Dear David:

In my view, thick libertarians can be libertarians, but need not be. As long as they adhere to the non aggression principle, and private property rights based on homesteading, they can be good libertarians. For example, someone who supports those two principles, but, insists that in order to be a good libertarian you must also (fill in the blank here: support chess, oppose chess, support checkers, oppose checkers, or take any other position irrelevant to these 2 principles, such as atheism or belief in god, etc., etc.) For example, right wing thicksters believe you must also support the nuclear family, Christianity, oppose pornography, addictive drugs. Left wing thicksters maintain all libertarians must also favor homosexuality, bi-racial marriage, feminism, etc.  Some thicksters do not really support the two basic principles so in my view they are not libertarians to that extent.

Best regards,

Walter

From: David
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: On “paleo-libertarianism”

Dear Walter:

Recently in my country some “libertarian” groups aligned with so-called “paleo-libertarianism” have appeared. However, their activism is based on things like opposing abortion and preaching the word of God. Some argue that libertarianism has a Christian basis, and therefore as libertarians we must defend the traditional family, among other things.

In my opinion, paleo-libertarianism and “Christian libertarianism” are variants of what you call “Thick Libertarianism”. Should they be considered libertarians at all? Or they are nothing more than conservatives who are enemies of the big government.

Thank you.

Best regards,

David

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