There are some aspects of Libertarianism that are spot on, particularly at a federal level. Some of the thinking seems a bit outdated in today's world, but the core belief of smaller government is still a strong one. If I could cherry pick certain things about a Libertarian society and implement them, I certainly would, but as a whole I would pass.

The way I think of libertarians is that they are useful idiots. "Useful" because it is great to have them around, since their emphasis on rights acts as a continual check on government intrusion into our lives; but "idiots" because they fail to understand the nature of power.

Libertarians believe that by reducing government power, a society comes closer to the original state of nature in which individuals are free to do as they please. What is desirable about the state of nature, according to them, is open trade and commercial exchange.

Minimizing government power is thus equivalent, for a libertarian, to the reduction of "interference" with free trade. Yet what libertarians fail to account for is the power needed to produce and preserve free markets.

Take their argument for laissez-faire economics, for example. In arguing that markets should be open, libertarians fail to account for the violence which has almost always been necessary to ensure laissez-faire. It is not as though a laissez-faire economy is any less regulated; after all, a government would have to exert itself vigorously to keep trade free, such as opening national borders, protecting property, stopping monopoly activity, etc. A libertarian government would have to be just as active and powerful as the biggest social-welfare state.

A striking example of what the libertarians don't understand is the violence needed to open new "free" markets. Our trade with Africa, Asia, the Middle East, wherever, has always required violence.

That is what the neoconservatives understand and what libertarians fail to understand. Neocons are at least savvy enough to know that the trade they want (in the Middle East, or wherever) requires political will, usually in the form of an army.

From the humanist/socialist point of view (my own), both of these positions for free trade (the utopian-libertarian and realist-neoconservative, respectively) do not explain what makes exchange valuable in the first place. But that's another argument for another time.

I can agree with the stand against governmental control, but the Social Darwinism and complete autonomy of the individual is unworkable. The former leads to a nightmare society and the second leads to Anarchism.

Anarchism had its day in the Republican Zone during the Spanish Civil War.  It was a complete and total disaster.  One of the larger reasons that the Republic lost to the Nationalists was the incompetence and cowardice of the anarchists.  The anarchists were great when you needed to form a firing squad to shoot a nun, for instance.  On the front, they more often turned tail and ran.

In the anarchist zone, people were shot for the grievous crime of wearing a necktie.  This is a hopeless utopia, and libertarianism is its handmaiden.  One final thing, many anarchists named their daughters, Libertaria.  That should tell you something.

I go hot and cold on this.  While I'm very much enamored of their ideas of leaving the individual alone to seek their own destiny, I know too much history to ever think that a completely unregulated state can be anything but a disaster. 

I don't consider myself the ideal libertarian since i don't agree with what most of the libertarians seem to preach but i will be objective (unlike everyone else). So, first of all, you can't understand libertarianism if you still think in the same way as you do if you are a socialist, communist, corporatist, neoliberal or anything else. One of the things that you have to understand is that libertarian policies, in a country with those kinds of economies, would not work but the policies of those economic systems in a libertarian world would also not work.

In a libertarian world there is more freedom of business but that freedom must not go against the negative liberties of others therefore, the misguided claim that libertarianism leads to smog and death, is truly ideologically BS. If it did, then that would not be a libertarian society in the first place.

Another thing is the myth that the proletariat would be further oppressed. This is a myth for a few reasons: first; if the job sucks, it wouldn't be hard to get another one or start a business, second; since more businesses will form with the reduced taxes, decreasing the startup and running costs, then there would be more of a demand for labor and, if labor is in demand, worker treatment becomes just as important if not more than low prices and advertising (the job that says “we will treat you like crap” will have no one work for them and they will fail wile the job that pays well will have plenty of labor). And third; the proletariat will not have to worry about money as much since there will be more businesses per field and more businesses per field equals lower costs of goods and a higher selection of the goods. It also foster R&D.

Another thing that people think is that old motto “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. This is false in a libertarian society since the government taxes which directly (taxes towards individual) and indirectly (taxes that suppliers pay which increases price of goods other industries will buy) harm newer companies thus helping bigger companies, will be brought down to a minimum and, a smart poor person can easily beat a rich stupid person. Robert Kiyosaki, in his books, talked about how you have to have the right mindset to make money and keep money if you have it, and that is why many lottery winners go broke or in debt; they couldn't manage the money that have and lost it all. If a stupid rich person inherits money, chances are that they will loose.

