What Is A Libertarian?

I am often asked, based on my more political blog posts, what my exact political beliefs are. I am a Libertarian and VERY, VERY proud of it. But what, you ask, does that mean exactly?

To be Libertarian means quite literally to believe in liberty. I believe that, on the majority of issues, people have the right to make their own decisions, without a liberal "big government" or a conservative "moral government" to interfere.

What we as Libertarians hope to do is help individuals be just that, individual. That means taking the government out of most private decisions. (Like a lot of modern Libertarians, my only concession to this is abortion, which I am strongly against)

We want to abolish both halves of the welfare/warfare bureaucracy (privatizing real services) and liberate the 7/8ths of our wealth that's now soaked up by the costs of a bloated and ineffective government, to make us all richer and free.

We work to oppose tyranny everywhere, whether it's the typical variety fueled by greed and a lust for power or the more subtle, telling folks what's good for them work over.

We don't believe in legislating morality. Even as many of us are members of a faith (I myself am a devout Christian), we do not support a government that forces religious will upon its citizens. There are many reasons why we oppose this. It's dangerous and its not in the best interest of a free nation. People's personal decisions, whatever their outcome or consequence, are their own. We draw the line at any act that harms another human being.

All libertarians want to live in a society based (far more than ours now is) on free trade and mutual voluntary contract; the government's job would be strictly to referee, and use the absolute minimum of force necessary to keep the peace.

Libertarians concede that all human beings are entitled to equality before the law and fair treatment as individuals responsible their own actions. We strictly oppose racism, sexism, and sexual-preference bigotry, whether perpetrated by private individuals or by government. We reject any and all racial discrimination, whether in its ugly traditional forms or in its newer guises as Affirmative Action quotas and "diversity" rules. Yeah, that's right. We see it both ways.

We understand that bigotry will always have an unfortunate place in our world. The only decent laws are those that never mention the words "black" or "white"; "man" or "woman"; "gay" or "straight". Bigotry on all levels is the same as attacking ones religion. We oppose that with full belief.

We also believe the drug war is a major waste of your money..and ours. 85% of all crime is related to drugs. We believe in legalizing all drugs. It's controversial, but you would be surprised by the changes in crime level. The government has spent untold billions on anti-drug programs, many of them nothing more than propaganda with misinformation. Drugs are not good and most Libertarians are not users, but we respect the right of an individual to ingest what he or she desires without interference.

This is an extremely simplified explanation of my political party. We are very much in the middle of the two popular parties and widely misunderstood. But I promise you, we care about our country and her people more than you know. We believe in the Constitution as it was written. We believe YOU have the right to make more decisions concerning YOU than the so called government.