Word: libertarian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...year students now support legalizing pot (the most since the '70s), and an astonishing 59% of 18-year-olds think same-sex couples should be able to legally wed. (Only about 30% of all Americans do.) But in the context of the other numbers, those positions may indicate a libertarian rather than leftist orientation. The Libertarian Party, which advocates minimal government interference in people's lives, has members on 306 campuses, twice the figure of 1997-98, according to James Lark III, a campus organizer and former party chairman...
...describe yourself as a Libertarian. Is that even a political designation anymore? I don't know. There's no one in the Libertarian Party who breaks through, even to Ralph Nader status. I've always thought of it as allowing people to do anything they wanted to do as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. Sometimes people say to me, "You're not a real Libertarian because Libertarians believe there should be no gun control." I'm not a radical Libertarian, O.K.? Every party has something of a big tent...
John Mackey is such a libertarian. His social conscience leads him to encourage consumers to purchase environmentally sound products, but he does not wish to impose that choice upon them by force. In fact, libertarians can hold any personal moral view without believing that their stance should be forced upon others. Libertarians can support unions, or workers’ collectives, or a stringent set of religious beliefs, and they can hope that others think the same way, but they seek to persuade, never to coerce...
Will Johnston’s thoughtful, nuanced piece on Whole Foods founder John Mackey (“Libertarian Environmentalist?” op-ed, May 3) gave an all-too-rare perspective on an important matter of moral preference: environmentally friendly goods and services. Though libertarians do not endorse using the coercive force of laws to make people kind or moral or environmentally conscience, they often hold very strong personal moral views...
...writer is president of the Harvard Libertarian Forum...