Your opinion of Libertarians

[John Dibble]

Extremely Positive.

[John Dibble]

Every libertarian I know is a decent fellow, responsible hard working citizens who obey the law.  The trouble is they think everyone else is capable of being a decent person too, and it just ain't so.

Since when? First off, we wouldn't be for guns if we weren't aware of this - criminals fall into the 'not decent' category. Second, we're for limited government power, because greater power results in more corrupt politicians, who also fall into the 'not decent' category. Need I go on?

[John Dibble]

Every libertarian I know is a decent fellow, responsible hard working citizens who obey the law.  The trouble is they think everyone else is capable of being a decent person too, and it just ain't so.

Since when? First off, we wouldn't be for guns if we weren't aware of this - criminals fall into the 'not decent' category. Second, we're for limited government power, because greater power results in more corrupt politicians, who also fall into the 'not decent' category. Need I go on?

Reliance on private charity for social welfare?  End to the drug war?

Plenty of people donate to charity, and lower taxes would increase the amount that many of them are able to and will give. I'm not pretending it will make up for what will be lost from welfare, and I don't know many Libertarians who do - we primarily are opposed government wealth redistribution, which is highly inefficient anyways.

End of the drug war has little to do with the subject you brought up. First off, it has done little to curb the use of drugs - people have always done drugs, and they still do drugs. We oppose it because it infringes upon the rights of citizens to put what they want in their own bodies and because the war on drugs causes higher violent crime rates, like during alcohol prohibition.

[John Dibble]

My interaction with libertarians has led me to believe that they think people can take care of themselves.  So to leave people to taking care of themselves will leave society better off.  I don't think yoou are advocating things that you think will make people worse off simply because of some academic principle.  If you do believe that, it would come as a surprise to most here.  Many times, you've made long, in depth posts about how less government control will leave us better off.

So I think its fair to say that most libertarians think that most people can take care of themselves.

I disagree with this starting point, and think that most people need some kind of guidance from authority.

When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.  ~George Pataki

I find that freedom is generally a good thing. Freedom has it's tradeoffs, but most often the benefits outweigh the negatives.

And yes, I do feel that most people can take care of themselves - they were able to do it before the nanny state, why not now?

[John Dibble]

Big "L" Libertarians, negative.
Small "l" libertarians... depends what you mean by libertarian.

You have a negative opinion of me?

[John Dibble]

I'm a small L libertarian- I'm an independant; my Libertarian avatar is due to ideological similarity. I don't like the Libertarian Party itself- it generally emphasises the wrong issues, doesn't have a very good foreign policy, is generally impotent in national politics, and comes of as a tad too extremist for my tastes.

For Libertarians as a whole, however, I have a very positive opinion. Granted, there are a few crazies, but most are a tad more sensible and I agree with them on most issues.

Bacon King - JOIN THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY. We won't get anywhere unless we get enough moderate libertarians in the party to change it to where it could get elected.