Libertarian Party

LIBERTARIANS BELIEVE THAT the government's intervention in the economy and personal life should be limited. Because neither of the two major parties fully endorses this position, the Libertarian Party is the institutional mean through which libertarians try to elect representatives to public office to promote their policies.

The party had little success in challenging the monopoly of the Democratic and Republican parties during its almost four decades of existence. As do other minor parties in the United States, the Libertarian Party faces a number of institutional and financial obstacles, in addition to voters' mistrust in the viability of such parties.

The party was founded on December 11, 1971, by a group of people disillusioned with the two major parties, and held its first national convention in 1972 in Denver, Colorado. Although the first Libertarian presidential ticket received only 2,691 popular votes (a mere 0.003 percent of the total vote), it secured one electoral vote from Roger MacBride, a Republican elector from Virginia who became the Libertarian Party's candidate for president in 1976. His vote for the Libertarian candidate for vice president, Theodora Nathan, was the first electoral vote cast for a woman in U.S. history. In 1978, Ed Clark received five percent as a candidate for governor of California, and Dick Randolph became the first Libertarian elected to state office as a Representative in Alaska.

The 1980 presidential election represented the best result of a Libertarian ticket, with Ed Clark and David Koch receiving 921,299 votes, the only occasion when the party rose above one percent at the national level. Currently, the party claims more than 200,000 registered voters and more than 600 people elected to public office.

Libertarians stress their ideological differences with both Democrats and Republicans. They criticize what they see as an excessive interference with the working of the free market, coming mostly from Democrats who favor high taxes and government welfare. Yet, they are equally critical of what they see as the Republican corporate welfare policies of handouts to business. Libertarians favor a laissez-faire governmental approach to the economy: lower taxes, less regulation of business and labor, and privatization of welfare and Social Security. On social issues, they also disagree with both Democratic and Republican positions, but especially the latter, whose social conservatism conflicts with the libertarian notion that the government should not interfere in personal lives. They favor strong protection of individual rights and civil liberties, claiming that each individual has the right to control his or her own body, actions, and speech.

Therefore, libertarians support privacy protection and sexual freedom, and oppose government interference in reproductive rights, including access to abortion. They strongly opposed the Patriot Act, and believe that marriage and other personal relationships must be treated as private contracts, solely defined by the [Page 372]individuals involved. Libertarians believe that instead of fighting real crimes, the government's resources are wasted fighting what they call victimless crimes (drug use, prostitution).

The libertarians' view is that individuals should retain the right to voluntarily assume the risk of harming themselves in the exercise of free choice. In foreign affairs, libertarians militate for a position of neutrality for the United States and its withdrawal from international organizations and alliances, more lenient immigration policies, and free trade.

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