I got this from Nick Weininger's Homepage.
Top Five Misconceptions About Libertarianism
5: Libertarians are just apologists for militia loons.
It's true that many militia members profess to have a libertarian ideology.
We support militia members' right to own guns and to speak their mind, as we
support everyone's right to do so. But those that initiate violent acts
against others are not libertarians. Libertarianism is based on nonviolence.
The Libertarian Party, to give one example, requires all its members to sign
a pledge that states: "I certify that I do not advocate or condone the
initiation of force as a means of achieving personal, social, or political
goals." We're opposed to anyone using aggression to achieve their ends-- be
they a militia member or a BATF agent.
4: Libertarianism is a nice set of theories that would never work in the
real world.
In fact, a wide variety of libertarian reforms have been tried in the real
world, and they've practically all worked. See Glen Raphael's
Non-Non-Libertarian FAQ for a list of many of these.
3: Libertarians aren't really against all kinds of government intervention-
they'd keep enough government to subsidize themselves and protect themselves
against "undesirables."
This is sometimes expressed by quoting Kim Stanley Robinson's saying
"Libertarians are anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
There are indeed some people calling themselves libertarian who really
aren't; a large number of Republican congressmen use libertarian rhetoric,
for example, and their policymaking record shows they certainly aren't
libertarians.
But in general, libertarians believe that government should, at most,
provide national defense, police, and courts, and nothing else. Many
libertarians are anarchists, and favor abolishing even these functions (I'm
not sure where I stand on this issue; it's one of the most important
internal debates in the libertarian movement). And even those who do favor
minimalist government favor it only as a means of ensuring that everyone's
persons and property are protected from aggression; we are united in
opposing all government programs that give special subsidies and protections
to favored groups.
2: Libertarians' frequent statement that "taxation is theft" ignores the
social contract, which binds us all together and makes the government a
legitimate provider of services.
What social contract? When did I sign this thing? Who laid out the terms?
And most importantly, why is one of the contracting parties- the government
providing me these services- also the enforcer thereof? Statists love to
justify their actions by citing the "social contract," a contract which none
of us signed and which is blatantly one-sided.
The libertarian belief that taxation is theft is based on the simple idea
that theft is always wrong, and that wearing a government badge, or acting
in the name of many other people, does not make a thief less of a thief.
Read the above-linked Non-Non-Libertarian FAQ for a longer exposition of
this idea, typically called the "how many men?" argument.
1: Under a libertarian system, no one would take care of the poor, and there
would be no social safety net. Therefore, libertarians are uncaring, elitist
Scrooges.
Variations on this substitute "children" for "the poor". Libertarians have
nothing against taking care of the poor or children, or against any other
cause for the betterment of society. If you want to go take care of the
poor, you're welcome to do so, and to exhort us to join you or to contribute
to your efforts. In fact, this would be a major and important task in a
libertarian society: the building of a social safety net based on private,
voluntary contributions. Poverty is a real and serious problem, worth
responding to.
Libertarians do, however, believe that it is not legitimate to steal from
people in order to care for the poor, or to advance any other social cause.
Thus we oppose all government welfare programs, as well as all other
tax-funded subsidies. The end does not justify the means.
But because we make that distinction between means and ends-- because we
believe that, as Yevgeny Yevtushenko put it, "the means must befit the
greatness of the goal"-- we are labeled uncaring and elitist. I believe this
reflects the mass media's indoctrination into the mentality of statism. They
simply cannot grasp the concept that there are real and serious problems in
society, problems which ought to be solved, but which it is inappropriate to
solve by governmental means. Perhaps they have even lost the idea that there
are workable nongovernmental means for solving social problems.
This idea, and the spirit of private voluntarism that goes with it, are
among the oldest of "traditional American values"; de Tocqueville remarked
on the American propensity for voluntarism in the 19th century. The mass
media may well have forgotten this. I am, however, confident enough in
Americans to believe that we have not forgotten the idea of private
solutions to common problems. And I believe that that idea will become more
and more prominent in the next century, as we continue to see how badly
government fails to solve our problems.