This from the Libertarian Party Platform:
1.4 Abortion
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
1.5 Crime and Justice
Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property. [. . .]
The contradiction fairly jumps off the page. Government should be kept out of the abortion matter, we are told, and yet we are also told that government exists to protect the rights of every individual, including the right to life. This is contradictory. Consider a third-trimester healthy human fetus. If it is an individual, then government exists to protect its right to life by (1.5). But by (1.4) government has no role to play. Contradiction.
Will you reply that the fetus is not an individual? What is it then, a universal? Will you say it is not a human individual? What is then, a canine or bovine or lupine individual? Will you say that the fetus is not alive? What is it then, dead? Or neither alive nor dead? Will you say that it is not a biological individual, but a clump of cells or mere human genetic material? Then the same is true of you, in which case either you have no right to life, or both you and the fetus have a right to life. Will you say that the fetus is guilty of some crime and deserves to die? What crime is that, pray tell?
Will you say that a woman has a right to do anything she wants with her body? But the fetus is not her body. It is a separate body. Will you say it is a part of her body? But it is not a part like a bone or a muscle or an organ is a part. Nor is it a part like hair or mucus or the contents of the GI tract. Is it a part like a benign or pre-cancerous or cancerous growth? No. Granted, the fetus is spatially inside the mother, but that does not suffice to make it a part of her. I am spatially inside my house, but I am not a part of my house.
A fetus is a separate biological individual with its own life and its own right to life. The general prohibition against the killing of innocent human beings cannot be arbitrarily restricted so as to exclude the unborn. I could go on but I have said enough about this topic in other posts in the Abortion category.
Now consider this:
1.6 Self-Defense
The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.
This is basically on the right track and vastly superior to what your typical knee-jerk liberal gun-grabber would spout. Second Amendment rights are very important. And of course they are individual rights, not collective rights, as even SCOTUS came to appreciate. But the formulation is objectionable on the ground of extremism. Look at the last sentence: "We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.
This is just ridiculous. It implies that felons should be able to purchase guns. Felons should no more be allowed to buy guns than they should be allowed to vote. It implies that the sale of guns and ammo to children is permissible. It implies that there should be no safety laws regulating the manufacture of guns and ammo. It implies that citizens should be permitted to enter post offices with grenade launchers and machine guns.
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