Talk:Libertarian Party (United States)

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Dallas Accord was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 2 August 2022 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Libertarian Party (United States). The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

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Date	Process	Result
February 19, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed

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Consensus on Political Position

Alright guys, we need some consensus on what the position should be. It is more reliable and more easily understandable if we include one. I propose:

Syncretic

Fiscal: Right-wing

Social: Left-wing

I shall explain this: On economic issues the party is for lower spending and taxation. This would match fiscal conservatism. On social issues the party is for legalisation of anything immoral but not hurting other people. I would like to see further changes to this model and the eventual implementation of such similar. Petjayso (talk) 02:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

i completely agree here. this should be added to the page. 67.7.10.76 (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Naw, actually is a right-wing libertarian party and currently supports departurism (the anti-abortion position) and anti-immigration politics (including enforcement of this through armed owners at the border).

The Libertarian Party is basically against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and any anti-discrimination laws, and it is ridiculous to consider it a leftist party. 93.38.68.62 (talk) 21:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Libertarians are not against Civil Rights in anyway and have repeatedly fought for them. The belief that rights do not come from the government is very different to believing that those rights do not exist.

There is a SMALL group inside the LP, the Mises Caucus, that literally had to stage a coup to convince the party to be at all right-leaning because the vast majority of the LP believes heavily in social rights. Groups like the Classical Liberal Caucus, the Radical Libertarian Caucus, etc. are all left-wing groups that get labeled right-wing solely because of the fact that they don't believe in the government spending money.

The party heavily backed BLM, heavily believes in LGB-with-the-T rights, and believes that movements like Defund the Police are crucial to freedom.

The LP has never been against abortion, and the link there literally points to the Mises Caucus that I mentioned above.

AFTER the far-right, by Libertarian standards coup at the 2022 LNC, these are the current thoughts on abortion:

https://www.lp.org/libertarians-on-abortion/

They are, essentially, "that's a personal question and the government shouldn't be making the decision for you." That's as far right as Libertarians get. Libertarians are not AnCaps. Libertarians are not the Mises Caucus.

There is a strong belief in charity, activism, and that the only way to get rights is to fight the government over it. All heavily left-wing ideals:

https://lpedia.org/wiki/List_of_Libertarian_Party_Caucuses

The vast majority support the idea that trans healthcare is human healthcare. That women's rights are people's rights. That the only people who should be making decisions on the best care for you are you, your parents (until you're an adult), and your doctors. And that kids whose parents are monsters, like Elon Musk, should be able to sue their parents into the ground. That freedom is left-wing.

Not believing that the government should be doing those things is very different than believing they shouldn't exist. Authoritarianism vs Libertarianism is very different than Left vs Right.

There's a reason that Libertarian-Socialists (the pre-Marxist or post-Marxist kinds), AnComms, etc. ARE welcome, but AnCaps are being fought so hard right now.

Heck, the entire reason that the Mises Caucus staged a coup with their 5% of the party is that *the party had decided to only softly support candidates to make sure that Donald Trump could not win in 2020, as we know that we usually pull more hardline Republicans than Democrats.* https://reason.com/video/2022/06/15/inside-the-mises-caucus-takeover-of-the-libertarian-party/

And after the coup, donations fell to historic lows, such that the LP announced they only have 2 months of operating income left, and are attempting to do a joint fundraising deal with RFK Jr. (which is being sued over, as it violates bylaws).

Libertarians are not right-wing.

Believing the government should let you do anything you want, as long as you don't harm another person, is very much not a right-wing ideal. Your friendly, neighborhood killer whale (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's notably less right-wing than the Republican Party but still should probably be a center-right or maybe big tent political position because it does have some smaller center to center-left factions. TYMR (talk) 01:19, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What would these center-left factions be? 93.38.68.62 (talk) 07:55, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does have some small libertarian socialist factions. TYMR (talk) 14:13, 30 June 2024 (UTC) https://www.collegemedianetwork.com/libertarian-socialists-organize-online-within-the-libertarian-party/[reply]

The faction merged into DSA years ago. 93.38.68.62 (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Things are frequently more complicated than such simplistic labels. Curbon7 (talk) 20:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with this. I don't think that there's any reliable sources that say it is socially left-wing. A Socialist Trans Girl 07:13, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Social liberalism

Most American sources that use "social liberalism" usually refer to social liberalism proper, not cultural liberalism. In any case, we use a source of questionable reliability. Honestly, the use of this term misleads the reader who thinks "social liberalism" is the center/center-left ideology that this party clearly does not support. 93.38.68.62 (talk) 21:41, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Seungri400 @Toa Nidhiki05 As I have already said "social liberalism" is a super-misleading term especially during the U.S. presidential election. How many sources published in the United States use "social liberalism" to mean "cultural liberalism"?

