The Difference Between What Liberals Believe, What Libertarians Believe, And What Ron Paul Believes
September 2, 2011
By Matthew Desmond

I’m constantly barraged with comments from liberals who tell me that Ron Paul is the only real candidate Liberals should support. The most prominent argument I hear is that Ron Paul would legalize cannabis and other drugs, but to me that is not enough criteria to be considered a “Liberal”.

Another thing I see constantly is people falsely conflating the terms “liberal” with “libertarian”, and “libertarian” with “Ron Paul”. Anyone who has researched the libertarian platform beyond what Ron Paul preaches knows that a large portion of what Ron Paul advocates for is not in-line with libertarian doctrine.

In order to help inform people of the difference between the terms “liberal”, “libertarian”, and “Ron Paul”, I’ve made a list of 5 key issues showing the difference between what liberals, libertarians, and Ron Paul believe.



1. Women’s Rights:

Liberals believe: Women should have the right to choose what to do with their own body, and it is up to the Government to make sure women are granted this right.

Libertarians believe: Abortion is a personal choice, that shouldn’t be regulated by the Government.

Ron Paul believes: States should have the right to choose whether or not women can legally have an abortion. Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would deny a woman the right to choose.



2. Drug Laws

Liberals believe: The Government should reexamine its drug policies, to make them more relevant to the 21st Century.

Libertarians believe: Drug use is a personal choice, and shouldn’t be regulated by the Government.

Ron Paul believes: The government should legalize all drugs.




3. Marriage Equality

Liberals believe: Marriage equality means that everyone should have the right to marry the legally consenting adult they love, and that the Government should guarantee that equality for everyone.

Libertarians believe: Marriage is a personal choice, and shouldn’t be restricted by the Government.

Ron Paul believes: State governments should have the right to decide whether they legalize same-sex marriage or not.



4. Corporations and Regulations

Liberals believe: It’s the government’s job to regulate corporations, to protect the people from predatory practices.

Libertarians believe: The Government shouldn’t have the right to regulate businesses.

Ron Paul believes: Telling businesses to do anything is unconstitutional, and so is investigating them. After the BP oil spill in 2010 Ron Paul was the ONLY congressman, out of over 400, that voted AGAINST giving subpoena power to the independent committee responsible for investigating BP.



5. Discrimination

Liberals believe: Discriminating against anyone for any reason is unconstitutional, and the Government’s job is to protect the minorities from bigotry from the majority.

Libertarians believe: People are entitled to their own beliefs as long as they’re not hurting anyone else.

Ron Paul believes: Businesses should have the right to discriminate against anyone for any reason, and that it’s unconstitutional for the Government to tell businesses they can’t discriminate against people. Ron Paul has said repeatedly that he would vote against the portion of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits businesses from discriminating and segregating their customers.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/02/the-difference-between-what-liberals-believe-what-libertarians-believe-and-what-ron-paul-believes/

Kind of interesting to see them all lined out like that.

Liberals consider the government the "Ref" in the game, Libertarians want anarchy and Ron Paul, well he is on his own planet.

These are very nice generalizations.

This can be #6

Liberals want a collective society devoid of free thinking and total subservience to the state. The elite hoard the wealth and rest do their bidding and live as slaves.

Libertarians want people to be able to think freely and act freely as long as they don't bother others.

Ron Paul preaches individual liberty as a God given right and the foundation of a free society.


yeah.. The liberal way is much better..

I am a Libertarian.

NOT a liberal.

Good post!!

Except liberal actually prefer individuality so that can't be a correct generalization at all.

Libertarians want anarchy.

I prefer having a referee ie the government to at least mitigate when wrongs are done.

People may not be as a general rule, mature enough to live without a ruler at this stage of human evolution. But ideally, if humans lived by the law of love, they could live peacefully without political rule.

It is the ideal golden age to live free and peacefully. It is liberty.

