On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 19:20:11 +0100, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
wrote:

"A.Gent" writes:

"Liberal" to me means right-wing, conservative. (Aussies will
understand).

Europeans will, too. The Americans had to invent "libertarian" to
replace "liberal" after they changed the meaning of that word...

Language is fun! :-)

-tih

Ah..no. Libertarian is a completly different term
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/dgwlib.html#Liberals

Why do libertarians sometimes call themselves classical liberals?
In the 19th century, the term "liberal" generally meant someone who
favored individual liberty and opposed the expansion of state power.
In Europe and in much of the rest of the world, it still means that.

But in America, the term "liberal" was adopted by people who favored
extensive government intervention in the economy -- people who
elsewhere in the world would have been called progressives, social
democrats, or socialists.

Meanwhile, "conservative" continued to refer to people who favored
the use of state power for the preservation of certain religious and
cultural practices. The original liberals were thus left without a
label. People who still cleave to the ideal of individual liberty in
all spheres of life, like the 19th century liberals, now usually call
themselves either libertarians or classical liberals.


http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/dgwlib.html

What the heck is a libertarian?
I will offer three definitions:
1. The simple definition. A libertarian is someone who, in general,
supports government policies that favor individual liberty in all
matters, whether economic, personal, or social.

Libertarians are frequently characterized as "conservative on economic
issues and liberal on personal issues." That's not a bad definition,
but it's kind of like saying vodka is "half screwdriver and half white
Russian." It implies that libertarians are being inconsistent,
whereas in fact libertarianism is more consistent than either
conservatism or liberalism. I prefer to say, "Conservatives are
frequently libertarian on economic issues, and liberals are frequently
libertarian on personal issues." (I would also say that conservatives
are usually authoritarian on personal issues, and liberals are usually
authoritarian on economic issues.)

A list of policies that most libertarians support would include:
legalization of drugs, legalization of all consensual sexual acts
between consenting adults (including sodomy and prostitution),
abolition of government censorship in all its forms (including
restrictions on pornography), free trade, noninterventionist foreign
policy, abolition of rent control, abolition of the minimum wage,
abolition of farm and business subsidies, abolition of arts subsidies,
privatization of Social Security, abolition of welfare, and drastic
reduction of taxes.

For a decent indicator of whether you are a libertarian according to
the simple definition, take the World's Shortest Political Quiz.

2. The more complex, philosophical definition. A libertarian is
someone who, as a general rule, supports the non-aggression ethic (or
as some people call it, the non-aggression axiom, or NGA). The
non-aggression ethic holds, to quote David Boaz's Libertarianism: A
Primer, that "No one has the right to initiate aggression against the
person or property of anyone else."

Two phrases in this statement bear special emphasis. The first is
"initiation of aggression." Libertarians strongly support the right
of individuals to respond to aggression against them -- i.e., everyone
has the right of self defense. What libertarians oppose is the
initiation of force (or aggression) against others.

The second important phrase is "no one." Libertarians believe that no
means no. People do not acquire the right to initiate aggression
against others simply because they are agents of the state, or because
they get the majority of people to agree with them. The key issue is
not who uses aggression, but rather the purpose for which it is used.
Libertarians believe, for the most part, that aggression is only
justified if used to limit the initiation of aggression by others.

3. The crass political definition. A Libertarian (note the capital
L) is a member of the Libertarian Party, a national political party in
the United States. A libertarian and a Libertarian are not
necessarily the same thing, but in general, the LP advocates policies
that libertarians (small l) are likely to support.

The LP's official Statement of Principles says, "We hold that all
individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own
lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so
long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others
to live in whatever manner they choose." That's a pretty good a
statement of the motivating ideal behind libertarianism.


"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should
fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"