“Libertarianism is commonly described as a political philosophy that favors eliminating “force” from human relationships.”

Being opposed to the initiation of force against an individual is not the same thing as eliminating force from human relationships. So long as there are criminals, force will still be necessary when following the non-aggression axiom, easily justified in cases of self-protection and recovering property from a thief or other aggressor.

“Unfortunately, when you adopt a political philosophy that fits on a postcard, it leaves a vacuum that is filled by whatever inchoate political prejudices you held before you picked up that copy of Atlas Shrugged at the age of 19.”

You seem to be equivocating a starting point for a philosophy for the entire philosophy. Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard certainly had their faults, and I’ve seen Rothbard criticized on logical grounds (as Ed Feser has done – http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/08/rothbard-as-philosopher.html ), but your comments on them seem to putting up straw man and caricatures of them, without and substantive criticism.

The rest of the post is no better, and hardly worth dealing with as it seems to merely be an attempt to antagonize Rand’s and Rothbard’s followers.

I’m a libertarian because I’m a liberal.

Likewise, I’m a libertarian because I’m a conservative. Libertarianism is only an individualistic wing of liberalism or conservatism. Most liberals take the tabula rasa argument of classical liberalism and turn them into the idea that man is clay which society and the state can mold into a higher, freer, better man. The “New Man Through Communism” idea came directly out of this view of the nature of man. Likewise, the conservative belief in original sin or the basic tendency toward evil (or anti-social behavior, if you so prefer) is a powerful motivator to either restrain the state or unleash it to control society.

In the case of your Mormon example, like Howley, you fail to account for the dichotomy of cultural libertarianism: cultural libertarians want to maximize personal choices, but when adopted as a set of social values, libertarianism drives libertarians to actively undermine a whole array of options. You are, in essence, adopting a somewhat softer form social ostracism like what used to be used to control sexual behavior.

For right-libertarians like me, this is no problem. I could care less about those Mormon extremists so long as they aren’t beating their kids, marrying them off against their will and things like that. I’m down with Muslim men having four wives. If two men and a woman want to have a polyandrous relationship, that’s their business. I don’t personally approve of any of those choices, and would freely tell them such if asked. You can have my support in choosing your lifestyle, you just can’t expect me to uncritically nod my head in approval. No has a right to validation.

I never thought of Wikipedia as hairy; gotta check the spell-checker.

Well said.

This is why it’s important to continue debating within classical liberal circles. It’s also important to start demanding integrity of people within classical liberal circles. Arguing for self-governance while statists see us committing fraud and rewarding bad behavior doesn’t seem very productive. We mustn’t forget the freedom of DISassociation.

Funny thing about this whole debate, which I noted months back when it was being played out on Howley’s and Seavey’s blogs, is that it likely doesn’t make a dime’s worth of difference on policy grounds. It’s just a matter of rhetorical style. And, you know, if Howley feels comfortable making the thick argument, she should. If Seavey thinks it’s better to make the thin argument, he should. In terms of persuasiveness to nonlibertarians, it likely makes no difference since either approach is most almost certain to be ineffective due the unpopularity of libertarian ideas and values.

It’s kind of like Marxists today debating whether to focus on persuading an intellectual cadre of elites versus mobilizing the masses of workers. Does it really matter? Both will fail because Marxism is a resoundingly unpopular and widely despised political worldview. So, too, for the advocates of liberty.

This strikes me as putting the cart before the horse. I’m a libertarian because I’m a liberal. If the only reason I can think of to oppose some government program is because doing so is “unlibertarian,” with no connection to underlying liberal values, then maybe that particular plank of the libertarian platform isn’t very important.

Rhayader, well said.

Libertarianism is classical liberalism, which begins with equality and branches out from there. Libertarian bigots do exist I’m sure — although I suspect they are rare — but they’ve got some serious internal intellectual dissonance going on. Luckily, being libertarians, they wouldn’t be very enthusiastic about hoisting that baggage on the rest of us.

But should Reason launch a “Homophobia watch” section? No, I don’t think so. Should Cato appoint a fellow in anti-scientology studies? Uhh. Nope. There’s enough tangible government coercion going on that limited resources should be devoted to that. Wouldn’t call for a dessicated dialogue from libertarians on these issues, just wise use of scarce resources.

My other concern is that if one becomes too attached to some liberal conception of the good life (which I’m all for, personally speaking) it can bleed over into assessment of government policy in an unlibertarian fashion (e.g, “Hey, I really *love* science. Why do I oppose allocating more funds to the National Science Foundation?”). That usually isn’t too much of a problem, but you see it happen sometimes, and obviously there are lots of complications given how far we are from anything like a free society.

The last point I’ll make on this subject, for now, is that for the purposes of practical politics it doesn’t matter. Libertarian views are deeply unpopular, and cosmotarian ideas even more so. Against God, country and family while simultaneously opposing leftist, quasi-religious conceptions of eco-friendliness and egalitarianism — we appeal to just about nobody, numerically speaking. So how much does it matter, really? Just say what you believe. Chances are no one is listening very closely, and will not make much of a difference in the world at large, driven as it is by superstition, conformism and irrational fear.