Re: Death penalty
I have the right to kill in self-defense, and if you get down to it, if somebody killed my family, in a primitive society I have the basic right to go out and kill them. In a civilized society we assign these rights to a government and place them under the restrictions of objective laws, with objective standards of proof and sufficient protections for the accused to keep innocent people from being punished.
You are correct that a number of libertarians oppose the death penalty. However. I'm not one of them. Where I have formed different conclusions from those who have formulated a philosophy, I go my own way. Even Ayn Rand was full of it on a few things.