Ron Paul with Charlie Rose ~ Libertarianism Defined
Charlie Rose: "Define what libertarianism means to you" - Ron Paul: "The word I best describe it is something not a lot of people use. I call it non-intervention."
Charlie Rose: "Non-intervention in personal life, non-intervention in foreign policy, non-intervention in..."
Ron Paul: "There it is. Because it's sort of tells you what a conservative, a libertarian, constitutionalist, and liberal, classical liberalism has been used it's closely aligned with libertarianism, but non-intervention as you say. I don't want to interfere in your personal life. The one rule is you can't hurt another person, that's when government's necessary."
On a few points I agree with Libertarians (I was one once): that the primary purpose of government is to protect every person's rights. Another important purpose is to preserve the territorial integrity of the nation. Also, it should manage what is owned in common by the people which is all that Nature provided. After that it can fulfill any purpose that the population wants provide it does not compromise the purposes above. This latter point is a departure from the Libertarian philosophy.
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