I did not vote for President Bush in either presidential elections. I find it odd that the partisans of a party that gets almost have of its votes from voters who automatically vote for anyone with a (D) next to their name would ever criticize anyone else as being a non-thinking voter.

If you look at people claiming to be for voting rights or “fairness” you usually find an extreme liberal who wants nothing more than a one party state in the U.S.

To be fair, neither Randy Barnett nor McQ have claimed to be libertarian for over 6 years.

They are both self described “neo libertarians” which apparantly means “non libertarians”.

Anyone who doesn’t recognize this just has no clue concerning the basic tenets of libertarianism. And yes, that includes Glenn Reynolds.

The only Republican you ever voted for was not really a Republican. He was not a Republican before he ran for Mayor and now that he is not running again, he no onger is a Republican.

thank you for confirming the stereotype. one Republican versus many Democrats is not an independent.

Of course you live in a one party city so I guess you have little choice.

While the number of Americans who self-identify as “libertarian” remains small, a substantial proportion agree with the core stances of limited constitutional government in both the economic and social spheres–what is sometimes called “economic conservatism” and “social liberalism.”

Here, Mr. Barnett makes his first mistake. he argues that libertarianism is define by limited government in both the economic and social spheres but makes no mention of limited government in the foreign policy sphere. Yet true libertarians believe that the government should be limited in it power across all domains of government. Mr. Barnett does libertarianism a disservice by selectively choosing where he wants smaller government to be enforced.

A person who believes in expanding the power of the federal government with regards to foreign policy is not a libertarian, regardless of how libertarian he is on domestic issues.

Mr. Barnett goes on to write:

Other libertarians, however, supported the war in Iraq because they viewed it as part of a larger war of self-defense against Islamic jihadists who were organizationally independent of any government. They viewed radical Islamic fundamentalism as resulting in part from the corrupt dictatorial regimes that inhabit the Middle East, which have effectively repressed indigenous democratic reformers.

Arguing that the Iraq War was an act of self-defense is not only un-libertarian–it’s irrational. Iraq posed no threat to the United States. All the claims made to argue that Iraq was a threat to our security (WMDs, mobile bioweapons labs, unmanned aerial drones, aluminum rods for centrifuges, and yellowcake from Niger) turned out to be false.

But even if all these claims had been true, one has to wonder how any libertarian could justify attacking a country that had not attacked the U.S., had no plans of launching an attack upon the U.S., and was not even allied with any country that was at war with the U.S.

Libertarians believe that the United States government does not have the right to dictate to the American people how they are to defend themselves, so it makes little sense that a libertarian would advocate that the United States has the power to dictate to people in other countries how they are to defend themselves.

Libertarians do not believe that the United Nations has a right to enforce its will on sovereign nations, so it makes little sense that a libertarian would defend the Iraq War based upon some U.N. resolution forbidding Iraq from building nuclear weapons.

There’s a reason why pro-war “libertarians” like Randy Barnett attack Ron Paul. It’s because Ron Paul presents a consistent small government ideology that doesn’t make excuses for warmongers who like to call themselves libertarians.

We’re all entitled to our opinion, but I respectfully disagree about Nancy Hanks. I have found her quite reasonable and believe she would vote for a Republican/right-wing candidate if that candidate was the best choice in an election; the true spirit of an Independent.

We should ask what we CAN do, not what we would like to do.