Libertarian perspectives on political alliances vary greatly, with controversies among libertarians as to which alliances are acceptable or useful to the movement.
Most libertarians are political allies with liberals on social issues like the role of religion (which they wish to minimize, especially in government) and nontraditional lifestyles (which they generally defend). Others, including Murray Rothbard's followers like Lew Rockwell, call themselves paleolibertarians, and consider the religious, isolationist paleoconservatives to be their natural allies, despite sharp disagreement on economic issues. Paleolibertarians accuse other libertarians (whom they call neolibertarians, but who call themselves either classical liberals or simply libertarians) of surrendering libertarian values to the political left in order to gain traction in Washington, and of undermining morality by opposing or denying religion. Charlie Reese of LewRockwell.com said that "a society without an underlying private morality will degenerate into a corrupt jungle... I would rather live in a neighborhood of Islamic fundamentalists than in a neighborhood of atheists and agnostics... if we become an immoral people, we will eventually lose both our prosperity and our liberty."[4]
- ^ Hayek, F.A. Why I am not a Conservative, University of Chicago Press, 1960[5]
- ^ Reese, Charley. Religion Essential, Lew Rockwell's webpage, June 1, 2004[6]
- ^ Rockwell, Lew. What I learned From Paleoism, Lew Rockwell's webpage, May 2, 2002[7]
