Actually, I found Dave's analysis quite refreshing!

I have found that most of the libertarians I've met are altruists as well.

FIRST, without a draft, NO ONE is being forced yo go fight -- I say that as a Nam Vet, who was effected by the draft 40 some years ago, when I was studying with Milton Friedman at Chicago. MORE significant, your statement that islam is NOT a threat to civilization is so head in the sand blind as to not be worth much response -- just note that the Koran DOES call for abuse of non-muslims, and abuses muslims themselves in putting belief above FACT. It took the Mongol tribes and Vlad the Impaller to stop them in the past, now we may not be able to stop them as unlike either Nazis or communists, they do not care if EVERYONE dies!
Those who recognize the value of freedom and liberty MUST move to eliminate the islamic doctrine everywhere --- just as small pox can not be tolerated, so too islam, and Libertarians should be leading the charge!

How many do you know?

You mean this one Robbie? "The Tree of Liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots" http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson...

I am not a "Conservative". I am a radical for freedom and invidual rights. Almost paraphrased from what Rand says. So-called conservatives generally want to conserve a lot of status quo and are generally very much against human freedom in various areas like the sexual, what substances you do or don't provide, how you dress, what opinions you can legitimately express where, etc.

They are an infringement at times. A speed limit of 65 on open interstate across near desert is surely utterly pointless. The objection though is that rational individuals can better judge road conditions at various times than any bureaucrat can.

Your last statement is completely absurd.

No, he doesn't remotely reject weh value of freedoma and liberty for all. He rejects the notion that a supposedly free country can force some of its people to go fight to free a supposedly less free country whether they choose to do so or not. HUGE difference. Islam is not a menace to civilization. Don't be absurd. The worse fundamentalist creeps in that camp have no real military to do much damage at all. Almost all religions extoll putting reason and individuality and your own values behind belief. So at least be consistent.

IMHO Leonard Piekoff has done a lot of damage to objectivism making it more like some staid church or shrine instead of the very joy and essence of fully alive living for rational beings. Starting with his fight with David Kelley which was grossly overplayed.

do you mean classic liberal? cuz I do not see progressives believing in social freedom. you could not have an EPA under social freedom, for example

Most objectivists I know are not philosophers. They are cultist I am ashamed to say as I am objectivist. They are in the cult of Rand quoting her without bothering to think deeply as she did. They despise anyone that tries to actually apply objectivism doing their own thinking starting from it as being some kind of heretic.

So no, objectivists as a rule are not philosophers.

What Rand thought of Libertarians is not relevant to what the differences are and are not though. Many libertarians are not remotely hippies and many of her time when she claimed this were not either - especially the intellectual core of the movement. Libertarians of the US type have a deep hatred of socialists. Anarchism is a logical endpoint of that government being best which governs least. It at least deserves to be asked whether in fact all thinks that a government does can be done as well or better privately. Murray Rothbard explores this very deeply and well. The position deserves more respect than a just "well Rand hated them".

I want to go far beyond the Constitution. It obviously has very serious flaws or we wouldn't be in the sort of situation with a tremendously bloated and out of control government that we are in now. In particular the "for the general welfare" clause should be stricken entirely. And the interstate commerce clause should be nailed down to only be about removing trade restrictions between the states and nothing else. Also the areas that are subject to government control and/or voting need to be very clearly delimited. The current Constitution is not explicitly restrictive enough of government power. It really could use an Amendment or other language creating a separation between Economy and State.

Absolutely not. That is the most inessential diffentia I have encountered in some time.

Being made unfree by a state or local government is still not being free. It is no improvement to unjustified initiation of force to have it done by those more local vs further away. Surely even the most modest of intellects can see that.

Then they are simply wrong. The constitution was not inspired my Christianity. It was inspired by and based on the ideas of the Enlightenment and especially on individualism. Many of the founders and principal writers were Deist at best. If they knew of evolution then to explain so much of the biological richness of the world I suspect far more would have been outspoken agnostics and atheists.

Basing individual rights in a belief in a non-provable and contrafactual purported Deity makes individualism and freedom far weaker and easier to lampoon than it would otherwise be. Whether you believe in God or not please please do not ground individualism and freedom on that belief. It harms all of us.

Protection of property yes. What is and is not legitimate "intellectual property" and why is a much more specialized question.

Agreed, but those inconsistencies are prevalent in almost every concept. Gary Johnson may speak for the party, just as Ayn Rand spoke for objectivists, but their concepts transcend them. After Ayn Rand laid out the the parameters for objectivism, it would be fully possible for her to disagree with where those parameters lead her compared to what other people may find. Just as Gary Johnson may be following the principles of libertarianism to the wrong end.

Hmm yeah you might be right on that. However if we are dealing with three political parties, a single individual could agree with a mixture of anyone of them. I suppose you could call such a person an independent, though I think that would make up almost everyone, as very few people agree completely with an entire political platform.

Its ok to know where I live, I own guns.

Now, on to business. There should be as little imposition to human freedom and the exercise thereof as possible.

The slippery slope (solely my own view):
porno - not for me, but knock yourself out if that floats your boat. No kids though.
drugs- again knock yourself out, but if you use drugs and harm someone else or something else or cause the harm of someone or the destruction of their property - you go to jail without parole for many years OR lose your liberty to servitude to pay restitution. (my ideas, not necessarily anyone else's).

Abortion - No, with some exceptions. Individual freedom dictates the right to sleep around with whoever you want as often as you want. It is up until the point of conception - the fertilization of the egg - that a woman's choice is her own. The life inside her from the point of the first split-cell is a person, a defenseless one, and need be protected. Choice for women (and men) in this day of contraception should make sleeping around much easier to be responsible. Rape is an exception as is incest.

Are you 10 year old? Taxes were imposed temporarily to pay for things. Temporarily as in they were imposed for a limited time and then expired. It wasn't until progressive Woodrow Wilson than an annual rape of the American people became common place.

Here, read: http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/hottopic/...

Also, if you're going to act like a jackass please feel free ignore my posts. A modicum of maturity would be helpful to iron out who is accurate and who is not.