View source for FAQ for Prospective Libertarians

[[Category:Libertarian Party]]
{{DES | des = Rich Puchalsky's criticisms of the LPUSA.}}
(Originally at [http://rpuchalsky.home.att.net/libfaq.html http://rpuchalsky.home.att.net/libfaq.html].)

This is a FAQ about the Libertarian Party in the United States of America.
=== What does "initiation of force" mean? ===

Initiation of force means any use of force that a Libertarian doesn't like, as opposed to "retaliatory force", which Libertarians do like. Libertarians reject initiation of force, but think that retaliatory force is OK. Any use of force can conveniently be defined as either "initiating" or "retaliatory" by restricting the time or other scope of the problem under consideration. For instance, a Libertarian might think:

Initiation of force: American native protestors camp out on resident's lawn
Retaliatory force : Resident takes out gun and blows protestors away

All you need to do to switch this around is add another, previous step-

Initiation of force: Settler's family steals land from American natives

and the chain reverses.
Or for another example of Libertarian thinking:

Initiation of force: Pregnant women aborts fetus (fetus is considered human)
Retaliatory force : Government throws woman in jail and shoots abortionist

A sizeable minority of Libertarians consider abortion to be murder and therefore think that a minimalist government would be justified in punishing it as such.
=== What is the Libertarian position on the Right To Bear Arms? ===

Libertarians believe that citizens should be allowed to own military weapons as a defense against a dictatorial government. That means that they should be allowed to own machine guns, grenades, tanks, etc.; otherwise how would they defend themselves against a modern army?
It has been a topic of much debate among Libertarians over whether nuclear weapons involve too much overkill for home defense. The Libertarians should be congratulated for carefully considering this important and practical political question.
=== What is the Libertarian position on anti-discrimination laws? ===

Libertarians would remove all laws against acts of racial and other discrimination. They believe, for instance, that a store owner should be able to refuse to serve all black people because he doesn't like them. They often claim that the "free market" would remove racism, since it is unprofitable to turn away customers. No doubt proto-Libertarians in the American South of the 60's were strong supporters of the segregationists against the civil rights movement, since the civil rights movement used Federal law in an overbearing, "statist" way.
Also, Libertarians are fond of claiming that everything was wonderful in terms of individual rights in the US back in the days of the Founders, or 100 years ago, or some such. When it is pointed out that things were not so wonderful for black people or women, they tend to shrug this off. Non-whites and women apparently don't count for much to Libertarians, as the Party is overwhelmingly composed of white males.
=== What is the Libertarian position on environmental problems? ===

Libertarians think that property rights will solve all environmental problems. When asked how one would keep cars on a nearby highway from polluting the air around your house, for instance, some will claim that you should camp out by the highway with a pollution detector and sue the owner of every car that passes. Other Libertarians have suggested other practical and workable solutions such as setting up detectors on your property for every conceivable form of pollution and suing everyone who might be a source.
Libertarians don't think that government should be involved in things such as providing clean water or regulating private companies that do either; they think that after lots of people die from bacteriological contamination from a company's water then people will stop buying that brand of water.
=== Why do many Libertarians oppose democracy? ===

Many Libertarians think that democracy involves "mob rule" where the majority takes what it wants from the minority or individual without regard for human rights or constitutional restrictions. When it is pointed out that all current Western democracies have some form of governmental restriction on majority rule, and/or some form of protection of inalienable individual rights (such as the U.S. Bill of Rights), Libertarians will claim that these are "republics" or "democratic republics" rather than democracies. Libertarians think it appropriate to spend large amounts of time arguing against governmental systems that don't exist. (This is probably because libertarian governments don't exist in reality either).
Note: modern Russia, Somalia, or Bosnia could be considered to have libertarian governments, so perhaps the last sentence above is out of date.
=== Do the Libertarians really believe that slavery should be legal? ===

Some do, you bet! Many Libertarians of the anarcho-capitalist variety believe that you can't really own something unless you can sell it. Therefore, since you own yourself you can sell yourself. They have no problems with selling yourself into slavery as long as it is "voluntary" (i.e. as long as you are starving and see no other way to get food, for instance.)
Some Libs will indignantly claim that they don't believe in slavery. Usenet threads on the subject generally reveal that at least 1/3 of Libertarians support slavery and think that it should be legal for one human being to own another.
=== Are the Libertarians really America's third largest party? ===

The Libertarians regularly get less than 1% of the vote, and boast about winning such important offices as head of one of Washington DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. Truly this makes them more powerful than, say, Bernie Sanders the independent Socialist, who has a seat in the U.S. Congress. The Libertarians seem to have only about 30,000 members in their national party in the U.S. The Reform Party has gathered more votes in the last two Presidential elections than the Libertarians.


FAQ Version 1.6
Copyright 2000 Rich Puchalsky