Another argument against libertarianism is that people will be stupid since there is no public schools. This is wrong for a number of reasons. 1) schooling is a need and therefore a way to make money. People that don't have enough money for a fancy school would send their children to cheaper schools that would form as a means to compete with the good schools. And 2) for those that have literally no money, companies would make investments into people directly by training them from an early age to be part of their company thus allowing school for all and, with the help or contracts, solving the problem of lack-of-labor force. Think before you make the same stupid criticisms that others in your “ideology”, that you blindly support, came up with.

Libertarianism is pro life truly since it supports negative liberty which is about protecting life and liberty and life begins at conception.

This ideology is not politically practical because it consists of too much Yang and not enough Yin.  However, it is worth studying because it challenges one’s assumptions about how society should be constructed.

This is where I'd fall politically. I have voted in every presidental election since 1968 and am proud to say I have never voted for a republican or a democrate.

The cause of Liberty has never been so important, nor has the assault on the Liberty of The People by this growing Statist government. It has, through it's usurpation of power, denied The People the ability to control their own destiny and the future of the nation. This government has decided to control The People through a massive campaign of data collection, enumeration of individuals, the invasion of our privacy and the denial of individual freedoms. Without a doubt we now live in a time which will increasingly pose a danger to all the Constitutional Guaranteed Rights and if it were up to the government it would nullify the Bill of Rights in favor of what they view as a facade of a benign dictatorship. It will be up to The People to decide which course of action they will take in the future to resist such a growing tyranny, but more and more I am favoring resistance 1776 Style.

I think that the government should try to stay out of our personal lives-Ifavor medical marijuana,right to die laws and am marginally pro choice on abortion-and out of our wallets.I also am in favor of free markets,privitazation(only voluntary) of social security and less government.

BEST SYSTEM EVER!!!Gives the individual freedom and puts responsibility for THEIR person in THEIR own hands, can someone tell me if this party exists in Canada, as If it does , I intend to run for office as a member, otherwise, i will start a faction.

Totally unworkable system of government. On the fiscal side its at or even beyond the extreme right (free markets, massive privitization, low taxes or none at all etc.). On the social issues side its a bit harder to nail down but is probably left of the political center (drugs & prostitution legalization, abortion issues, euthanasia). The problem is that there is no discipline to it. People are somehow just going to get pretty much everything they want without infringing on anyone else? The world does not work like that, there has to be trade offs.

This is an idea that in theory is unbeatable as a political philosophy. However, it's also highly idealistic and puts a lot of expectations on humans to display a type of behavior that we as a race have NEVER been able to demonstrate over a prolonged period of time, let alone in this day and age, when everyone claims they believe in limited government while holding out their hand for their slice of the government pie and ranting when their share may get cut. Communism was great in theory, too, and it didn't work out too well. Don't get me wrong; I would LOVE to see a libertarian society flourish. I just don't believe that the human race has it within itself to make it tenable. If it did, we wouldn't have people like George W. Bush and John Kerry as major political candidates, and at the very least, we wouldn't have people eager to vote for one or the other.

Stae enforced no-holds-barred capitalism. Moral BS.

Libertarianism: Pipe dream for immature, semi-literate, socially inept middle-class dorks.

I found out that Kurt Russell is a Libertarian so I went to their website and checked out what they were all about and I completely agree with their philosophy. Less governmental control and more freedoms, I'm getting really sick of all this political correctness.

A political system that seems to get it half right. The government has no real right trying to tax people to death and watching over businesses like a Nazi storm trooper. However, believing that the government has virtually no right trying to protect people and save lives is foolish. That's the exact purpose of government.

What's the big deal? You do what you want, I do what I want and those who can not provide for themselves can get what they need from families, friends or charities. Granted, it will not be the welfare trough of socialism, it will be enough to allow people a chance to sink or swim. Being a charitable sort, I love helping people and would gladly help people up. I just don't like government putting a gun to my head and saying Give me your money so I can do the right thing with it. With all of the political pork and bombs which get funded with tax money, I know my money would be better spent by me.

I am a Libertarian. It would be great, I believe, if libertarianism dominated the National politics, leaving each state to determine for itself where on the political spectrum it would lie. I believe that society has changed enough in the past 200 years so that our nation will not fall apart like it did under the articles.

Let everyone live their lives the way they want (up until the point of harming someone else). Brilliant! My libertarian tendencies scare me away from the fringes of both politcal parties in America. However, I find my tax dollars being spent to help the masses better than having others' morals being imposed on me, so I tend to side with the Democrats more often. I find them a more open-minded party in general to libertarian ideas.

