When Ron Paul is Elected...

Libertarianism as a political philosophy is not quite so complex - this has both very positive and very negative consequences. To be a Libertarian one must simply believe that each individual is born with unalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that government's sole responsibility is to defend those rights. There is room for atheists and believers in god(s) within Libertarianism, so long as you do not infringe on someone else's right to believe or practice their beliefs. There is room for drug addicts, prostitutes, porno freaks, and other social outcasts - the right to make your own personal choices of lifestyle is inherent in the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Anything goes, so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others (and obviously some exceptions when dealing with minor children).

As one would expect, the Libertarian party has many different factions just as any other political party, and many of these differences are quite severe. For example, there is a strong sector, though not nearly a majority, of Libertarians who are anarchists. Anarchism is totally unacceptable to Ayn Rand's Objectivism - when there is no one to make objective determinations of whether individual rights have been violated, the enforcement of disputes between otherwise good citizens falls into the hands of "private defense agencies" (a.k.a. civil war). In this kind of political structure, subjective whim determines right and wrong, and the winner is Nietzsche's Superman, not the interests of justice. The anarchist counter-argument is that Objectivism, practiced without contradiction, necessarily leads to anarchism, because this would be the only system which would not involve a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force. I tend to sympathize with the anarchists' position concerning the monopoly on force (what is to keep an "objective" monopolist of force from abusing the privilege?), but ultimately I believe in a single Supreme Court over a given jurisdiction (state or national) which makes the final decision on the law in that jurisdiction.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4612/lp-obj.html