I started out my political life as a bedwetting liberal. Young, idealistic — and dumb. Then I started paying income taxes. Thankfully I realized sooner than most the difference between what I earn and my "take-home" pay. For a few years I guess you could have called me a conservative. I was troubled, though, by the penchant conservatives have for directing the social lives of people. That led me straight to the libertarian philosophy. Simply put, I believe in freedom. I believe the Constitution should be amended with a clause which states that neither the federal nor any state government shall make any activity that does not violate, through force or fraud, a persons right to life, liberty or property, a crime. I firmly believe that if liberty is to be preserved in America, it will be libertarian thought, if not the Libertarian Party, that saves it.
Neal Boortz
Well I sometimes call myself a libertarian but that's only because most people don't know what anarchist means. Most people hear you're an anarchist and they think you're getting ready to throw a bomb at a building. They don't understand the concept of voluntary association, the whole concept of replacing force with voluntary cooperation or contractual arrangements and so on. So libertarian is a clearer word that doesn't arouse any immediate anxiety upon the listener. And then again, libertarians, if they were totally consistent with their principles would be anarchists. They take the position which they call minarchy, which is the smallest possible government... The reason I don't believe in the smallest possible government is because we started out with that and it only took us 200 years to arrive at the czarist occupation of government that we have now. I think any government is dangerous no matter how small you make it. Instead of governments we should have contractual associations that you can opt out of if you don't like the way the association is going. Religions fought for hundreds of years over which one should dominate Europe an then they finally gave up and made a truce, and they all agreed to tolerate each other — at least in this part of the world... But I think government should be treated like religion, everyone should be able to pick the kind they like. Only it should be contractual not obligatory. I wouldn't mind paying tax money to a local association to maintain a police force, as long as we need one. But I hate like hell paying taxes to help the US government build more nuclear missiles to blow up more people I don't even know and don't think I'd hate them if I did know them. A lot of anarchists had a major roll in influencing my political thinking, especially the individualist anarchists. Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner especially. But I've also been influenced by Leo Tolstoy's anarcho-pacifism. And I find a lot of Kropotkin compatible even though he was a communist anarchist. Nothing wrong with communist anarchism as long as it remains voluntary. Any one that wants to go make a commune, go ahead, do it. I got nothing against it. As long as there's room to the individualist to do his or her own thing.
Robert Anton Wilson
I think Ron Paul is right on the economy. I think Ron Paul is right on the Fed, he's right on gold. He's right on the size of government. He's also right on foreign affairs, to this extent: we should not be in the situation that we're in. But it wasn't the war in Iraq, it started long before, you can track this last course all the way back to World War I. [...] when you find a libertarian that will say: it has taken us over 200 years to put ourselves in this situation, what I think we need to do is turn the corner. We clearly can't cut all foreign alliances right now, we clearly can't just pull all of our troops back from all around the world. We can't do those things. But what we can do is set course to where America pulls back slowly, America does the right thing, and we bring our troops home and we say we're not the policeman for the world anymore. [...] the number one thing to get us to do that, is to be self-reliant on money, and self-reliant on energy. So that's what I want to hear from a libertarian, I want to hear: this is the 50 year plan. But unfortunately, everybody is looking at 2 years, 6 years, 4 years. And by doing that, you're never gonna get anything accomplished.
Ron Paul
What Senator McCain has lately been suggesting is that somehow I'm going to take money from people making over $250,000, and give it to people who "pay no taxes". What he's confusing is the fact that even if you don't pay income tax, there are a lot of people who don't pay income tax, but you're still paying a whole lot of other taxes. You're paying payroll tax, which is a huge burden on a lot of middle-income families. You're paying sales taxes. You're paying property taxes. There are a whole host of taxes that you're paying. So when we provide an offset to the waitress or the janitor, these folks are working. This isn't some giveaway to people who are on welfare. This is giving help to people who are working hard every day.
Barack Obama
The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives... libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy.
Murray Rothbard
One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism. If a group of people — even a very large group — wanted to purchase land and own it in common, they would be free to do so. The libertarian legal order would require only that no one be coerced into joining or giving up his property.
David Boaz
Boortz, Neal
Boosler, Elayne
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