Libertarianism

Re “A former elephant in the room,” Column One, July 23

Sure, it’s easy to make fun of Bob Barr, and turning the spotlight on the Libertarian Party is always good for a knowing laugh among your better-bred though dwindling readership.

But political reporting (The Times still wants to do that, right?) calls for a little more sophisticated insight than your writer’s ignorant reference to the “party’s hard-to-define ideology.”

It’s not so hard to define: individual liberty; limited government. It is the Democrats and the Republicans whose ideologies are hopelessly incoherent, with nanny-state scolds, heavy-handed regulators, property confiscators and appeasers of anti-Western tyrants running rampant in both parties.

Earle Miller

Pasadena