Your opinion of Libertarians

[Ebowed]

They're way too worried about unimportant things like the top tax rate and not enough about things like legalization of drugs and prostitution, preservation of abortion, etc.  In other words they prioritize economic issues way too much over social issues.

This is priceless.  I remember the day that you were criticizing the state of West Virginia for voting social issues over economic issues.

[Ebowed]

So basically you're a hypocrite.  You claim not to believe in morals or ultimate truth, that everything is relative and that freedom comes from making up your own standards.  But West Virginia votes "the wrong way."

[Ebowed]

Generally positive.  Out of the major ideologies I find libertarianism to be the one riddled with the least contradictions, followed by populism.  I often wonder about the mainstream conservative movement supporting social restrictions while opposing economic ones, and vice versa for the mainstream liberal movement.  I sometimes get the impression - unfair as it may be - that these ideologies are driven more by partisan politics and special interests than sound ideological thinking.  Populism and libertarianism, on the other hand, have to work with the two main parties in order to get their goals accomplished.  This means that the ideologies are better thought-out and not bound to Capitol Hill lobbyists, etc.  One example of a contradiction I find in liberalism is purported support of equal rights for all people and then supporting causes such as affirmative action, which uses race or sex as a factor as opposed to treating the criterion as irrelevant, as it should if equal rights are to be an actual goal.  There is the argument, though, that it is a responsibility to create "equal" rights by levelling the playing field, often used by the liberal movement to justify their support of affirmative action.  But in order to level the playing field, it must be admitted that one type of person needs help while the other doesn't - and in this case, the basis for giving that help is skin color.  This is, in my opinion, tantamount to treating one skin color as inferior to another.  The obvious solution for the liberal movement, of course, is to drop any and all support of race-based affirmative action and support economic- or class-based affirmative action instead.  This way, those who are in poor economic or social situations are given the "equal" oppurtunity that they deserve, according to liberal ideology.  But the Democrats appear reluctant to do this, instead treating dark skin as if it were some sort of social problem.

However, there are certainly liberals and conservatives who believe what they do without any special interest in either party.  It is just less common than with libertarians and populists, as evidenced by the fact that you can find both in either of the two major parties (although populists are more likely to be Democrats, and libertarians are more likely to be Republicans).

[Ebowed]

"Populism" is not the same as authoritarianism. I don't know why it's used that way here.

It's used that way here because it's shorter to type than authoritarianism or communitarianism.