I once described myself as a “recovering Libertarian.” Well, the recovery is over. I think I’ve found my intellectual roots and I’ve boiled it down to a couple of labels, which, as a member of this group I feel duty bound to go beyond.
One label that fits me is “Bleeding Heart Libertarian.”
I didn’t invent the term. I found it during one of my online forays. This site, “BleedingHeartLibertarians.com” seems to be a nexus for a whole lot of left libertarians — as different from the Ron/Rand Paul flavored right libertarians as Bernie Sanders is from Hillary Clinton. Or Donald Trump is from … well, everybody.
This essay from The American Conservative gives a good grounding explanation of the differences. I encourage reading it. It may surprise a few people. It did me.