I've been puzzled lately regarding the seemingly contradictory nature of the Libertarian Party platform and of the mindset of it's followers. I've been doing some research in an attempt to understand the Libertarian movement in this country. The following paragraph,I believe,gets directly to the crux of the issue. This excerpt from 'THE LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT IN AMERICA' by George Friedman and Gary L. McDowell-1983 explains it best IMO:
"In an age increasingly unsure of its politics, in which party affiliation is at best tenuous, the libertarians have become the party for all reasons. A brief sample of the average libertarian platform reveals, as one observer noted, a tendency to swing so quickly from right to left "that it will give you a nosebleed." For example, the party routinely argues for the abolition of (among other things): import quotas; the FBI and the CIA; anti-gun laws; antitrust laws; anti-drab laws; anti-prostitution laws; child labor laws; anti-pornography laws; government poverty programs; public schools; police; no-fault insurance; busing; the draft ("conscription is slavery"); forced jury duty; the postal service; and social security (a "fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive system"). In short, libertarians tend to oppose all the things governments have traditionally done. The concrete advantage of this ideological breadth has been to increase the party's appeal in recent years. The spectrum, ranging as it does from the far left to the extreme right, has been sufficient to draw adherents from radical, liberal, and conservative ranks; disgruntled Republicans (the party was, in fact, founded by "disaffected Republicans unhappy with Nixon") 6 and bitter Democrats seem to mix easily with socialists and anarchists of nearly every stripe— from former members of Students for a Democratic Society to former members of Young Americans for Freedom."
http://www.potowmack.org/libmovam.html
"In an age increasingly unsure of its politics, in which party affiliation is at best tenuous, the libertarians have become the party for all reasons. A brief sample of the average libertarian platform reveals, as one observer noted, a tendency to swing so quickly from right to left "that it will give you a nosebleed." For example, the party routinely argues for the abolition of (among other things): import quotas; the FBI and the CIA; anti-gun laws; antitrust laws; anti-drab laws; anti-prostitution laws; child labor laws; anti-pornography laws; government poverty programs; public schools; police; no-fault insurance; busing; the draft ("conscription is slavery"); forced jury duty; the postal service; and social security (a "fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive system"). In short, libertarians tend to oppose all the things governments have traditionally done. The concrete advantage of this ideological breadth has been to increase the party's appeal in recent years. The spectrum, ranging as it does from the far left to the extreme right, has been sufficient to draw adherents from radical, liberal, and conservative ranks; disgruntled Republicans (the party was, in fact, founded by "disaffected Republicans unhappy with Nixon") 6 and bitter Democrats seem to mix easily with socialists and anarchists of nearly every stripe— from former members of Students for a Democratic Society to former members of Young Americans for Freedom."
http://www.potowmack.org/libmovam.html
