I get so tired of hearing people say that being a libertarian is being economically right and socially left. While I'm not an economic libertarian at all, I am a social libertarian and there is a giant world of difference between being left on social issues and being libertarian on them. I would say in the most general terms libertarians believe that the government shouldn't be involved in social issues at all. Where as on the left it's the government that allows people to do so and so action and they believe that as many people as possible should be allowed to do it.
If you take some important beliefs that people think libertarians and liberals share, you find that there is a world of difference in them. For example gay marriage. The left normally applauds the government 'allowing' more people to marry. For a libertarian the government shouldn't be involved in marriage in the first place. Not only should gay people not get marriage certificates, nobody should. Much less there shouldn't be any social advantage to being married than to being single. The government shouldn't be involved at all. There is a world of difference in that.
If you take something like marijuana legalization. Liberals arguments often involve around how if it were legal then the government can tax and regulate it. Where as a libertarian would believe that it's just not the governments business what we put in our bodies. Again, a world of difference in both the philosophical approach and the end result.
Not to mention hate speech laws, which derive from the social left and are about as un-libertarian as it gets.
I think there are few issues where libertarians are actually socially left and I get annoyed when people think to lump libertarians as socially left. I think it part it's actually libertarians fault as they've been describing themselves this way to try to market themselves better to the American public, who identify more as socially left and economically right even though libertarians are really neither of those things.
If you take some important beliefs that people think libertarians and liberals share, you find that there is a world of difference in them. For example gay marriage. The left normally applauds the government 'allowing' more people to marry. For a libertarian the government shouldn't be involved in marriage in the first place. Not only should gay people not get marriage certificates, nobody should. Much less there shouldn't be any social advantage to being married than to being single. The government shouldn't be involved at all. There is a world of difference in that.
If you take something like marijuana legalization. Liberals arguments often involve around how if it were legal then the government can tax and regulate it. Where as a libertarian would believe that it's just not the governments business what we put in our bodies. Again, a world of difference in both the philosophical approach and the end result.
Not to mention hate speech laws, which derive from the social left and are about as un-libertarian as it gets.
I think there are few issues where libertarians are actually socially left and I get annoyed when people think to lump libertarians as socially left. I think it part it's actually libertarians fault as they've been describing themselves this way to try to market themselves better to the American public, who identify more as socially left and economically right even though libertarians are really neither of those things.
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