A pure, laissez-faire system of economics has already been shown to be corruptable and fallible (the Great Depression for example). Without government intervention to control spending and production, the gap between the rich and the poor would widen to the point where capitalism would be no different from fuedalism. Wal-Mart can be seen as an example of capitalism gone astray. If a Libertarian government were implemented, revolution would not be far behind. The problem with privitization is that it inevitably leds to favouritism and nepotism. In truth, under this system, the rights of many individuals would be violated, not upheld (eg, getting a job based on merit, and not on the owner's personal bias).

Though at the core, based on the noble philosophy of personal liberty. Something I wholeheartedly support. Libertarianism, as a philosophy falls apart at its (lack of) morals and empathy towards other people. As well as its idealistic ignorance or misunderstanding of crucial subtleties about economic, criminologic and sociologic points. Claims Libertarians will often make include things such as the idea that owning guns will make people safer. (They consider criminals less likely to pick on armed targets, whilst in reality they would only be more likely to shoot first and ask questions later.) They would like to abolish, or cut to a bare minimum all taxation. (Which would leave next to no funds for many important public accomodations, including usable roads, clean water and an independent police force. Often they do NOT wish to cut national defense though, which in the US is head and shoulders the largest drain on the budget.) And they do not believe in any safety net or 'handout to the poor' or economic rules. (Which would be in favour of the strongest corporations only, and would encourage the formation of cartels and monopolies at expense of the common man.) Whilst the libertarian philosophy isn't neccesarily bad on many of its points, in practice it is a very good thing that they remain a relatively small party. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And this goes very much for Libertarianism.

The only ideology which takes seriously basic human rights! I can't imagine why anyone (apart from egotistical maniacs who wants to force other people to pay for them through taxation) can support anything else.

Small government and self-sufficiency. Nuff' said.

I love Libertarianism. It promotes the free enterprise and the right to do as you please as long as you don't harm anyone or anything else. I like that. Us and us alone as individuals should be in charge of how we live our lives, nobody else.

Limited government, low taxes. Abolish all social programs.

It's certainly not a perfect political philosophy, but then again, there is none, at least none that are practical. The basic economic core of libertarianism is that anything the government can provide, the people can provide better for themselves. Privatize as much as possible. That way, the government is much smaller and less intrusive, and the need for taxes is basically eliminated. You get to keep more of YOUR OWN money! What a brilliant concept! It's basically capitalism without all the federal interference. The basic social core of libertarianism is the ol' idiom Live and let live. People deserve the right to govern their own lives, as long as they don't interfere with the basic human and civic rights of others. Their stance on same-sex marriage, for example: privatize marriage! Let the churches decide: the more liberal churches who want to allow same-sex marriage can, and the more conservative instituitions don't have to have any part in it. Sometimes, they take this principle too far: they want to completely legalize drugs, for instance. I've seen the effects of drug abuse firsthand, and let me tell you, legalizing narcotics fully is a bad idea. I can understand allowing marijuana, but as a compassionate society, I don't see how you could legalize something like cocaine or heroin. That, specifically, is my only qualm with libertarianism. In an age of an ever-bloating and intrusive, war-mongering government, libertarianism is the best answer.

A flawed philosophy based on faulty premises of human psychology. Libertarianism's applications are mainly political: limit the power of the government as much as possible, down to just law enforcement and national defense, if possible. While Libertarians are often very smart, they are also often very ignorant on the subject of history and political science. A lot of Libertarians are 'techies' who relate better to machines than people: computer programers and engineers, especially. Other Libertarian sub-groups include college girls who read too much Ayn Rand, and rich people who like the idea of not paying taxes. The only states that follow Libertarian economic dogma (have the government provide no social services, and no redistributive taxation) are a handful of nasty dictatorships. The only states that follow Libertarian political dogma (allow nearly unlimited freedom of behavior and association) are liberal democracies in North America and Europe, all of which engage in non-libertarian economic policies. Libertarianism can provide some useful guidelines: such as the fact that too much government intervention, especially in the economy, will cause serious problems. But as an ideology, Libertarianism is a failure.

totally navie political ideology that will never work becasue it assmues that people will do the right thing when in my expericence human beings are evil to the core and will expolit others according to their race or sex, or preferences.

As many of the others have said, if not here, where? Libertarianism is so clearly superior a political structure to any other alternative. The common complaints from those who don't understand ANYTHING about economics or simple mathematics about roads, health care and education are tiring. They are 100% rhetoric and 100% wrong...unfortunately, explaining such is beyond possibility, as that would require economics and simple mathematics.

Doomed from the ground up, because of its utter failure to take into account human nature, as evidenced in history. A philosophy for pathologically ignorant social darwinists.

