A minor tempest was stirred up yesterday when U.S. Representative Tom Perriello, a candidate for reelection in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District, claimed in an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner that some of his votes, such as that for comprehensive health care legislation, can be justified by a “libertarian undercurrent” in his political perspective.

From the Blogosphere
Blogger Norman Leahy at Tertium Quids wrote that “If you ignore the federal mandates, taxes, penalties and denials of individual choice and freedom, then Perriello has a point.

“But,” Leahy continued, “that would require ignoring the legislation entirely.”

Joe Sciarino, cited as a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Libertarian Republican blogger Eric Dondero that “Congressman Perriello clearly lives in a fantasyland where, magically, voting for a government-takeover of healthcare somehow doesn’t constitute stripping Americans of an individual right.”

To find out what authentic libertarians think about Congressman Perriello’s claims, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked two local Libertarian Party leaders for their reactions.

Local Libertarians React
James Curtis, treasurer of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, said that he tries “to be optimistic and trust that everyone has some libertarian tendencies and would hope that more people would actually give some true insight into those tendencies and follow up on them.”

With regard to Congressman Perriello, however, Curtis has concerns that “in reading his comments, and having heard previous comments, is that he either misunderstands the word or he is misrepresenting the word in order to misrepresent his own positions because, frankly, based on the congressman’s record and some of his statements, he seems to be almost the antithesis of a libertarian.”

Perriello “is either confused,” he said, or “he understands the word libertarian is becoming more popular, [and that] more and more people are starting to identify as libertarian, and he sees this as an opportunity to misrepresent himself to those who don’t understand their own libertarian leanings.”

Jim Lark, secretary of the Jefferson Area Libertarians and former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, modestly admitted “I’ve not been designated as the official enforcer of what is or is not libertarian [but], at least the way I use the term, the way I interpret the term, I don’t think Mr. Perriello is particularly libertarian.”

Lark pointed out that “libertarian is an adjective as well as a noun, and so there can be people with a libertarian disposition without being ‘libertarian’ in terms” that a self-identified libertarian would understand.

He added that “from everything I’ve seen about him and his support of government regulation of all sorts of aspects of our life, I don’t consider him a libertarian.”

Libertarian, or Tolerant?
In an appearance on The Schilling Show on WINA-AM earlier in the day, Lark had suggested that Perriello might be confusing the meaning of “libertarian” with that of “tolerant.”

Expanding on that notion in his interview with Examiner.com, Lark explained that “the idea is that libertarians as a group tend to be very tolerant of differences in terms of how people live their lives as long as those people engage in peaceful, voluntary activities, as long as they respect the rights of others.”

Some people, such as Perriello, may be “using the term libertarian to refer to that aspect of the behavior of libertarians.”

What Lark called “the libertarian perspective,” however, “involves much, much more” and when such people use “libertarian” to mean “tolerant” what they “really looking at is only one aspect of a much broader, bigger perspective.”

To say the least, Perriello’s claims to be libertarian in his approach to politics are being met with skepticism.

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