| Party Chairman | Geoff Neale | ||
| Founded | December 11, 1971 | ||
| Headquarters | 2600 Virginia Avenue NW, Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20037 | ||
| Political Ideology | Libertarianism
Non-interventionism | ||
| Political Position | Fiscal: Free market, Laissez-faireSocial: Libertarian, Foreign Policy: Non-interventionism | ||
| Seats in U.S. Senate | 0 of 100 | ||
| Seats in U.S. House of Representatives | 0 of 435 | ||
| Colors | Yellow or Gold | ||
| Website | Libertarian Party Site | ||
The Libertarian Party is a United States political party founded on December 11, 1971. More than 200,000 voters are registered with the party, making it one of the largest of America's alternative political parties. Hundreds of Libertarian candidates have been elected or appointed to public office, and thousands have run for office under the Libertarian banner.
The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects that group's particular brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration across borders, and non-interventionism in foreign policy that respects freedom of trade and travel to all foreign countries.
Platform[]
Key tenets of the Libertarian Party platform include the following:
- Adoption of laissez-faire principles which would reduce the state's role in economic government. This would include, among other things, markedly reduced taxation, privatization of Social Security and welfare (for individuals, as well as elimination of "corporate welfare"), markedly reduced regulation of business, rollbacks of labor regulations, and reduction of government interference in foreign trade.
- Protection of property rights.
- Minimal government bureaucracy. The Libertarian Party states that the government's responsibilities should be limited to the protection of individual rights from the initiation of force and fraud.
- Civil libertarianism: Support for the protection of civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and sexual freedom.
- Opposition to civil rights laws that regulate the private sector, such as affirmative action and non-discrimination laws.
- Support for the unrestricted right to the means of self-defense (such as gun rights, the right to carry mace, pepper spray, or tasers etc).
- Opposition to the censoring and the engineering of foreign radio pathways.
- Abolition of laws against "victimless crimes" (such as prostitution, driving without a seatbelt, use of controlled substances, fraternization, etc.).
- Opposition to regulations on how businesses should run themselves (e.g., smoking bans)
- A foreign policy of free trade and non-interventionism.
- Support for a fiscally responsible government including a hard currency (commodity-based money supply as opposed to fiat currency).
- Abolition of all forms of taxpayer-funded assistance (welfare, food stamps, public housing, Health care, etc.)
- The issues on which the party is most divided are intellectual property and capital punishment.
- A belief that abortion is a personal issue, and should not be part of government. This is often improperly associated with pro-choice viewpoint, which calls for legal protection of abortion.
GovernorGary Johnson, current Libertarian Party candidate for President in the 2012 election.
Libertarians state that their platform follows from the consistent application of their guiding principle: "mutual respect for rights." They are therefore deeply supportive of the concept of individual liberty as a precondition for moral and stable societies. In their "Statement of Principles," they declare: "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose." To this end, Libertarians want to reduce the size of government (eliminating many of its current functions entirely).
Libertarians reject the view of politics as a one-dimensional spectrum, divided between Democrats representing the Left or Center-left and Republicans representing the Right or Center-right