I don't think it's fair to call someone who advocates against abortion and same-sex marriages a libertarian.
As far as same-sex marriage, Rand Paul thinks it is not the federal government's responsibility to regulate that. Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
As for abortion, even if you consider the fetus a "person," I don't see how a libertarian would make a good case for the government to force the mother to continue to sustain and provide for it.
> Removing regulation over social issues from government IS a very libertarian philosophy.
Delegating to the states is very different from removing the regulation. The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
So all neglect laws should be removed?
> The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation.
That requires a constitutional amendment. Those are not easy to get passed.
I am not a libertarian, so I wouldn't. But several libertarians I know have said we so, and also argue that there should be no duty to feed the poor, etc.
> The libertarian thing to do would be to ban such regulation. That requires a constitutional amendment. Those are not easy to get passed.
That depends on what regulation we want passed. The First Amendment already includes some pretty important limits on the power of government (included limits which Paul seems loathe to enforce).
"First Amendment ..." to the constitution. Are you just agreeing with me here?
That was the position of Murray Rothbard [1], who was one of the major intellectual founders of modern libertarianism, particularly anarcho-capitalism. He was a founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Most internet libertarians seem to be followers of his school of libertarianism (although they often do not know it...).
His book "The Ethics of Liberty" covers children in chapter 14. You can find the PDF online. There's a big chunk of chapter 14 here [2]. Here's the most relevant part:
Even from birth, the parental ownership is not
absolute but of a "trustee" or guardianship kind. In
short, every baby as soon as it is born and is
therefore no longer contained within his mother's
body possesses the right of self-ownership by virtue
of being a separate entity and a potential adult. It
must therefore be illegal and a violation of the
child's rights for a parent to aggress against his
person by mutilating, torturing, murdering him, etc.
On the other hand, the very concept of "rights" is a
"negative" one, demarcating the areas of a person's
action that no man may properly interfere with. No
man can therefore have a "right" to compel someone
to do a positive act, for in that case the
compulsion violates the right of person or property
of the individual being coerced. Thus, we may say
that a man has a right to his property (i.e., a
right not to have his property invaded), but we
cannot say that anyone has a "right" to a "living
wage," for that would mean that someone would be
coerced into providing him with such a wage, and
that would violate the property rights of the people
being coerced. As a corollary this means that, in
the free society, no man may be saddled with the
legal obligation to do anything for another, since
that would invade the former's rights; the only
legal obligation one man has to another is to
respect the other man's rights.
Applying our theory to parents and children, this
means that a parent does not have the right to
aggress against his children, but also that the
parent should not have a legal obligation to feed,
clothe, or educate his children, since such
obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon
the parent and depriving the parent of his rights.
The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his
child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from
doing so. But the parent should have the legal right
not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The
law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent
to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether
or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally
enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a
completely separate question.) This rule allows us
to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent
have the right to allow a deformed baby to die
(e.g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course
yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to
allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die.
(Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian
society the existence of a free baby market will
bring such "neglect" down to a minimum.)
If a parent is so terrible that literally the only force compelling them to feed their children is a legal one, then someone else should be raising that child.
The current system provides a mechanism for someone else to raise the child (CPS can take the child away).
In Rothbard's world, who intervenes in the case of parental neglect? The text implies that nobody intervenes.
Regarding abortion: Libertarians believe in individual liberties. So if you believe that an unborn child is a person, it is very consistent with libertarian-ism to protect its life. The crux of the debate is when does does a fetus become a person.
Regarding same-sex marriages: Again, relating this question to personal freedom, a typical libertarian position is that in the eyes of the law and gov't, a gay marriage should be the same as a heterosexual marriage. However, an individual should have the freedom to not participate in a gay marriage. In other words, saying one person has the freedom to marry who they wish and another has the freedom to not participate in the wedding is very consistent with libertarian views.
But not everyone believes that a fetus is a person. In fact people have quite divergent views on that question, and I am inclined to doubt the debate will ever be finally settled. It is more a matter of religion than of science.
I don't think it's consistent with libertarianism to enact an answer to that question into law when it is still so much debated.
Is it though? Most libertarians say the government shouldn't force you to feed a starving person, but banning abortion means forcing a mother to feed and care for another person (even if you consider a fetus a person).
> Regarding same-sex marriages:
Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
There's a difference between murdering a person and being forced to feed him. So assuming for this argument that a fetus is a person, an abortion would be akin to murder. Being forced to care for the person would be akin to being forced to raise him. Libertarians who believe fetuses are persons are arguing you can't abort the baby, but you can have the baby adopted.
> Can you explain how a governmental (even at the state level) distinction between marriage types is consistent with libertarian philosophy?
I might not understand the question, but many libertarians want the government out of the business of defining marriage at all except where it relates to interacting with the government. Paul seems to have dithered on this issue quite a bit, but this quote of his to National Review in 2013 seems fairly libertarian: "I'm an old-fashioned traditionalist. I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage...That being said, I'm not for eliminating contracts between adults. I think there are ways to make the tax code more neutral, so it doesn't mention marriage. Then we don't have to redefine what marriage is; we just don't have marriage in the tax code."
Until the baby is born, it does depend entirely on the mother's resources. It literally pulls energy out of her blood stream.
Now, I don't think fetuses are people, but if you believe they are then you have to admit that for the duration of the pregnancy the mother is compelled to feed and provide for that "person."
The core of the debate should be human life is not terminable based on convenience.
Anyone who argues that it is, personage, would have no way to argue against any war, past, present or future.
While pro-choice is the view held by the majority of libertarians, there is a large minority of libertarians that are pro-life and they are accepted as libertarians by almost all libertarians.
If every libertarian who disagreed with the libertarian majority on one or two issues were disqualified from being a libertarian there wouldn't be any libertarians left.
Ideally, these rights could be assigned piecemeal between any two individuals, with non-exclusion (i.e., polyamory is allowed.) Perhaps my spouse isn't the best at difficult decisions, and I'd prefer my stable son to be able to make difficult medical decisions, like whether I should be kept on life support. Perhaps I would like to file taxes jointly with my roommate for two years, if we shared household expenses.
In no way is granting gay marriage some kind of rights equalization, but an expansion of an already unfair system, so I oppose it, just as if white people could own black people, but not vice versa, I would not be in favor of allowing black people to own white people, and would oppose any such measure, while being in favor of real equalization by abolishing the system of anybody owning anybody.
Libertarianism is probably best not defined as a noun but as an adjective.