On second thought, because you're an American, maybe you are misled by the US meaning of the nomer 'liberal'. But, it was only in the USA that 'liberal' became associated with Big Government and social programs like the New Deal. Elsewhere, liberalism remained to be focused on freedoms (especially where those weren't yet achieved).
In the seventies, US economist Milton Friedman et al, the so-called 'Chicago school' who 'helped' Pinochet, created the theory that 1) the smaller the state and the more private the economy the better ('markets regulate themselves'), and 2) economic 'freedom' should be there first, it will create political freedoms second. This is called 'neoliberalism' world-wide, but in the US, used less often. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I am actually German, but have lost track with German politics big time since 1980. I apparently have no clue what the FDP is all about these days. I am lost. Also, from across the Atlantic, I couldn't get the divide between East and West Germans. I had to watch reunification on the TV set and have these days to host interns in their twenties from both parts of Germany, which made it clear to me that I have lost the capability to understand what's going on in Germany. I even don't vote anymore in Germany because of that.
I am a German too and the FDP is definitely NOT libertarian in the American sense. (Hmm, you could probably compare them to center to right-wing Democrats in the USA?)
Pro-market yes, but if they ran on a "libertarian" platform they´d be lucky to even get 5% of the vote.
1. The reason you are confused is because most people, and alsmost everyone in the media, gives inaccurate and incomplete labels and/or descriptions to the political/economic theories or parties.
Its absolutely inaccurate, very confusing and even foolish, to divide the political spectrum into left and right.
The ultimate question is the individual freedom vs. state control.
5. This site has the world's smallest political quiz - http://www.theadvocates.org/index.html
Look at the upper right portion.
(a) In essence there are 5 positions:
(1) the abolition of the income tax. On the contrary, 2 American parties have it in their platform.
(a) the Libertarian Party (b) the Constitution Party.
(b) the free trade.
(c) abolition of inheritance taxes, capital gain taxes.
(2) taking the state out of the education.
In sum, there are few libertarians, but no libertarian party. Of course, in France, there is Sabine Herold who is a libertarian and got 80,000 people to protest against the unions.
I have to admit that I don't like it. You can have restrictive (ie authoritarian) rules concerning taxes for example to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth among the population, which would end up in the best case szenario as giving more people more freedoms.
You have to defend freedom of press and freedom of opinion against authoritarian hate speech to ensure that everybody feels comfortable to voice their opinion and not be bullied into silence. These would be authoritarian measures to protect freedoms.
So, I have my doubts about the top to bottom kind of scale. A fundamentalist libertarian can allow freedoms to be destroyed for the sake of staying truely libertarian and that doesn't make sense to me.
3. You have to defend freedom of press and freedom of opinion against authoritarian hate speech to ensure that everybody feels comfortable to voice their opinion and not be bullied into silence.
(a) THere is an American Nazi party. Big deal. They can print hate speech. They can march and protest. Big deal. They are miniscule. Plus, once you have their opinions aired, you can debate them, show them how irrational or dangerous they are.
(b) same goes for the KKK.
4. Give me an example where your version of protecting against the hate speech provides more freedoms.
Cheers
There is no evidence taht the Libertarians do not want freedom of press or opinion. The question is (a) which method provides the most individual freedom; (b) which method is more productive.
