this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2025
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I keep seeing this and don't understand it. Do people lump all the right wing crazies in with libertarians or something?
I get that libertarianism is a big tent, but it's not a tent that covers intolerance. The foundation of libertarianism is simple:
If someone thinks it's okay to hurt or disparage someone based on their skin color or country of origin, that's a violation of the NAP and definitionally they're not libertarian. A lot of people hide behind the libertarian label because they've been thoroughly rejected by the major parties, but that doesn't make them libertarian.
Libertarians disagree on a lot of things, like the role of government, whether property rights exist, and what is "aggression," but they are very consistent in rejecting hate. Libertarians were supporting LGBT folks before it was cool, and the 2024 candidate for the Libertarian Party was a gay man in complete defiance of the candidate chosen by the Mises caucus, the far right caucus that took over the party. Libertarians are about as extreme left as you'll get on social issues, and about as extreme right as you'll get on fiscal issues, generally speaking.
I guess I genuinely don't understand what people see as libertarian. I consider myself libertarian, but I take my roots from Penn Jillette, and add in stuff like UBI. Here's a great snippet from him, and my (poor) summary:
I think a social safety net crosses that threshold. I would use violence to feed my family, and I would defend someone else who does so as well, so I think it's fair for force everyone to pay into a social safety net that ensures everyone has enough to survive using the excess of others.
My SO is a visible minority as well, and they have no issues being with me. So I guess I'm missing something about the public perception of libertarianism.
Because libertarians are the first to remove legal protections in the name of small government. This isnt a blanket rule, more anecdotal than anything. But the ones I've managed to find and interact with all want to remove all sorts of legal protections.
The party doesn't seem to represent those that I've interacted with. I get what your saying, but that just doesn't match with who I've interacted with.
Okay so here's where I interject more opnion than above.
libritarians miss the forest for the trees. From your opinion above you say fiscal responsibility. But you deney the help that social programs provide, and actually benift the economy. Poor people spend stimuls checks locally more than higher income brackets for example. Government serves people, not commerce.
That's kinda true for everything, no? Parties just represent whatever is popular at the moment.
Look at the GOP in the US, in 2016, they were pretty universally on board with hating Trump, and now they're trying to suck up to him. Likewise with Dems, they used to love unions, and recently they barely give them a nod. The parties of today look very different from even 10 years ago.
On the other hand, typically it's the extreme fringes of movement that will tell you specifically what they believe, and the quiet majority in the middle keep to themselves. Sometimes Dems think I'm a Dem too, and sometimes they think I'm a Republican. Likewise for Republicans, it really depemds on the subject. Many people who would otherwise label themselves "libertarian" don't because they play the lesser of two evils game depending on where they lean.
If anything, it's the opposite. If libertarians miss nuance, it's because they're focused on big picture principles instead of exceptions and details.
Any change based on principles should be gradual and its impact carefully measured.
When did I claim that? I explicitly said I support a social safety net. In fact, I'm left of many Dems on that, since I believe in UBI (or my preference NIT). I think we should repurpose SS for this and maybe expand it a bit.
I believe in a banced budget and to eliminate any part of government that isn't carrying its weight. I want to closely examine:
Basically, go agency by agency and determine what it's value is, what it's cost is in terms of freedom, and what options we have to accomplish similar goals with more freedom. The goal isn't to gut the government, but to trim anything that isn't providing sufficient value.
AFAIK, no libertarian has an ideal size of government except perhaps "zero," but instead just knows we need to trim what we have to cut waste and trampling of freedoms.