A friend sent me this Libertarian "Plan for America", and it essentially reinforces to me why I would never vote for these guys in a million years.

It's your basic Libertarian stuff...withdraw militarily and economically from the rest of the world, and eliminate most laws and regulations. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

I only marginally agree with his views on affirmative action and gay rights, but damned near anybody who thinks there are certain areas the government shouldn't be involved in will find some common ground with the Libertarians. Problem is, most Americans don't want all laws and government programs eliminated...so that's kind of where the rub is.

You should go read the plan, though. It's chock full of fun, specious, undocumented, and unsupported assertions. Like...

One such study estimated that the death toll from regulations that do more harm than good cost 60,000 American lives each year.

Wha-huh? What study? Which regulations? I could see how regulation could impact the economy...that's a fairly standard argument. But de-regulation is more likely to cause deaths, through industrial pollution, unsafe working conditions, etc. How does overregulation kill people?

In 1999, 824 people died from firearm accidents, while the defensive use of guns saved approximately 400,000 lives, in most cases without even wounding the aggressor.

Um...okay. Where exactly is he getting these statistics? What's that? He's pulling them out of his ass? Yeah, that's kind of what I thought, too.

He even likes this stat so much, he uses it twice.

Then, while still discussing crime, he goes on to mention Japan as a beacon of low crime, and attributes this mostly to the tradition of restitution (e.g., criminals apologizing and often paying penalties directly to their victims). This sounds like a good practice, but the idea that it's behind low crime rates in Japan is specious. Crime rates in Japan tend to fluctuate with changing economic conditions, as evidenced by the large increase in crime in Japan during their latest decade-long recession. Also, as I've pointed out previously, it is difficult to gauge the level of domestic crime in a country like Japan, in which there is great pressure to not report crimes such as spousal abuse, child abuse, and rape.

Like I said, when he talks about marriage rights, I'm with him:

Should gay marriage be permitted? Is such marriage a basic human right or an abomination that should never be sanctioned? Gay Marriage is a topic that has not only divided the politicians in Washington D.C, it has also divided families and even individuals. Perhaps it's time for America to ask a different question: "Should lovers jointly decide what their marriage will be or should government dictate the terms of their most intimate union?"

Right on, dude. Unfortunately, I'm not with him when it comes to selling heroin and AK-47s at your local Wal-Mart.

Still, I'm glad there are Libertarians around, and I'd almost wish they were a little more prominent in the political debate.