History has a strange way of repeating itself. It’s almost as if a pendulum swinging back and forth dictates the extremes of political control. Barring the recent election of Senator Obama to the presidency of the United States of America, the nation’s focus seems to be turning toward different agendas within the “Libertarian Party” or the “Party of Principle”.  The “Party of Principle" must become unprincipled, or their failure to account for the elderly and set realistic goals will continue to hamstring the “total freedom” agenda.  

(From Wikipedia) Key tenets of the Libertarian Party platform include the following:
• Adoption of laissez-faire principles which would reduce the state's role in economic government. This would include, among other things, markedly reduced taxation, privatization of Social Security and welfare (for individuals, as well as elimination of "corporate welfare"), markedly reduced regulation of business, rollbacks of labor regulations, and reduction of government interference in foreign trade.
• Protection of property rights.
• Minimal government bureaucracy. The Libertarian Party states that the government's responsibilities should be limited to the protection of individual rights from the initiation of force and fraud.
• Strong civil liberties positions, including privacy protection, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and sexual freedom.
• Opposition to civil rights laws that regulate the private sector, such as affirmative action and non-discrimination laws.
• Support for the unrestricted right to the means of self-defense (such as gun rights, the right to carry mace or pepper spray, etc).
• Abolition of laws against "victimless crimes" (such as prostitution, driving without a seatbelt, use of controlled substances, fraternization, etc.).
• Opposition to regulations on how businesses should run themselves (e.g., smoking bans)
• A foreign policy of free trade and non-interventionism.
• Support for a fiscally responsible government including a hard currency (commodity-based money supply as opposed to fiat currency).
• Abolition of all forms of taxpayer-funded assistance (welfare, food stamps, public housing, Health care, etc.)
• The issues on which the party is most divided are intellectual property and capital punishment.
• The party officially is pro-choice on the issue of abortion.
 
A Utopian society is a hardly a new concept. In “An American Utopia and its global audiences: transnational perspectives on Looking Backward” Carl Guarneri explores Edward Bellamy’s book written in 1888. This book would be the predecessor to many other versions of utopia, with over 40 novels immediately following its publication in the United States alone.  When asked, Philosopher, John Dewey and historian Charles Beard placed Looking Backward second only to Marx's “Das Kapital” as the most influential book in the last fifty years, inevitably planting the seeds that would sprout the Libertarian Party as we know it today.  If Karl Marx is the father of Communism then Edward Bellamy must be the father of Libertarianism.
Most versions of utopian society don’t account for man’s greatest virtue or weakness. The instinct of self-preservation and basic human greed are not figured into the equation. Intertel President, Kort Patterson examines the issue in depth in his paper “The Dynamics of Competition” published in 2004. The harsh reality is that someone has to provide goods and services. Without the significant opportunity for reward there is no reason to excel. This leaves negative reinforcement as our only recourse. Kort’s contention is that in artificially manufactured environments our baser instincts tend to take over. “One context that can often release the darker side of human nature is when individuals, who have adapted to a certain constraining social dynamic, are suddenly exposed to an artificial situation where that balance has been radically distorted. In much the same way as an engine under load will over-rev to self-destructive levels if that load is suddenly removed, humanity's legacy instinctual competitiveness, left over from more primitive environments, also tends to "over-rev" when suddenly released from constraining social dynamics.”  

According to the United States Social Security Office of Policy, fifty five million people currently receive social security benefits, averaging nine hundred and ninety five dollars per recipient, and eight million people receive supplemental income from SSI (Social Security Income) averaging four hundred and fifty three dollars per recipient. Of those, thirty six million are age sixty five or older with no way to earn a living anymore, and twelve million are disabled. Without social programs to care for these people they would be homeless, impoverished and disease ridden, with the burden of responsibility for them shifted onto the backs of already over-burdened religious and charitable organizations. Ironically the very establishments that have contradicting agendas with many of the Libertarian ones.
Little or no taxes would mean little or no money for many worthwhile projects. Infrastructure projects such as roads and utilities would suffer, as well as education for the less fortunate almost ensuring a life of economic slavery. This economic barrier would replace all others including, race, religion, and sex. With little or no hope of improving their lot in life, drugs and prostitution legalized, and no moral compasses it’s not hard to see the obvious path for the majority of the population. Statistics gathered by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, indicate the use of illegal drugs us down. “Past-year marijuana use among 10th-graders dropped from a peak of 34.8 percent in 1997 to 24.6 percent in 2007. Current cocaine use has remained stable between 2002 and 2006 (there were 2.4 million users in 2006 aged 12 or older); however, a positive trend is the decline in use of crack cocaine, particularly among younger age groups. From 2001 to 2007, the percentage of 10th-graders reporting past-month use of crack declined from 0.7 percent to 0.5 percent.” Prescription drugs used for unintended purposes is rising “Also of concern is the increase in past-month nonmedical use of prescription drugs among young adults aged 18 to 25, from 5.4 percent in 2002 to 6.4 percent in 2006. The increase is being driven largely by the use of pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin. Furthermore, in 2006, the number of new initiates in the nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers was roughly even with that of marijuana among persons aged 12 or older.”

Without some kind of revision of the current unrealistic Libertarian platform, there appears to be no end in sight. That may be an inherent problem given the individual nature of your average Libertarian. The Libertarian Party remains a loosely run organization connected only by a common dream of a capitalist utopia.