Rand Paul questions Democrats on war via his Facebook

[ozone_man]

34. In earlier times, there was Jefferson.

And in modern times Chomsky. Both were/are left libertarians. The latter a socialist too. Labels... Watch the usage of the capital L and small l, as it helps differentiate between the modern Libertarian party, and simply having libertarian ideals.

There is a divide between Hamiltonian democracy (central banking) and Jeffersonian democracy (agrarian economy), not necessarily in this link, but it's out there. Hamiltonian is what we have, our FED banking, Goldman, JP Morgan and all the Wall Street sleaze, military industrial complex. He won, though he lost the dual.

http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpco57.htm

Libertarian Democracy

It is not possible to separate Jefferson's "democracy" from his "libertarianism" without doing damage to his overall political thought. Taking democracy as government directed ultimately by the will of the people, and libertarianism as the protection of individuals in their inalienable rights, it is clear that Jefferson expected a government controlled by the will of the people to be kept in check by them, and that the people themselves would then be able to see to it that their liberties were secured. Jefferson's "system" of government may be seen as composed of three coordinate aspects: (1) a human mechanism for exerting ultimate regulatory control, (2) a structural means for implementing free government, and (3) a philosophy of free government to guide its structure and administration. The controlling mechanism was the sovereignty of the people en masse; the structural means, a constitution with its republican forms; and the philosophy, the inalienable rights of individuals and the principles of republicanism. Supreme over all this was the "will of the people," because without that, no philosophy could implement itself, and no structure would remain pure for long. Indeed, without the control of the people, who or what would see to it that the nation was directed by a philosophy of free government? Without their oversight, who or what would assure that the protections for inalienable rights would not be dismantled by despotic interests? Written documents alone cannot guarantee individual rights unless those documents place power in the hands of the people who will see to it that their rights are preserved.

"The mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816.

Moreover, it is the spirit of the people that keeps a republic on course, not just the written documents, although those are essential also, of course.

"[Our] object is to secure self government by the republicanism of our constitution, as well as by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpetuate that spirit." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

But without the people, without their spirit and participation, the structure of a republic would soon disintegrate.

"It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

This is the mechanism that protects our individual rights. It is democracy itself that preserves liberty, and not merely the structure of the government, not even the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These last will all be gradually enervated if the people do not remain on their guard. And any disparagement of the democratic process by those who profess a love of liberty is a strike against the only means whereby liberty itself can be established and preserved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Libertarianism

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˌnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, [13][14][15][16] cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[17] Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics.[18][19][20] Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, an anarchist,[21] and a libertarian socialist intellectual. Chomsky is often viewed as a notable figure in contemporary philosophy.

Beginning with his opposition to the Vietnam War, Chomsky established himself as a prominent critic of US foreign and domestic policy. He has since established himself as a prominent and prolific political philosopher and commentator; he is a self-declared anarcho-syndicalist as an adherent of libertarian socialism, which he regards as "the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society."[22]