I use to be a liberal (culturally, socially, economically, ect.) but Ron Paul’s presidential campaign opened my eyes to the evilness of the state. I am now a hard-core libertarian (the libertarian party is too statist for me) in the Rothbardian tradition.
However, on cultural issues I am still rather liberal. I support same-sex marriage and adoption, pornography, I more or less support the idea of free love, I’m an Atheist, I gamble, and while I don’t use recreational drugs I have no problem with those who do (it’s their body). The only exception really is my opposition to abortion. I view these actions as wholly personal chooses, which the state should neither endorse nor oppose.
I ask this because I have noticed the tendency of some libertarians to be more conservative culturally. I understand the core concepts of libertarianism are property rights and opposition to the state. One of the main reasons why I am a libertarian is because I want to be able to do as I please, regardless of whether or not others approve.
I was just wondering if my counter-cultureish values are at odds with libertarianism.
Have you listened to Walter Block’s talk on the issue? Evictionism? [:)]
“Counter” culture, assumes a correct culture. Why should it?
I dislike the attempt to impose the left / right label to Libertarianism. It doesn’t exist, and from what I understand people just have left over baggage from their old labels and try bring them to Libertarianism.
Ultimately, Libertarianism is about the non aggression axiom and property rights - as you do properly understand. The discussion about whether the community / people will become more “conservative” as it moves towards Libertarianism, or more “liberal” is pointless and creates needless factions were none are necessary.
As far as I am concerned the common link between libertarians is they all agree on which kind of means are permitted and which are not. Means involving force or fraud are not permitted, while the remainder are. Ends are outside the scope of libertarianism. You could be a bleeding heart hippie, or a racist hillbilly and still be a libertarian if you restrict your means to those which are purely voluntary.
Most libertarians I meet are cultural liberals. Very few being conservatives.
I am a cultural conservative, so I almost always cut down my talks with libertarians to economics and politics. I don’t want to touch cultural issues, because I’m never gonna change my positions on certain issues. But it’s nice to see a cultural conservative like Ron Paul lead the libertarian movement in the US.
Nothing you are for is against libertarianism. We have our charming disagreements on abortion but there is a libertarian argument to be made for either case.
You have a great grasp about non-aggression and private property. You are making a collective judgement that the Libertarian plus 1/2/3 crowd are true believers in nonaggression and private property. This is not true and I believe that it is a mistake to lump these folks in with the rest of the liberty loving property rights respecting unaggressive folks like me.
Libertarian + 1 are people who love freedom and property rights EXCEPT in this/these instances. Some of the most common instances are: abortion, public education, policing and law enforcement, defense, drug prohibitions, safety regulation, etc. These are a dangerous group of people when in power as they will trade liberty and private property rights for their plus 1 issue. The classic case is when Ronald Reagan argued for free markets and was a self professed reader of Mises and then increased the defense budget and increased taxes on Social Security.
Nope. In fact there is a movement within libertarianism that seeks to integrate (or *re-*integrate) the libertarian struggle against state oppression with the traditionally left-wing struggle against non-state oppression: left-libertarianism.
I view him as the precursor to both. I think libertarians put more emphasis on his On Liberty and progressives on his Utilitarianism. Since he wasn’t as consistent as modern libertarians, it is no wonder that people can draw different conclusions from his work.
Half of this forum is a “culture war,” and your side is certainly well represented. Most people on either side, though, don’t want to exclude anything not-unvoluntaristic; the disagreement is more about whether or not the opposing culture is conducive to, or able to survive in a libertarian society.
Not At All! What is at odds with libertarianism is cultural conservatism.
You may notice that people in this site don’t like the state because the state gets in the way of their preferred theocratic models of ‘voluntary’ government… While they may be in favor of individual freedom to a point, they seem to be more interested in being ‘free’ to create a nice hierarchical society controlled by the ‘will of god’ (as interpreted by the authorities of the church…).
I really don’t understand you’re question… Of course if you believe in the idea of total liberty, then you are at liberty to do whatever you want so long as it doesn’t violate the NAP. Many Libertarians are socially conservative, but the point is it is your choice, so long as you don’t interfere with the choices and property of others then you’re viewpoint can NEVER be at odds with libertarianism