Actually, it is perfectly logical to assume that my "ideas and opinions" are not constrained within specific categories determine by a only few of variables, reminiscent of the personality or sex quizzes found in Cleo or Cosmo.
And just for the record, it is naive, not to mention dangerous, to think that all libertarians share the same views concerning taxation.
Do you think David Nolan, the founder of the U.S. Libertarian Party, is a social liberal (?), considering he believes that not all taxes are deleterious, and is actually in favor of land tax?
What about the geolibertarian community as a whole, which believe that all natural resources should be taxed? Are they not libertarians?
Let's not forget the green libertarians, whose wants corporations to be taxed based on their impact to the ecosystem - consumption of natural resources, pollution, usage of public utilities, etc.
Even Ron Paul, flagbearer of the anti-taxation paleolibertarian movement and mouthpiece of Lew Rockwell, is supportive of excise, consumption and national sales taxes.
Not all libertarians have the same view on taxation that is true. But thats because within the libertarian movement there is several underlying political philosophies.
Most people in the movement (including the people you just mentioned) I would label "minarchists" because they want limited government.
Another group of the movement are the "anarchists" they want no government at all.
It's important to know the difference between anarchists and minarchists since they want completely different things. Even though both groups call themselves "libertarians" they are based on different political philosophies.
I think it's dangerous not to use labels when you describe peoples views. Just look at Rand Paul, he says he's a libertarian but in reality he's more of a conservative.
Labels are for census takers and political bodies. There exists no hard lines in the sand, only a wildly diverging and fluid spectrum.
Take a look at a variation of the Vosem Chart below, derived from the Pournelle chart.
Yes of course charts are always going to be limited but that doesn't mean we cannot identify which ideologies our views fit in.
Instead of looking through charts you should study the ideas and opinions of these politicians and see where they fit in.
Most of the time politicians want you to believe they are not part of "left" and "right" so they can get more votes.
Respectfully, but isn't this is just more labels to reconcile the gap between limited government and total anarchy, and an attempt to pigeonhole people like Ron Paul?
Some constitutionalist libertarians have tried to associate Paul with minarchism as a method to explain away some of his more statist positions.
Keep in mind, he has never professed to be one. Keep in mind also that Murray Rothbard, the founder of U.S. paleolibertarianism movement that Paul is influenced by, is what some would label to be an anarcho capitalist.
In addition, many senior libertarians frown upon the concept entirely. Per Bylund, an Associated Scholar with the Mises Institute, once wrote that "minarchist libertarians are nothing but gutless wimps; they are statist socialists with a fetish for smaller government."
So how would should we accurately label Ron Paul?
Considering he is a devout Christian, I would say he believes in the divine authority of governments. Also, since Paul is in favor of (just of the top of my head) legislating morality (pro-life, DOMA, DADT, etc.) and military adventurism (voted for AUMF), can we surmise that he has conservative/right wing tendencies? Dick Morris once said that Paul's non-interventionalist foreign policy is neoliberalist. To take that a little bit further, his support of legalizing drugs screams of liberalism.
Would a more accurate description of Paul's ideology be something like constitutionalist-right wing-conservative-deontological libertarian-Christian fundamentalist-liberal?
Or should we just agree that this does a complete disservice to Paul's complex ideology?
As soon as you begin to realize the complex spectrum of beliefs that we could potentially inhabit, consider that the chart are also limited, only capturing a facet of our thinking.
And then, compared the ideologies of political parties from different geographic regions. For instance, the leftist ideology as defined in American politics inhabits a remarkably similar spectrum as those of center-right Europe.
It's not surprising that what Americans believe are "leftist" ideas are considered "center-right" in Europe.
That's because the US has a history of limited government and Europe have a history of social democracy.
How would you reconcile this theory in comparing the pro-market, limited government American right wing and Europe's populist, nationalist and pro social welfare right wing?
It can't work both ways, right?
