Reason Magazine: Michael Moynihan- Interviewing Tom G. Palmer: 'Realizing Freedom'

Source:Reason Magazine- Tom G. Palmer, talking about his book Realizing Freedom.

"Last month, Reason senior editor Michael C. Moynihan talked with Tom G. Palmer, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and vice president of international relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, about his latest book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, why we are living in the freest time in human history, and the necessity of libertarian compromise." 

From Reason Magazine 

What I respect about libertarianism as a Liberal is their belief in limited government, which actually means small government to Libertarians. Whether they put it that way or not) Libertarians idea of limited government would probably like 1/6 of the current Federal Government. They would probably only keep the White House (obviously, duh!) Defense, State, Justice, Treasury, and maybe Commerce and the CIA, and Congress, and the Judicial Branch in the Federal Government. 

What I also respect about libertarianism is of course their belief in individual freedom as well as what Classical Liberal Economist Milton Friedman called maximize freedom: the freedom for people to live their own lives as they see fit (adults, that is) as long as they are not hurting anyone else with their freedom. 

A libertarian, as well as classical liberal idea of the free society would be a society where there would be decriminalization or marijuana, prostitution, organized gambling. (To use as examples) The idea that people should be able to do these things if they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. And the fact that people do these things anyway, we might as well accept these facts and try to make these activities as safe as possible. Instead of them being done in the black market with no rules and no one paying taxes while doing these things. 

My issues with libertarianism as a Liberal, are personal as well as politically: they are so rigid and consistent and I would even argue stubborn politically, that if you don't take the libertarian position on everything for the most part, you are not one of them and you are basically a traitor to the movement. You are some type of Big Government Socialist or Communist or something even if you might only disagree with libertarianism on a few issues. Which I believe has hurt not only the Libertarian Party in drawing more members but the broader Libertarian movement which is much broader than the LP. Which points out a weakness in the LP, with its inability to draw more members.

If the Libertarian movement wasn't so rigid ideologically and basically took the stance that as long as you support the broader movement and you are with them lets say 90% of the time, which the Democratic and Republican Party's generally would accept as a good percentage at least historically, then you would see more Liberals and Conservatives become libertarians and we wouldn't have terms like Classical Libertarian (the rigid Libertarians) Conservative-Libertarians, and Liberal-Libertarians (Such as myself) Notice how liberal and libertarian sound so much alike. 

Yet in today's politics Liberals get mistaken for Socialists or so-called Progressives but thats a different post. I'll give you a few examples: social issues, the libertarian way of thinking is the way to go as far as I'm concern and a lot of other Americans feel the same way, we don't as a country like to be told as a country how to live our lives. Which is why more Libertarians haven't become Republicans because they don't like the Religious-Right. 

But a consensus of Americans do like things like Social Security and Medicare which has hurt the Libertarian movement in the past. When Libertarians have called for the elimination of these programs, so what I'm suggesting is that they moderate their views. (To use as an example) Say they accept that these programs are here and people depend on them which is why we are not going to eliminate them, but they would like to decentralize them and even bring competition to them. Then I believe Libertarians would have a lot more success politically.

I'm a Liberal because I do believe in individual freedom and maximize freedom but again this is what separates me from libertarianism. Because I believe in those things as long as people aren't hurting anyone else with their freedom. And thats where government comes in to protect innocent free people from the harm of people who would take that freedom away and then punish them. Whereas I believe Libertarians are anti-government to the point that I believe some of them don't even want government doing that. And this is another thing thats cost Libertarians politically.