This ongoing GD thread, BTW, is a good place to discuss the difference.
See DENIAL-ICAN. 
“Just because I’ve voted Republican every election for 20 years is no reason to call me a Republican!”
Or maybe, as I stated in the OP, I just saw a chance to have some fun with the Libertarians in a half-Pittish sort of way.
And, so far, fun it is! 
FTR, I look forward to a future where America has a proportional-representation system and Libertarians, elected as capital-L Libertarians, play a useful opposition role in every committee of every legislative body in America – never holding a majority or plurality (they never would), but always providing a sort of healthy skeptical acid-bath to every proposed program, tax, regulation or allocation. (Something Republicans cannot be counted on to do, it should by now be obvious.) And, between sessions, having nasty cloakroom hatesex with the Socialists.
Those folks are not libertarians. A libertarian is someone who’s on the right on fiscal issues and on the left on social issues.
But isn’t committed enough to either position to do anything more than talk about it.
Oooh, internet tough guy is tough.
Isn’t that pretty much the point of this comic?
Well, what have Libertarians ever accomplished? Your hypothetical libertarian should either join the Republicans and get something done about fiscal issues or join the Democrats and get something done about social issues. Or vote for both parties in alternate elections. But being a Libertarian is the equivalent of doing nothing.
What kind of libertarian would you call someone who says “how dare anyone tell me what I can’t do?”
I agree, and all the same applies to the Greens.
If anyone here wants third parties to matter on any scale larger than statewide elections, they need to start working for a major reform in how our elections work. Until and unless we do that, the Libertarians, Greens, Constitution, Natural Law, American Nazi, and whatever variety of Reform the squirrels have now are all becalmed in the same stagnant backwater.
Wait, are you talking about Libertarians or libertarians?
If you mean the latter, how do you know they aren’t already doing the things you think they should be doing?
How do I know Libertarians (or libertarians) aren’t getting anyone elected to office? Because I read a newspaper once in a while.
Oh wait, Libertarians do get elected to office after all. Here’s a list of the Libertarins who were elected in 2008 cite:
Bob Mills - Maine - Biddeford City Council
Bruce Reichert - Florida - Collier County Soil & Water Board Seat 1
J. Adam Mitchell - Florida - Collier County Soil & Water Board Seat 4
Scott McPherson - Florida - New Port Richey Mayor
Howard Horowitz - Florida - Palm Beach Soil & Water Conservation Group 4
Jack Tanner - Florida - Lee County Soil and Water Conservation District Seat 4
Jonathan Hall - California - Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District Supervisor
Frank Manske - California - Mount Diablo Healthcare District Supervisor
Kate O’Brien - California - Simi Valley Recreation and Parks District Supervisor
Norm “Firecracker” Westwell - California - Ocean View School District Board of Trustees
Tom Tryon - California - Calaveras County Supervisor, District 4
Brian Holtz - California - Purissima Hills Water District
John Inks - California - Mountain View City Council
John A Buttrick - Arizona - Maricopa County Superior Court Judge
Peter Schmerl - Arizona - Green Valley Continental Elementary School Board District 39
Fredrick Campbell - Kansas - Anderson County Attorney
Tracy Lunquist - Florida - West Volusia Hospital Authority Group A Seat 1
Jeff Hunt - Florida Duval County Soil & Water Board, Group 2
Mike Helms - North Carolina - Cabarrus County Board of Education
Admittedly, nine of these nineteen people were running unopposed.
The Plain Ol’ Jerkasstarian.
So you don’t know the difference between a member of a political party and a person who holds a political philosophy. Way to go, tough guy.
I disagree, Iraq might have been an optional war, Afghanistan was only optional if we are OK with Al Qaeda having a safe haven.
This is probably the silliest idea he has.
followed closely by this second silliest idea.
Yeah, we should get rid of all unwanted criminal statutes as well. If the last few years have taught us anything it is that self regulation simply does not work.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The press loves him
Well, this time apply the blind squirrel analogy to the Republicans.
Yeah but most people who have slapped on the badge of libertarian in the last 2 years (about half the tea party) fall on the same side of all these issues.
Yeah they also have universal health care and a pretty socialist system.
OK fair enough.
Were none of these non-wars worth fighting?
I don’t know why you call the IRS a thug organization but generally speaking, if we got rid of the IRS, our tax revenues would evaporate.
Yeah, that doesn’t sound like principle, that sounds like more “I don’t want to pay taxes”
You’re being generous by assuming all libertarians are unrealistic idealists, most of them are just greedy bastards.
They are not as interested in increasing overall liberty as they are in increasing their own personal liberty (from the responsibilities of living in a society).
And the answer is to lower taxes.
cite?
Its for people who don’t want to own up to the criticism they deserve for having supported Bush for 8 years.
Yeah its they’re called fiscally conservative Democrats. I don’t believe there is a large population of socially liberal Republicans and Libertarian means a lot more than economic conservativism.
That pie in the sky idealism is what makes Libertarianism about as useful as Communism. Both of them only work if everyone buys into the same philosophy with almost religious zeal.
OK then which part of government don’t you like? When I hear limited scope that almost automatically includes military and every alphabet soup agency in DC. Is it just an aversion to medicare and social security?
That sounds like a fiscally conservative Democrat to me (with the big differences being that fiscally conservative Democrats can get elected and can sometimes even effect changes that further fiscally conservative socially liberal objectives).
You act like a “libertarian” and a “fiscally conservative Democrat” are two entirely separate and distnct things. A person can be both of those, you know.
Rand, what’s up with the “tough guy” stuff? I’m not getting any sense out of it.
ME: I read newspapers.
YOU: Oh, so tough guy reads newspapers.
How does that connect? How do you get tough guy from newspaper reading? Something like pointy headed intellectual be more appropriate in that context. Or maybe accuse me of living in an ivory tower.
Well I think a lot of it has to do with the perception that libertarians are small government Republicans in a Grover Norquist sort of way.
Right. Which is not even the same thing as “fiscal conservative.” In principle a fiscal conservative is hostile only to deficit spending, and would find big-government tolerable so long as taxes are high enough to support its cost on a year-to-year basis without borrowing.
Ross Perot was a true fiscal conservative: He saw the deficit as Problem Number One, and his solution was to cut spending and raise taxes, at the same time, until it was eliminated.
Didn’t get him far.