So, from just where is the rest of the world getting this clearly very prevalent perception of Switzerland as a huge liberal utopia where great herds of bare-@rsed vegans roam the meadows of the high alps in a zero-crime environment washing their hair in Swiss Formula shampoo?

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I mean, surely it can't all be her fault! Or can it?!?!?

Maybe because of stories like this?

Naked ramblers

Female intuition tells me another Weejeem in Switzerland visit is upon us. Brace for complaints about the price/quality of meat/beer/restaurant meals, weather, lack of sea access, sour-faced locals and unavailability of milk purchasing at midnight.

Yes, but surely noone's going to watch that naked ramblers thing and think that this is the norm? Or that we spend the rest of our time smoking fondue in our alpenhorns?

Or am I too being naive?

I don't recall complaining about sour-faced locals, but I do congratulate you on your prescience

Now I'm confused (I get that a lot, I'm Dutch); I thought it was a Libertarian utopia, where every gun totin' rascal could fire away and never pay tax again.....

what changed?

Because of these threads?

Prostitutes should be at least 18 says the Cabinet

Weed??!! What is the law here?

Park where you like in Zurich for 90 days!

If you don`t find perfection in your Owen place ,we tend to look somewhere ells for it. Green grass ringing cowbells !

I thought it was the great libertarian gun-loving country? Crap. No memo. Must speak to minion about this.

Exactly. The grass always seems greener on the other side of the ocean.

Thread summary so far: apparently libertarianism equates to free 'n' easy gun ownership. Switzerland has lots of guns. Ergo, Switzerland is libertarian.

Libertarians are as conservative if not more conservative than Republicans. They scare me more than that clown in Poltergeist.

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Ah well, if you want your civil liberties, you gotta take the clown as well. After all, TANSTAAFL ...

Huh?????????????????

Leave me out of that one, please.

A libertarian is somebody who believe in personal liberty and according to my particular view on it does not give a stuff about party politics and resents being labeled as such. Sorry, not trying to talk for liberterians everywhere, just for me.

How would you label the members of the third largest party in the US, then?

Anyway, back to the topic. If libertarians aren't interested in party politics, then based on the number of party-backed referenda and the enthusiastic participation in them, I seriously doubt there are many libertarians in Switzerland. Conclusion: surprisingly, Switzerland isn't liberal after all.

1. I would call them members of a party that they called the Libertarian Party of the U.S.A. The concept itself much older and libertarians all over the world may be horrified to be lumped in with some U.S.A. political party....gods forbid anybody would ever think that I would have anything to do with the politics over there....crackpots, all of them.

It is terribly nice of you to think that "Libertarian Party" of the U.S.A. came up with these ideas and that they represent all libertarians on the planet because as you know us poor Europeans could not string together a political party in a parliament building with a fist full of constitutions. We really suck when it comes to politics and have the worst possible systems anywhere in the world...but once again, thanks for your kind thoughts. (Too much? )

I personally would not label them anything because it is quite important for libertarians not to go around labelling other people. I don't know very much about what they think and I care even less.

2. Your on-topic justification is non sequitur; therefore your conclusion may be faulty (and on second view your conclusion is non sequitur as well). A libertarian is more of a non-political animal than a political animal in my view. They may have political bents but those are separate from the ideology of being a libertarian.

It would be like saying that a vegetarian or an environmentalist needs to be a democrat or a republican.

Libertarianism is a long standing and proud way of thinking that finds some of its formal (as formal as it gets at least) roots in Europe in Geneva during the time of the reformation. It is an interesting idea.

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Living it up in Gersau.

...or would be, if any three libertarians could agree on what "it" "is".

And gosh damn, that is what is so interesting about the whole thing! Try explaining that to people so that they can understand what it is all about. I loose hair every time!

Sorry, and you forgot to add the " around what as well.

Many thanks for telling me what I think -- for I certainly didn't express any of the thoughts you've listed above, anywhere on this thread (or elsewhere). I think that underscores the distasteful aspect of libertarianism: self-professed libertarians seem to exude a holier-than-thou aura and believe they are entitled to inform the world of the error of its ways (anything not congruent with their own beliefs being an error, of course).

No, it's sequitur, in fact; it follows your statement on libertarians' attitudes to party politics. It also directly relates that statement to the involvement of Swiss citizens in political activities, which is highly relevant to the OP.

Well, yes, a little, as I've outlined above.

Careful, if you do that too much it'll fall out.