some fashion and by the transitive property of "freedom is teh awesome" they must therefore be libertarians because they love some of the amendments and they once read the Declaration of Independence.
And I think if PD is identifying this way, then all three bases are covered.
I think I would fall under the first category if anything or anyone could categorize me, which I am quite sure that STS is trying to do . . . . :p
However, I think that STS is way off on his third category. Those are the people the pollsters call "undecided voters" . . . They are people who have no idea what they stand for or why – they just vote for whoever someone tells them to vote for, just because they were told to.
The first category is pretty vague.
But I still don't see how you would apply to that category because you have such ardent support of public schools and aggressive military action, pro-drug war, etc. Those are not pragmatic positions. Thus the primary reason I'd have a problem with saying you're in the first category: you don't know anything about market economics. Like zero. It's kind of a big part of the mantra to actually support free markets (as much as is sensible) rather than mouth slogans that sound like they would. (case in point: for the health care debate, you've been defending medicare in some form or another).
The third category is aware enough that there is a position known as libertarianism, which is somewhat better progress than most "undecided/uninformed voters", but they have little interest philosophically in examining the positions on an issue by issue stance. Most "undecided" voters are in fact simply swinging back and forth without some guiding principle. Here I think they are swinging back and forth based on whoever sounds like they "respect the constitution" or some other emblem of freedom more. Which has very little to do with actual libertarian principles, but is at least a consistent "standing".
Given your predilection for quoting Beckian positions, I'm pretty comfortable seeing you in that camp actually, even with your supposed qualifier. I think it accounts for about half of "libertarians" in this country that they "respect the Constitution" without having any idea what is in it, much less any idea what classical liberalism looks like.
I highly doubt you want any titles that have liberal in them personally.