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Just lurking as usual and have a few observations:

Despite some valid points made by both sides of this debate, it's really only one side that has devolved to truly vicious name-calling:

"Fool" (posted by one individual 7 times or more)
"Sod off, troll" (posted in variants at least 5 times)
"What a child you are."
"Apparently you're an idiot..."
"Shove it out your ass."

And on the other side: "Losertarians."

I admit to having some "libertarian" leanings, but since "libertarians" feel so strongly about what that word means depending on who is being addressed, I prefer saying "as an American, I have right to not be regulated into slavery."

We can debate federalism all day long, but if the federal government does not adhere to this part of the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

...Then libertarians (big L or small l) are not being wholly truthful. Drugs, like alcohol and tobacco sales, can be a matter relegated to the states, but the truly serious life and death issues, like federal border security, abortion and marriage are matters that the federal government can and MUST have a hand in.

Read that again where the Preamble states that We the People of the United States MUST "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

For goodness' sake, the Republican Party was founded in part to demolish polygamy and slavery and secure those God-given Blessings(not government given)! And I would posit that counterfeit marriage and government-sanctioned murder of pre-born children are certainly worse that polygamy and slavery.

If a libertarian feels so strongly that the federal government should have no say in these issues and just pass them off to individual states, then they are not adhering to the history of the National Republican Party. Then again, the Republican Party is not adhering to its own history.

The GOP is fragmented and dying, and this libertarian-conservative debate just underscores that.

I've always been drawn to libertarianism all my life, but I could never pull the trigger because they always end up in some amoral, absolutists, anarchist, place I couldn't go. Our Founders were Christians with guns and that's the way they designed the countries laws. Libertarians always end up denying the Christian part. If taking drugs destroys your life, people cared enough to figure that destroys their citizens. If we want to control who comes in the country, we need a border or we will end up like the hell hole they are escaping. Can anyone really believe our founders thought we should be able to abort God's gift to women because they might get stretch marks ? Should we not mingle with the world's politics for future generational security? I understand all the arguments pro and con, but to leave critical thinking out in order to keep some pure principle denies the real world experience.

It's sort of scary to think they would see a person laying in the street, in their own vomit, with a needle in their arm, and walk by muttering, He's on his own and whatever doesn't affect me is on his head". After watching libertarians for over 50 years, it seems that's where they always aim and it always ends up towards the anarchy end of the scale with no "brothers keeper" feel to it. Just as we see right now, Obama is ignoring the plight of almost everyone around the globe, what he is setting up for our kids is a world drowning in evil set against America's existence. It angers the libertarians to say "Obama is acting libertarian in world affairs", but that is exactly what they prescribe. In two or 3 years, we will be facing a reunited Soviet Union with nukes aimed at us, our children dead or in jail for what they've done on drugs, and a country with no border that looks more like Honduras than Honduras. We could use a libertarian as Treasury Secretary, but for little else. Our Founders told us that the Constitution is only good for a religious, moral people, because they knew the human heart was evil and needed regulation, if not by God, by law. As we fall further from God, we have more and more law. Freedom is a concept no one could conceive but our founders 250 years ago, and even today, using us as a template, it seems no one else can even emulate what they have seen here. I've often said we should go to another country and offer a Bible and a copy of our Constitution to follow our footsteps, but the character of an American Christian is almost inconceivable to a foreigner. They almost always opt for absolutism of some sort. If conservatives lose the Republican party, we will have sentenced ourselves to decades of pain for no reason. Libertarians have been split forever between the social issues of the Democrats and the economic issues of the Republicans. A "Rockefeller" Republican was basically a guy wanting a tax cut and lower spending, but leave me alone on social issues. It seems we were there for most of my life until the silent majority came in and the Gingrich revolution a little later. IMO, you can try to handle all the economic and social issues all you want, but if God isn't the center of the reason you do it, it will always fail. Put God first, and everything else will take care of itself. We have been a blessed nation for over 200 years, but I fear that is over. Born again Christians have been marginalized by hedonistic Dems and libertarian Repubs. There is a third way, the way of the Founders,....Freedom with God as our King. Without God, there can be no freedom.