 The perception of libertarianism has a serious problem, because many people wrongly associate our entire movement with the American Libertarian Party, and they have earned themselves a reputation as being closer to a comedy troupe than a viable political alternative for both their reasoning and their presentation. I'll show you exactly what I mean with this famous clip from an LP presidential nominee debate. Should someone have to have a government-issued license to drive a car? Hell no! What's next requiring a license to make toast in your own damn toaster? The license to drive? You know, I'd like to see some competency exhibited by people before they drive. That is so fucking painful to watch, for god's sake. What you just witnessed was the response of what we call Big L Libertarians, which is to say that these people associate the word libertarian the same way they do democrat and republican, conservative and labour and so on. These people frequently embarrass the rest of us that would call ourselves small ale libertarians, because we hold the idea as a close evolution to the liberalism of the Enlightenment era. They, however, consider everything through a now review of reaction to the status quo, not through philosophy and determination. I'm greatly willing to bet that most of the people in that audience have not read a book by Rothbard Hopper or John Locke, because then they would understand that the question which Larry Elder asked at the start is not even the right question to be asking, and rather than just tell you what the right question should have been, I'll give you the reasoning to arrive at it yourself, and to do that let's consider the answers the panellists gave, except for Austin Peterson because he didn't really give one. Daryl Perry says you should be just as free to drive your car as using a toaster. Gary Johnson says there should be a requirement to show competency before driving. Who is the more libertarian out of the two? Is Daryl more libertarian because what he's saying allows you to have more freedom that you should be free to do as you please and nobody can do anything to stop you? Or is Johnson more libertarian by saying you must take the responsibility to show competence before you drive? What the question didn't address is the thing that you need to drive on but is the thing that you do not own. You own your car just as you own your toaster, but you do not own the road underneath your car whereas you own the roof of the house above your toaster. If you are not responsible enough to know that sticking a fork in your toaster could burn your house down is your neck on the line and your property. If you are not responsible enough to know not to drive a car with no brakes well you can do that on your own property but you have absolutely no right to do it on somebody else's property without their permission. The entire premise of private property is that it is an alienable right which means that you can acquire property through voluntary trade and are able to exclude others in its use as you choose. With this in mind let's ask again who is more libertarian in this situation Perry or Johnson and do you see why this was a pointless question in the first place? You're completely free to drive recklessly on your own property there are no laws against it as far as I'm aware but you are not free to do it anywhere else unless permitted. The word permitted permit license. If the road was owned by a private firm would they let anybody drive on it without discretion or would they want you to prove that you meet their standard before you use it? A private firm would be absolutely stupid to let anybody drive on their roads because people would avoid it like the plague if your road had a 20% fatality rate and the roads of your competitors were exceptionally safe. So when the government owns the roads why should they not be able to require a competency test in the same way a private owner would? Here's why the question is stupid because it should not be asked if you need a license it should be about who owns the roads should they be public property or private. As I stated property is rightfully acquired through voluntary exchange but the government takes the land via eminent domain then funds the road by forcibly taking people's money through taxation there's nothing voluntary about this process so the little L libertarian question is who has the right to own property and exercise their property rights not if the actual exercise of property rights is immoral. Any libertarian who would question that is a libertarian in name only and I say this very seriously because I hate gatekeepers who try to box out the impure but I say with great confidence that if you deny property rights and the responsibility that comes with them you have no reason to call yourself a libertarian and are either incredibly confused or uneducated. Let's imagine that in a totally privatized world competition somehow meant that it reached a point where road owners do not require licenses that would never mean it would be immoral for an owner to impose it as a rule on their property just that it would probably be unprofitable but as I said before there's no profit to be made when your service is a death trap compared to your rivals the way that we should view every issue involving government is in the absence of government would this action be deemed moral within the framework of the natural rights of life liberty and property government production and ownership of roads fails this criteria but requiring a license to drive on one does not this is the same general way that the best classical liberals would tackle moral conundrums and as libertarianism is an evolution of classical liberalism and not a wholly different thing then the same people who ratified our understanding of liberty would immediately lose their temper at the people in that room for defiling the very principles that they claim to adore we have to again remember that liberalism held in extremely high regard the rule of law and order to enter somebody's property in a conduct that they forbid is called trespassing the notion that trespassing should be allowed is both lawless and chaotic where we have evolved is to take the necessity of government in maintaining law and order to its lowest possible standing depending on who you ask that is either minimal or non-existent fortunately it seems that the libertarian party higher ups have learned from this embarrassing fiasco and are taking steps to return the wider liberty movement in the direction of Ron Paul and not vermin supreme or that guy who stripped off on stage and I think they managed to do it just before the damage was irreparable so before I end this video I ask you that when you're taking grievance with the actions of the government consider the legal implications of property rights underneath it all before you come to a conclusion the argument that government shouldn't own roads is very strong the argument that road owners shouldn't demand licenses is just deranged take it easy