OK, we (in the US) have the two main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.
Then we have the Conservative to Liberal scale which means that you can have a Democrat who’s a Conservative, Moderate, or Liberal (or somewhere in-between) and you can have a Conservative, Moderate or Liberal Republican.
But from what little I’ve seen it seems like Libertarianism not only is it’s own political party, but it also seems to be it’s own…I don’t know the word encompasses Liberal, Moderate, and Conservative the way that Political Party encompasses Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party, etc., but I think you get the idea.
So, are there Conservative, Liberal, and Moderate Libertarians? Or, besides being their own party, are they also their own (whatever the word is)?
The issue is that the right/left conservative paradigm is flawed.
If you ask a Libertarian where they stand on the political scale, they will tell you the scale is 2 dimensional, with one axis being personal liberty, and the other fiscal policy.
A libertarian maximizes personal liberty, and minimizes goverment spending and economic control.
As examples of other groups, Communists (Soviet style) maximize fiscal policy, and minimize personal liberty. Democrats have a high index on personal liberty, but also mark high on ecomonic policy.
By forcing Libertarians onto one axis, you get the inconsisitencies of Libs looking like Dems to a Pubbie, and vice versa.
Although you didn’t answer my question, you did give me the word I was looking for, which is Political Spectrum.
Anyway, I’ll rephrase the question. Are the any self identified Liberal, Moderate, or Conservative Libertarians, or do they usually use Libertarian to mean both their political party and political spectrum affiliation?
I wasn’t trying to force anything, I was just curious if there were any Libertarians that used a political spectrum label for themselves, but from what I’ve seen, and the answers here, the answer is most likely no.
Oh, and Furt, I am looking that the link, which does explain this pretty good. Thanks.
I wonder if you’re getting confused by words with multiple meanings? A Conservative in the old USSR was a supporter of the Hard Left whereas a Conservative in 1980s Britain was a right-wing supporter of Margaret Thatcher.
For me, in a nutshell, Libertarianism is individual freedom but personal responsibility. To apply modifiers like Conservative and Liberal to that means to me a greater or lesser degree of government intervention in my life. A conservative libertarian might well not want any interference at all; me, I accept interference like the maintenance of a free market, the setting and policing of standards, some sort of social safety net … I guess that makes me a fairly liberal libertarian.
“Forcing” wasn’t meant to be a reaction to what you said; it’s meant in the context of the 2D scale above, and is still part of that explanation, not commentary.
Sorry for the confusion.
VB, libertarian with a lower case ‘l’
I thought that I had stated that was talking about the USA in the OP. Sorry if I confused you on that.
I highly recommend looking at the information offered by the U.S. Libertarian Party itself. To see a 2-axis political spectrum at work (from a Libertarian point of view) try taking the World’s Smallest Political Quiz and read the explanation of the results.
I find it utterly fascinating how many people share the beliefs of the Libertarian party, but never vote for Libertarian candidates.
No problem.
Is there a difference between Libertarian and libertarian?
Yes. I’m a Libertarian, and I’m socially conservative to a fair extent. Opposition to gun control, certain employee protections, and government-imposed affirmative action are consistent with the party platform. I also hold some views that fall into the “Religious Right” camp of thought.
The difference is that I don’t want to impose legislation based on that latter bunch of views on other people. They’re relative wrongs, something indoctrinated into my head through life, not absolute wrongs with respect to the principle of noncoercion.
With a capital L it usually means a member of the Libertarian party. With a lowercase l it’s a person who believes in libertarianism but isn’t a party member.
Gah, I meant to post more.
There aren’t really “more liberal” libertarians and “more conservative” ones simply because no one would know on which end of the scale you’re starting. Some libertarians would be closer to Democrats and some closer to Republicans, but most libertarians would reject the idea that Democrats are “liberal” and Republicans are “conservative.”
You will find libertarians who believe in greater or lesser government involvement in either social or fiscal policies. At the far extreme (so far that many libertarians would say they aren’t libertarians) you have the anarchists who do not believe in an external governmental system at all (Note: Anarchism isn’t a belief in chaos. It’s a belief in a lack of rulers). At the other extreme you have libertarian leaning Republicans (like Steve Forbes) and libertarian leaning Democrats (like, um, someone I’m sure).
So, because libertarians tend to reject the liberal/conservative axis, it’s hard to define them as more or less liberal or conservative than the next libertarian over.
I describe myself as a “moderate libertarian.” I support the use of free markets and the dismantling of government wherever possible, but I don’t want to see things like private fire departments or the elimination of the military, or some of the more asinine ideas in the Libertarian Party platform like complete withdrawal from the UN.
What jsgoddess said. Many people call themselves small-l libertarian to deliberately differentiate themselves from the Libertarian party, which seems to attract a lot of quacks.
Elimination of the military would be an aspect of anarchism, not libertarianism. A country has to have some protection against external threats; we only advocate a substantial reduction of the armed forces.
It means I don’t register to vote as a Libertarian. FWIW, I voted as a Republican Tuesday.
Another “small l” libertarian here. I see not so mush as Liberal to Conservative in “libertarianism,” but more a matter of how much we apply it to life. The Libertarian Party is full of total nutjobs, and they tend to alienate the voters who would vote for them otherwise. Plus, a number of the Party platform ideas just aren’t practical. But the ideals are there, and slowly but surely they will infiltrate the rest of the political process. 
This is interesting to me. I guess I don’t understand what you mean by “maintenance of a free market”. Either you let it function on its own, or you attempt to control it, no?