Traditional "libertarianism" holds that government is evil and thus must be minimized. Any and all government intrusion is bad. While practical libertarians (as opposed to those who waste their votes on the Libertarian Party) have traditionally aligned themselves with the Republicans, it's clear that the modern GOP has no qualms about trampling on personal liberties. Heck, it's become their raison d' etre.

The problem with this form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty -- the government and other individuals.

The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty -- the corporation. The Libertarian Dem understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties.

This is great, and echoes things I've written here a number of times in the past: the overlap between liberals and libertarians is considerable, but the inability of classic libertarians to see the problem with corporate power undermines the value of their philosophy. However, it's unclear why Kos would call himself a "libertarian" as opposed to simply a "liberal", since most of the attributes of his description of a libertarian Democrat seems like it would apply to most liberals:

In other words, government can protect our liberties from those who would infringe upon them -- corporations and other individuals.

So in practical terms, what does a Libertarian Dem look like? A Libertarian Dem rejects government efforts to intrude in our bedrooms and churches. A Libertarian Dem rejects government "Big Brother" efforts, such as the NSA spying of tens of millions of Americans. A Libertarian Dem rejects efforts to strip away rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights -- from the First Amendment to the 10th. And yes, that includes the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms.

So far, this isn't much different than what a traditional libertarian believes. Here is where it begins to differ (and it shouldn't).

A Libertarian Dem believes that true liberty requires freedom of movement -- we need roads and public transportation to give people freedom to travel wherever they might want. A Libertarian Dem believes that we should have the freedom to enjoy the outdoor without getting poisoned; that corporate polluters infringe on our rights and should be checked. A Libertarian Dem believes that people should have the freedom to make a living without being unduly exploited by employers. A Libertarian Dem understands that no one enjoys true liberty if they constantly fear for their lives, so strong crime and poverty prevention programs can create a safe environment for the pursuit of happiness. A Libertarian Dem gets that no one is truly free if they fear for their health, so social net programs are important to allow individuals to continue to live happily into their old age. Same with health care. And so on.

The core Democratic values of fairness, opportunity, and investing in our nation and people very much speak to the concept of personal liberties -- an open society where success is predicated on the merit of our ideas and efforts, unduly burdened by the government, corporate America, or other individuals. And rather than always get in the way, government can facilitate this.

Of course, this also means that government isn't always the solution to the nation's problems. There are times when business-government partnerships can be extremely effective (such as job retraining efforts for displaced workers). There are times when government really should butt out (like a great deal of small-business regulation). Our first proposed solution to a problem facing our nation shouldn't be more regulation, more government programs, more bureaucracy.

The key here isn't universal liberty from government intrusion, but policies that maximize individual freedom, and who can protect those individual freedoms best from those who would infringe.

However, passing lightly over his quite incorrect interpretation of the Second Amendment (which addresses itself to the regulation of militias and not to private gun ownership for its own sake) the clue to why Kos believes that "libertarian Democrat" is a more apt description than "liberal" comes in a paragraph I skipped over:

Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

There's the nub of it: amazingly, Kos, whose weblog has, perhaps more than any other, brought to our attention the need for Democrats to frame issues in ways that helps them rather than accepting the narratives promulgated and propagandized by the opposition, has swallowed one of those right-wing frames hook, line and sinker. He apparently accepts as gospel that a "liberal" means someone who is in favor of government intervention in all things at all times, someone who never saw a government program he didn't like, and whose basic philosophy is "tax and spend." This seems to be the reason he sees himself as a "libertarian Democrat" and not a liberal, and why the new political philosophy engendered by netroots activism is more properly labelled as "progressive" rather than "liberal."

In point of fact, the tax-and-spend big government liberal never really existed, it was, and is, a grossly exaggerated stereotype created by the Right and propagated by them to stand in as the best possible straw man for their arguments supposedly in favor of "small government" (which turn out in practice to be actually in favor of big, authoritarian, corporatist government). That Kos has internalized this enough to cause him to reject the classic and honorable label of "liberal" is perhaps understandable, given the era in which he came to political maturity, but very regrettable in a person of his influence.

Kos, those things you wrote about are what liberals believe in, real liberals, not the libellous Republican/right-wing caricature.

More on libertarianism here.

Related: Greg Colvin in The Washington Monthly on The Progressive Trinity: Family, Business and Public Service.