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Libertarians

The First Candidate

I regret not posting this press release sooner, as it mentions the Libertarian Party’s first candidate, Dr. John Hospers, who passed away recently ninety-three years of age: John Hospers, first Libertarian presidential nominee, dies at 93 WASHINGTON – John Hospers, the Libertarian Party’s first presidential nominee in 1972, died on June 12, 2011 in Los…

Libertarianism Growing in Popularity

A recent CNN poll shows that libertarianism is on the rise in the last three years in the United States, more than at any point in the last two decades. The poll, which CNN has conducted yearly since 1993, tracks the strength of social and economic libertarianism and reveals that both ideas are gaining popular support.…

Answers from Libertarians Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie

Today was Ask a Libertarian Day for Reason editors Welch and Gillespie,  and they answered lots of questions about libertarianism. The full list of their libertarian answers is at YouTube. Here are six answers, on environmentalism, IP and net neutrality, the war on drugs, working within a two-party system, examples of libertarian successes, and greedy…

Impediments to Second Amendment Rights

There a story over at the Janesville Gazette that catalogs the objections that some police leaders have to concealed carry rights (and probably to many other gun rights). See, Law enforcement against concealed-carry legislation. I doubt that opposition to gun rights is nearly so strong among field officers as it is among administrators. In any…

Liberal or Conservative? Neither

I had a spirited discussion with a conservative the other day, who seemed to think that I was drifting too far to the left. From her point of view, I probably do seem too far to the left. She was mistaken, though, on two counts. First, libertarians aren’t naturally more right or left. Second, in…

The Libertarian Republicans

There are two GOP presidential candidates with libertarian views: the well-known Ron Paul and the not-so-well-known Gary Johnson. Neither has much of a chance to be the GOP nominee. Really, neither has any chance at all. Still, here’s a profile for each of them, from Reason.Their presence will still shape the race in ways that…

Libertarian Party’s List of Recent Federal Mistakes

The national Libertarian party’s re-published a list of the top-ten federal government mistakes, with the addition of ten new mistakes. I’ve listed them below — the details for each are available at the LP website. Exec. Dir. Wes Benedict contends that these are mostly mistakes of the Obama Administration, but many of these policies pre-date…

Why the MacIver Institute’s Not Libertarian

….Brett Healy, president of the conservative John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy in Madison, said it’s important to distinguish between public and private sector unions. “Unions originally were established to help a group of individuals come to a reasonable agreement with their employer,” he said. “In this case, the employer is the government. So…

Libertarian Party Blasts Federal Spending Deal

What do libertarians think about the latest spending deal in Washington? We think it’s a bad deal for America. Here’s a press release from the national LP: Libertarians call spending compromise “travesty” WASHINGTON – Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict issued the following statement today: Just in time for Tax Day, the Republicans and Democrats…

Libertarians Call for Permanent Government Shutdown!

I’ve not been following closely the reports of an impending federal shutdown, as Wisconsin’s own politics have been more interesting to me. For those who have been reading national reports, here’s a press release from the national Libertarian Party that offers a libertarian take on the drama. The release is very true-to-form for the LP,…