This is only in the main American, Ron Paul understanding of 'Libertarian'. I am myself a Libertarian, but I'm a left-wing Libertarian. Obviously from this I am not going to treat Ayn Rand with much approval, though I have read her works. Libertarianism, or more accurately 'Classical Liberalism' is a much bigger philosophy than just Ron Paul and his ilk.
Yes, the American brand of Libertarians are mostly a scary lot. Many are tied up with the Tea Party and there isn't a solid, classically Libertarian group over here of any influence. Political philosophies can get pretty muddled and many people don't understand exactly what the philosophies are -- there are many who claim President Obama is a Socialist. The American Socialist Party (not that they have any considerable influence, either) laughs at this notion, but the belief has a lot of traction over here.
How do you describe left-wing libertarianism, or at least your own views? (I'm not being pointed, I'm genuinely interested)
Watch your terms. I'm not religious, but I am very spiritual. LGBT people (like me) want all the same legal rights and privileges when we get married that straight people get. You seem to think that's okay so long as it's called a "civil union" and not a "marriage." If all the legal rights and privileges are the same, then what are you trying to protect in the word "marriage"? The sanction of God? I'm an atheist; God means nothing to me. It's a little weird, and somewhat offensive to me, that someone might wall off a particular word from me in the name of a nonexistent being. I can't accept the claim that "marriage" is a word defined only by the religious and should be off-limits to the secular. To me, the only actually meaningful definition of "marriage" is the legal one, and LGBT people will settle for nothing less than fully equal "marriage" under the law. Not "civil unions"; marriage. I am being forced to pay taxes to support churches I don't agree with, simply in that they are tax-exempt, which means I have to pick up their slack.
Well, there are two main styles of left-wing Libertarianism really: Libertarian Socialism, and Left-Leaning Libertarian. Libertarian Socialism has it's closest analogue with Anarchism though this isn't quite right, where as left-leaning Libertarianism supports state capitalism, just with a reduced amount of government interference in daily life. Both forms of left-wing Libertarians have a number of areas of agreement with Democratic Socialists actually, people like George Orwell for a point of reference. It really does depend on what you mean between Libertarian Socialism and Left-Leaning Libertarianism, but both forms of left-wing Libertarianism consider the right-wing Ron Paul model as a danger to personal freedom, and that it replaces the tyranny of big government with the tyranny of big business and can only lead to inequality - and that, as I think Adam Smith called 'Wage Slavery', or treating people as just what they do as a job, is destructive to a person's personality. But both share the major distrust of big government, and left-leaning libertarians also share an advocacy of capitalism with the right-wing counterparts, just a different form of capitalism, one based on a taxed and policed free market - though with a reduced level of government intervention than is currently going on here in the UK, I certainly wouldn't have bailed out the banks for instance. It should be pointed out I'm using the word 'capitalism' in a very loose way. Libertarianism, according to Noam Chomsky, who identifies himself as a Libertarian Socialist, has never really meant the Ayn Rand sort anywhere other than in America, but that's unique to how America developed as a society and as an economy. This Randian-Ron Paul image of Libertarians is also slightly now in the UK with the now-popular party UKIP, though not very much, and it's certainly not the way I use the word. Historically (again, this is Noam Chomsky) 'Libertarian' has been more akin to Socialism than anything else, though this isn't exact, and it's kind of complicated in this area. 'Libertarianism' was one of the main ideas behind events like the French Revolution, and the German Unification movements of the 1800s. The basic ideas are pure Classical Liberalism. As far as I can tell France and Germany don't have this Ayn Rand-Ron Paul style of Libertarianism, so obviously something is different between Europe and the United States in this respect. To me Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism are pretty much interchangeable but not completely, there are a few finer points that stop this equivocation being exact. Though I must admit, I initially said 'Left-Wing Libertarianism' because I'm still not completely sure exactly where I stand, but I know I'm in this area.
