As someone who has been active here and there within the Libertarian Party, I believe that they squandered their chance to become a proper political force, when they bought into the elevation of property rights to primacy propounded by the Austrian School. Before then, they could still state that Natural Liberty was the axiom, and all else was simply corollary. ....
They fretted about property while our leviathan tortured humans who had never even been convicted in a tribunal that adhered to due process of law. Their priorities speak loud and clear about the rectitude of their intent. This is abomination, and as I aided, ever so slightly in its creation, so I am also responsible for seeing that it behaves, or that it is not granted a legacy of future political viability.
Well said, my friend.
I have been scoffed at on occasion when I have espoused my general belief in libertarian values, as I also support a robust government. I do not see these values as mutually exclusive. But like
a knight, and by implication
Schlack in his original post, the current version of "Libertarianism" does not much resemble what I originally expected of the name. As
a knight points out, property is a creation of the State, and it is incongruent that that
particular interest should be elevated by modern "Libertarians" over all others, as the others have been described as "natural rights" by early libertarian thinkers (such as Thomas Jefferson).
To me, libertarianism has always been about individual interests, as expounded and defended by the ACLU. Civil rights, if you will. (A corollary being the "absence of interference" with those interests.) The fundamental interests are those of freedom, and property is only an ancillary interest. Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, from government coercion - these are the primaries. Where I think the thread derived, and where the Libertarians have gone horribly wrong, is equating the "State" with "Evil." It is the conflation of these concepts that pulled them first into alliance with and then into the maw of the Grandiose Old Party (e.g., Ron Paul). They forgot that government is, or at least should be, the guarantor of those freedoms, and forgetting that primary point has led to the corruption and eventual dissipation of the entire concept of libertarianism. Now they are aligned with the party that is of the greatest threat to individual interests and represents the most coercive use of governmental authority and economic power, yet they proclaim that it is most protective of "liberty." What a crock.
And here is an opportunity for me to agree with something
Issodhos has said, and that is such a rarity I need to point it out.
Probably the only thing that the anarchist element within Libertarianism and the anarchist element within socialism would have in common would be the ideal of an absence of government. Other than that they would have not much, if anything else, in common.
By the way, the "right wing anarchism" you are suggesting would be better termed "anarcho-capitalism", which is heavily influenced by classical liberalism and modern libertarian thought. It is not, however, the equivilent of libertarianism.
While we often disagree on other points of libertarianism, on these two points we are in complete accord.
