It's true that most self-identifying libertarians would not self-identify as anarchists. But it's also true that the origins of a lot of libertarian thought comes from anarchism.
Libertarians strongly believe in both human rights and property rights. This includes legal/judicial enforcement of contracts and a court with the authority to mediate disputes and punish criminals. Also this includes a police force to help enforce these rights.
> This includes legal/judicial enforcement of contracts and a court with the authority to mediate disputes and punish criminals. Also this includes a police force to help enforce these rights.
Not necessarily. Libertarian anarchists propose that those services can be provided by private enterprise.
They are an extreme minority. Most people that identify with libertarianism are simply fiscal conservatives who also support decriminalization of victimless crimes, human rights, a reduced military budget, less invasive foreign policy etc. nothing as extreme as anarchy.
Ultimately most of us end up voting republican because they are seen as a "lesser of two evils".
I'm well aware of anarcho-capitalists, as I consider myself one.
> AnCaps are to Libertarians as Richard Stallman is to Linux users.
There are plenty of ways to interpret that, but I presume you mean that you don't like Richard Stallman and you don't like anarcho-capitalists. Incidentally, I like Richard Stallman and anarcho-capitalism, so I suppose the analogy still holds.
> They are an extreme minority.
Perhaps, but they are an extremely powerful influence in libertarian ethical and economic thought. Murray Rothbard and Benjamin Tucker are (in my view) the fathers of the modern American libertarian movement, and they happen to have been anarchists. Even some popular conservative constitutionalist limited-government libertarians like Ron Paul and Andrew Napolitano are anarchists who essentially lie about their views in order to deliver libertarian principles to a wider audience (I don't really approve of that technique, by the way).
I'm saying that AnCaps and RMS are both ideological extremes and do not represent the vast majority of their respective movements.
But I suppose I did paint with too broad a brush. My statement about law enforcement is the equivalent of someone saying "Democrats don't believe in a totalitarian communist regime where we are all forced to have vegan diets", By and large it's true and for the sake of brevity it makes sense to say it, because those views are not a good example of what the Democratic party as a whole is actually about. This also helps some of the more naive people in this thread get a more realistic perspective on what most self identifying libertarians actually believe.
And you'd be wrong for a good number of representatives. I suppose I should have also added "Small Government" and "less taxes" which is what the republicans are at least ostensibly for.
