i don’t know much about libertarianism as a political philosophy or as a practical political program but i understand they are in favor of decriminalizing so-called victimless crimes. would this include prostitution and if so wouldn’t it be contrary to catholic teaching to condone such a thing?
Just as there are differences in opinions of the supporters of the Democratic and Republican parties, there are also differences in opinions of supporters of the Libertarian Party.
On one extreme are those folks who want to legalize everything like abortion, prostitution, drug use, etc.
However from a more centrist position of the Libertarian movement there is generally a belief that the laws of the United States should reflect the US Constitution and the various state Constitutions. At a national level there is one Libertarian in congress who runs as a Libertarian and member of the Republican Party. He often votes contrary to the Republican Party on specific types of issues.
Generally those issues involve things like overreaching federal laws, taxation, federal laws that limit the rights of states to pass their own laws, federal issues that interfere in the rights of other sovereign nations, etc.
It is consistent for a Libertarian to be Christian, but certainly not all Libertarians are Christian. Many Libertarians strongly oppose issues like abortion and the war in Iraq. Similarly they also oppose large federal social programs as they believe that social programs are best handled at state and local levels where there is more control on how the money is spent.
For example, Libertarians generally oppose things like the Department of Education on the grounds that it is not a Constitutional issue and therefore belongs to the realm of state and local control. Realistically most of the funding of our schools are from local money right now, if you look at the whole structure of local school funding in your community you will see that very little of it comes from Federal sources, yet being an “Education Candidate” is often something we hear from people running for national office. It is one of those red herring issues, people vote on emotion not realizing that the Federal Government has very little to do with our local schools.
With regards to drugs, you will find many Libertarians who would support the decriminalization of some drugs, particularly marijuana. However, many of those same Libertarians who would decriminalize it on the Federal level would suggest that it is within the individual state’s rights to tax, regulate and control the same drug. So voting for a Libertarian does not mean free drugs for everyone.
A central theme to Libertarian thought is that CENTRALIZED control of all laws is wrong and that LOCAL and STATE controls of laws is better suited to representing the needs of the various states/localities. The Libertarians typically rest on the US Constitution for their divisions between State and Federal authority as the whole point of the US Constitution was to reserve for the people the rights of the people (states) and grant only limited powers to the federal government. The reality today is that much of our Federal law is beyond the original intent of the framers of the Constitution. Understand too, that a Libertarian does not necessarily suggest that undoing the Federal law will result in “total” freedom, but rather than the law’s jurisdiction is rightfully moved down to the state and therefore the state can decide what is best for its people.