Great as an individual way of life. But cannot work with our human faults in a larger arena.

I live that way, by the law of live and let live. Allowing for others to live how they wish as long as they are not harming others.

Would like to sum up all liberals.

#1. They never get anything done.
#2. They don’t hole people accountable fore their actions.
#3. They field they are better qualified to make basic
decisions for you and your dependants than you are yourself.

not so. i'm certainly no liberal but roe v wade granted no rights to women. it merely upheld the fourteenth amendment. government grants nobody any rights. our constitution merely restricts the government from infringing upon certain rights that we've had since birth.



a severe contridiction. if libertarians believe that abortion is a personal choice that shouldn't be regulated by the government, with which i agree, and ron paul is a libertarian, then why would he believe "Ron Paul believes: States should have the right to choose whether or not women can legally have an abortion", then that flies in the face of the premis that government stay out of a woman's right to choose. states are government which roe restricted from making laws regarding a woman's right to choose.




so libertarians and liberals see it the same way, guarantee that fovernment does not infringe upon anybody's right to marry but ron paul believes as conservatives believe that government, the states, should decide the legality of who can marry and who cannot.

Anyone can get married to anyone. That is a fact.

What Liberals want is for the government to force employers and other people to recognize the marriage in question and grant the common privileges associated with being married.

Libertarians have it their way. Personal choice is not restricted by the government. A person can "marry" whom ever they want.

You can enter into a marriage contract of any kind on a personal basis.

Whether or not you can force other people or the government to accept that contract as valid, or give you all the privileges and acknowledgement afforded a legal marriage should not matter to a libertarian because they believe in liberty.

A liberal on the other hand, wants the government to force other people to accept and acknowledge the marriage.

For a Libertarian, a marriage contract is a private matter. It is a personal agreement between two people. There is no government involved.

That's how I view libertarian.

You have oversimplified Libertarianism and conflated it with
Anarchism in your post. The way I read it - this is merely a
vehicle to discuss Ron Paul's backward politics - fine. But
here is a better description of Libertarian from the first wiki
paragraph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

As you can see, Libertarian is somewhat of a catch-all description
for those who wish to limit centralized government in various ways
but in general it is not anarchist and accepts that there should be
very significant restrictions of various activities by the government. Many support public assistance in various forms for
example or even reject private ownership.

=-=-=-=

Libertarian schools of thought differ over the degree to which the state should be reduced. Anarchists advocate complete elimination of the state. Minarchists advocate a state which is limited to protecting its citizens from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Some libertarians go further, such as by supporting minimal public assistance for the poor.[1] Additionally, some schools are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources while others reject such private ownership and often support common ownership instead.[2][3][4] Another distinction can be made among libertarians who support private ownership and co-operative ownership of the means of production; the former generally supporting a capitalist economy, the latter a libertarian socialist economic system.

i once took the 'political compass test' and was surprised to find myself in the libertarian box until i saw others along side me who i'd never considered to be libertarian as todays libertarian party is portrayed. ron paul was not included in the famous folks who were displayed on the chart but i don't think he'd fall anywhere near me on the compass.

for anybody interested in taking the test: http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

I enjoyed taking it and reading the commentary. I was pretty much
centrist according to their scoring just a little left economically
and slightly on the libertarian side rather than authoritarian.

yeah, i'm close to center but slightly right on ecconomics and below the authoritarian/libertarian line.

kewl test,, showed up as left/libertarian,, like Ghandi..lol

On a personal scale, I think most people want freedom and most people don't want some government butting into their lives.

So if we are honest, I think most people are libertarians.

Except the control freaks who want to be dictators.

same here bro

Ron Paul 2012! I'm always amused when media types try to smear him and libertarians in general like this. It just shows how petty, ignorant, and scared they are.

I plan on voting for him.

Id have to hear more from him , on the spot, in the debates

and Id have to see who he picks as a running mate being that his age increases the chance he could die in office and leave them to run things