Jim2, I respect your right to your own beliefs, but they are not libertarian. There are too many examples of utterly non-libertarian policies in your post, e.g. Honestly, you sound much more like a leftist/progressive with utopian pie-in-the-sky communist values.
“I believe the government should supply a social safety net.”
Not libertarian at all, and the social safety net we have now started small and is out of control already after only 80 years.
“one with no income would get $16,000, no questions asked. The person could do with it as he pleased. If that person gets a job, the government would give him less money,”
this shows a poor understanding of the incentives government handouts create in the real world. Once you’re getting money for nothing, you are very reluctant to risk any reduction in that check by working. That is reality. This idea is totally pie-in-the-sky and not libertarian in any way.
“Some basic medical care could be provided, but for the most part it should be supplied by non-profits.”
People who try to “vision up” an advanced society by reducing profits are not libertarian.
“I believe the EPA plays a valid role in regulating chemicals in the environment. CO2 isn’t one of those, IMO”
Right. We’ll have an EPA, and it will only do what you want it to do, and will refrain from regulating things you think are inappropriate. Please realize this is just not happening. The EPA is not accountable to anyone. Sure they may ask for comment on their rules, but they do what they want in the end. Like nearly all Federal bureaucracies, they have gone completely rogue.
“I believe government should fund basic R&D.”
Right, like Solyndra etc. What about private for-profit entities? They put a rocket into space, so what can’t they do? This belief you express is not libertarian at all.
“Lobbying by business should be against the law.”
Libertarians don’t believe in making things against the law unless they violate someone else’s rights. If you don’t want businesses to lobby, then you have to reduce government’s power over them, and over the economy itself, which will give companies less to lobby about.
“Guns should be lightly regulated”
How “lightly”? Are guns ok, as long as they’re at home? Unloaded perhaps? Only 6 shooters? Certainly not in schools, and never ever on planes, right?
News flash: Libertarians tend to believe in the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Oh, and the operative part of that is the second part, the one that says “the right of the people to keep AND BEAR arms SHALL NOT be infringed” The first part could say anything at all, and the Amendment would have the same meaning. The context of the first part was a time of war, where we had no standing army, and every able-bodied American man was the militia. Whether or not we have a militia, the Amendment still means what it says.
On drug legalization: “”It can be a source of tax revenue.”
Most libertarians wouldn’t subscribe to giving the government more money. I think the idea that the government in any way needs more sources of tax revenue is ridiculous. Sorry, but although I admit the idea you have expressed idea is popular among many, it is not libertarian. Your error might be that you don’t realize that more tax revenue doesn’t lead to government solvency and never has. It only leads to more expenditures, more debt, and more power, so your logic is flawed at the root.
All in all, I suggest you go back to the drawing board and figure out what to call your political beliefs, because they aren’t libertarian at all. Sorry.
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