This was the list of potentials I came up with that, while not inconsistent with libertarianism, cannot be solely explained by it: globalist, balanced-budget, anti-statist, anti-union, anti-pc, anti-affirmative action, federalist, personal responsibility, tough love, free market, free trade, non-interventionist, enforced borders... There are probably some others. Can you explain them as solely or predominantly libertarian.
Anti-statist might be the main thrust of libertarianism.
Globalist - Isn't strongly associated with either conservatism or libertarianism, but it isn't inconsistent with either except perhaps in its more extreme forms.
free market - Fits in well with conservatism, but even more so with libertarianism. Its hard to see how you could be libertarian without support of free markets, but someone could be conservative and not be a big supporter of them (supporting say states rights, tradition, religious conservatism, balanced budgets, a strong military, and a patriotic attitude)
free trade - similar to free market, might be considered a subset of it. More libertarian than conservative, but there is perhaps a correlation between belief in free trade and conservatism, if not a very strong one.
The rest are either more conservative then libertarian or are about equally conservative and libertarian. With things like belief in personal responsibility being more equal and things like anti-union, and enforcing the border being more conservative.
I don't think of you as libertarian even though you are distinctly anti-statist. I don't think you were at all libertarian when we first met but I've seen a bit of it creep in over time. Perhaps it's the abortion thing, which was the subject of our early encounters.
There has been some creep over time, but it started before we met. As a child I didn't have much of a political leaning (probably a good thing at that age for the most part). I started to become conservative during the Reagan administration. In my twenties I started to slowly drift more to libertarianism while still keeping my conservatism.
As far as "the abortion thing", being pro-life isn't specifically libertarian by any means, but it isn't anti-libertarian if you are pro-life for human rights reasons. If your pro-life because you think you see abortion as "icky", or even "sinful" than your views probably don't fit well with libertarianism, but if that is all I thought it was I would be pro-choice.
Tim |