In addition, there is an obvious pov pushing (which has been going on for years) to try to make this right-wing party appear as leaning to the left. To be extraordinarily honest, it looks like a move to fool leftist voters.

Then, why do we use an authorless source on an archived page? 93.38.68.62 (talk) 09:08, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Social liberalism" links to "cultural liberalism" here, which is what that other term is called in American English. The phrase "social liberalism" has a very clear and distinct meaning in American english with no confusion - being liberal on social issues. There's no other context in which "social liberalism" is commonly used. Toa Nidhiki05 15:55, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Toa Nidhiki05 Come on, even the Mises Institute uses the term "social liberalism" to refer to the center-left ideology.

http://mises.org/online-book/critique-interventionism/social-liberalism/3-liberalism-and-social-liberalism 93.38.68.62 (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the critique of the label. While "social liberalism" and "cultural liberalism" sound the exact same to me, the two are clearly different concepts on Wikipedia; I don't think it's an attempt at POV-pushing, I think it's an ignorance of the two terms' different meanings. I say it should link to "cultural liberalism." Packer1028 (talk) 07:15, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I change the text from “social liberalism” to “cultural liberalism” per talk. 93.38.68.234 (talk) 13:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on terminology

With reference to MOS:ENGVAR and WP:UCRN: Are there reliable sources that substantiate the proposition that the term "social liberalism" is more extensively utilized in American English to denote "cultural liberalism" as opposed to social liberalism proper? 13:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC) 93.38.68.234 (talk) 13:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural liberalism is less ambiguous. A common phrase is "socially liberal but fiscally conservative", as opposed to "social liberalism" per se. Senorangel (talk) 04:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Being socially liberal, in the general senses of those independent words in American English, is not the same thing as being an aherent of social liberalism, a unitary term (with two words) for a particular ideology. Hell, even being a libertarian (l) doesn't necessarily make you a Libertarian (L), and voting Libertarian or registering as one doesn't actually necessarily make you an actual libertarian either. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Invited by the bot but I've been active long term on libertarian articles. The details make a big difference. It's VERY common in the US to say that libertarians are liberal (by the common US common meaning of "liberal" which is "left" and thus different than it's meaning in Europe) on social issues. E.G "socially liberal but fiscally conservative". "Social liberalism" and "cultural liberalism" are mostly academic terms which are not commonly used in the US. Neither of these terms is commonly used in the US and they are not a substitute for "socially liberal" type descriptions. North8000 (talk) 13:10, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with that as well. However, if we have academic RS that equate this socially liberal general positioning, of most but not all libertarians, with the ideology or political philosophy of cultural liberalism or social liberalism (and perhaps equate those two labels with each other), then we might be able to add that, and one or both terms to the article, with some explanation. But we're not, per WP:NOR, in a position to make up our minds that what someone means by the common phrase "I'm socially liberial" is "I am a promponent of social liberalism", nor to equate that with cultural liberalism unless RS do so and are not drawing any distinction between them. So, there are at least two distinct questions here, and I'm highly skeptical with regard to both of them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By piping to cultural liberalism, which we already do, we avoid that issue. This is an American article, and it's written in American English. Frankly, that's the absolute starting point here - and "social liberalism" doesn't mean social liberalism here, it means "socially liberal", or what other places call cultural liberalism. So the status quo is the best solution here. Toa Nidhiki05 13:07, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ideology

what do you mean Libertarian Party USA add libertarian socialist ideology? I don't understand, I don't know 2402:800:63A8:F383:95F8:FDA:57AA:16B6 (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Grnrchst help — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2402:800:63A8:F383:95F8:FDA:57AA:16B6 (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]