LIBERTARIANS BELIEVE IN VOLUNTARY ECONOMICS

John Sonntag (Letters, Jan. 23) has clearly expressed his hate and scorn
toward libertarian principles and those who espouse them. But what are
these terrible, threatening principles?

Libertarianism is simply the belief that each of us has a right to do what
we choose with our own body and property, as long as it doesn't interfere
with the right of others to do the same. We believe that the only valid
function of government is to protect this fundamental right against
foreigners (hence the military) and against domestic criminals (hence the
police and justice system).

We believe that the government has no business interfering with voluntary
economic transactions between adults or telling us what substances we are
allowed to put into our bodies or confiscating property from those who
earned it in order to give it to those who didn't.

To call libertarians greedy is absurd. We simply believe that each citizen
(not the government or the majority) should have the right to decide how
much of his or her own hard-earned money to give away, and whom to give it to.

ERIC P. KLASSEN