As another comment noted, if five stars do not apply to Libertarianism, what philosophy does as no system can be expected to be perfect. I see this political philosophy as boiling down to assigning great weight to choice of action and risk tolerance, allowing the individual or entity to decide what level of each is desired; however, this choice is not without consequence as some seem to believe. The consequences are that one must pay for the costs of those choices and incur the risk. For instance if I wish to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, I am free to do so if I insure against the added risk. If I fail to pay the costs of my choice, society is not expected to bail me out through socialized assistance (eg health care). While it may be often difficult to efficiently allocate cost to choice, the concept works for most situations. Nevertheless, this is far better than liberalism which often wants to offer choice but impose the costs on others and socialism which limits choice to control the costs to society.

In many ways, I consider myself a Libertarian. However, they miss the boat entirely when it comes to morality. Libertarians fiercely defend individualism and individual rights. The problem I have with most of them, and one reason for their failure to gain alot of support, is their lack of a moral base. Your average Libertarian defends the rights of presidents of large corporations, the owner of gas stations, and prostitutes to do business free from governmental restraint. The basic idea is that unless you are causing harm to another individual, you should be free to conduct any business trapping you desire. (aka free market capitalism, which I support fully) The problem is, Libertarians EQUATE prostitutes with all other businessmen, without even touching on the moral issues at hand. They seem to think that pushing any sort of moral ideas will make them hypocrites. They forget: the essence of individual rights is that it is a MORAL CODE to begin with. Individual morality is what makes the Capitalist system possible and desirable. While prostitution should not be a crime, it is up to individuals to have a sense of morality, and to defend their right to reject prostitution, etc.

Man, this sounds sooo sweet. It is a very attractive political philosophy which allows one to be completely selfish and self-serving without consequence. It would be so nice not to have to pay taxes ever again, except that then there'd be no roads or other infrastructure such as fresh drinkable water, and basic human rights like health care and education would cost an arm and a leg. Also, most of the libertarians you encounter don't give the slightest damn about other people, but selfishly want everything their own way. It's kind of like the mindset of a narcissistic child who is pure id and hasn't yet learned to share his toys with others. Yeah, libertarianism would be nice for a while, but it would start to be less and less attractive once society starts collapsing around our ears.

Good in that it's against all governmental intrusion on personal freedom; bad in that it's pro-abortion.

Let's Pretend Republicanism without moral convictions. Also know as Libertine-ism.

Tragedy of the Commons big time.

I once was a member of the Libertarian Party. I thought it could solve so many things. Today I'm disappointed that the party has gotten into bed with the gun nuts just for the sake of membership numbers. Liberty is a 2-edged Nerf(R) sword. Are people ready to enjoy the liberty to swing their fists while accepting that that liberty ends at another's nose? Also, too many libertines have latched onto the party, e.g. Howard Stern (who, btw, endorses the death penalty - a decidely UN-Libertarian stance). Favoring the individual over the common society is a step towards a kind of Wild West mentality that isn't sustainable. A balance is needed that Libertarianism still doesn't have.

A superior system to authoritarianism. I really think the best person to make decisions about the life of an adult person is that person, not some career politician. As to that person who said they have poor moral teachings; why don't you actually tell us what they are?

good on economic isues, but TERRIBLE on moral isues.

I have some reservations about giving a 5 here, but if not here, where? Libertarian thought is actually "classical liberal" thought before the L-word was hijacked by socialists in the middle of this century (outside the U.S., it is still properly understood). My favorite thinkers -- de Toqueville, Lord Acton, many of the American founding generation, F.A. Hayek -- would be relatively at home in this category... though they would be embarrassed at elements in the Libertarian Party, who like to market themselves as "libertines" more than libertarians. Hayek preferred to classify himself as "an old Whig" (referring to the British political party circa 1710 or so) b/c folks like Edmund Burke also appreciated the wisdom typically embodied in tradition. For this, Burke is often considered a father of conservative thought... but I don't know that he would want to "legislate" traditional values, I think that, like Hayek, he would rally around voluntary arrangements of all kinds -- but he wouldn't appreciate the element among modern libertarians that thumb their noses at traditional values. Such things are typically the product of ages of voluntary cooperation and have a certain wisdom to them. Too often, libertarians fall into the trap of ignoring elements of human nature that don't work in their favor -- granted, not to the degree that Marxist thought they could recreate the world anew. Anyway, from where I stand, I don't see any compelling intellectual action from the left these days. Almost all the interesting ideas come from libertarian-ish types. Read "Reason" magazine if you want to know more about contemporary libertarian thought presented in a mainstream way...