Is Costa Rica the only country in the world with libertarian congressmen?

As you can see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Assembly_of_Costa_Rica

they actually have libertarian congressmen!

 

There are a few congressmen in the US that can be considered to hold libertarian views.

 

But officially on a libertarian ticket?

 

C'mon on you guys help me out here!

 

What!? No one wants to help me here? Sure makes a guy feel small.

 

Well I did a short look into it, and for parties under the Libertarian name yes basically. Though it's not really a fair comparison, especially in the congressional/presidential system. In a parliamentary system the people running are really more just a represenative of the party then themselves, parties always vote on ideological/membership lines normally and have a very clear cut platform. In congressional systems(especially here in the US due to our vast size and 2 party system) the individual becomes more important as their views may differ quite a bit from the mainstream party.

 

Thanks. The reason I wanted to know is because I have been doing some edits to the LibertarianWiki.

 

Sadly, Costa Rica is ahead of the United States in this regard. I'm hoping that Movimiento Libertario (Libertarian Movement) gains even greater presence there. It would be great if their influence could be felt throughout the rest of Central America and into the rest North America and all of South America.

 

It won't be, and in fact most of the people voting for that party are probably the thousands of rich westerners who moved to Costa Rica and obtained citizenship

 

Sadly, I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the 'States, the only Representative in Congress that could qualify has having libertarian views is Ron Paul from Texas. A list of current Libertarian Party officeholders can be found here.

In New Zealand, there is one political party that seems to be libertarian leaning known as the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, which has five seats in their national legislature, called the House of Representatives.

In the Canadian province of Alberta, another libertarian leaning party, the Wildrose Alliance Party holds three seats in their provincial legislature in Edmonton.

Here's the Wikipedia link for a list other political parties worldwide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_libertarian_political_parties

 

On what basis do you make your first claim? Yes, it is true that the party currently holds five seats in the 57 member Congress, but they're still continuing to persevere. On the statement that many of the party's supporters are "rich western ex-pats", there the facts are not on your side. The party draws its support from people of diverse backgrounds.

 

I'm going by the same people who support the libertarian party in the US. Costa Rica is not a rich country, and poor people generally don't vote to give up their social benefits.

 

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the facts are not on your side. Many if not most activists in the Libertarian Party are not upper class! I'M not, and many of the activists from particulatrly my home state aren't either!

Moreover, while Costa Rica may not be the richest place on the face of the earth, they are almost definitely the most prosperous nation in Central America and probably rank among the top five or ten of all nations in Latin America. If a government allows its citizens a great deal of freedom and will allow ease in creating enterprises, you'll have less poverty and you won't need as many social programs. Besides, private charities go a longer way in providing for social remedies than do government programs! If a charity is embezzling money, it can be exposed and that charity will cease to exist! If the government does the same, what recourse do you have?

 

Actually no many charities don't have to expose their finances. And saying charities provide a better job at providing help then government agencies conveniently ignores all of history up to about the 1960's.

Again with people referring to the government as this thing. There's corruption in government because people are greedy, the same thing happens in private charities. Only difference is when too many people show up to the door for food and enough people didn't give that week a welfare office doesn't have to shake it's head and pull out empty pockets.

Also you live in Maryland, living in Maryland in itself is a social net, despite for the past 3 years ranking as the richest state in the nation by average income which use to be held by my state, Maryland for the past 25 years and then some has been taking more money from the federal government then it pays in, according to the tax foundation it at number 16 on the list, Connecticut on the other hand is at number 48

Also the fact though a lot of the new surge in libertarian support hasn't even come from people who should be libertarians, they're teabaggers who just hate Obama, hate the Fed even though they don't know how it works, and complain about taxes despite the fact they're mostly from the south, and it's the north east and west coast that has kept the south from be the shining beacon of poverty it really is for the past 45 years.

 

Libertarianism is the only policy of Government to be able to make happy claims on the existing recession for the lesson it gives to ignoring Environmentalists. In fact in a third world country it is able to develop policies conformable to environmentalist ethics.

What puts me off about the party is the basic premise of egoism within along with the demands that the courage to make friends is based on that cool salesman attitude.

Heck, I worked as a salesman before. Maybe they'll love me when I supply them with bribes.