Liberaltarianism
Posted this once already, after hearing the author's own synopsis on NPR: <a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6800>Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute.
Here, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the rival ideologies of left and right are both pining for the '50s. The only difference is that liberals want to work there, while conservatives want to go home there.
Can a new, progressive fusionism break out of the current rut? Liberals and libertarians already share considerable common ground, if they could just see past their differences to recognize it. Both generally support a more open immigration policy. Both reject the religious right's homophobia and blastocystophilia. Both are open to rethinking the country's draconian drug policies. Both seek to protect the United States from terrorism without gratuitous encroachments on civil liberties or extensions of executive power. And underlying all these policy positions is a shared philosophical commitment to individual autonomy as a core political value.
I recommend reading the entire piece, of course -- even though its thrust is economic policy, not social (the above quote notwithstanding).
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As for me...
I would call myself a small-L libertarian in the same manner that I already call myself a small-L liberal, and for the same reason:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
In short, I want government to cover our backs, not get in our faces.