What kind of Libertarian are you?

Herewith my vote: an Objectivist. Or at least, a serious student of Objectivism. With this difference: I believe in God, and am quite prepared to show that He exists, He has an agenda, and we ought not stand in the way. I will say also that He genuinely wants to spare you from certain eternal separation, with all that that entails. Here let me say that salvation has nothing to do with participation in a social-welfare program.

Now: what does Objectivism contribute to this debate? Objectivism teaches:

1. The world is what it is, not what we wish it to be.

2. Force is appropriate only in retaliation and only against them who initiate its use.

3. Government exists to manage force, and men need government to secure their rights.

4. Whenever a government *destroys* rights, the people have the right to alter or abolish it, and institute a new government.

5. The proper functions of government are: police, the military, and courts of law.

6. A free people have a right, though not necessarily a duty, to invade any society, the government of which practices four specific policies that, taken together, constitute an emergency of liberty. Those practices are: (A) Execution without trial. (B) Detention without a formal charge. (C) Restrictions on travel and especially ex-migration. (D) Censorship.

Any one of those four, by the way, gives the people in that society the right to rise up against their government.

7. The military has the duty to protect the people from invasion. It has the right, but not necessarily the duty, to attack a potential enemy before he makes himself strong enough to invade. It is even conceivable to an Objectivist--or at least, *I* find it conceivable--that extraordinary circumstances might arise that require a pre-emptive strike against an ill-natured foreign power that comes into possession of, or seeks to develop, a weapon or weapons of mass destruction and the means to deploy them against one's own people or an allied people. But such action should only follow a formal declaration of war by the most numerous branch of government--in this case, the legislature--unless such declaration is impracticable on account of the delay involved or for other clearly obvious and demonstrable reason.

(You will note that much of Point Seven above, I have adapted from Article 184 of the original Articles for the Government of the United States Navy, the Article dealing with the summary relief-from-command of a renegade captain.)