What makes somebody a libertarian?
Question 11 in Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded
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A libertarian is a person who opposes aggression against peaceful people. Aggression is defined as the initiation of physical force, coercion, or fraud against person or property, including credible threats thereof. The central, defining tenet of libertarianism is often referred to as the “non-aggression principle” (NAP). According to the NAP, actions such as murder, assault, rape, theft, kidnapping, slavery, or the like all constitute aggression, and are never justified.
Libertarians desire peaceful, voluntary cooperation with others. Libertarians categorically reject actions that violate the rights of others to their own lives, liberty, and property. A right is a legitimate, enforceable claim upon one’s person or property. Libertarians believe that peace is both ethically preferable to violence and better for making society prosperous. However, the NAP differs from radical pacifism in an important way: it allows for the use of proportional force in retaliation against an aggressor (a person who violates the rights of another person). NAP also differs from the Harm Principle (see Question 174)in that the focus is on the action initiated, rather than the harm caused.
Libertarians do not believe in using physical force to prevent people from indulging in vices or to punish them for their bad habits. This is because libertarians do not believe the use of force is justified when a person’s action does not violate the rights of others. Most libertarians still regard harmful vices as wasteful, undesirable, and even immoral. Libertarian Christians generally maintain the traditional, biblical view on being wise and fleeing from sinful indulgence (2 Timothy 2:22). We deny that force and compulsion are the best means for addressing such sinful behavior and its earthly and eternal consequences.
