Are you saying the act of self-sacrifice alone is not an act of bravery and that in order to be an act of bravery there must be certain desired consequences or a least the minimising of certain undesired consequences ?

Although civilians have not been intentionally targeted in recent conflicts they have been on previous occasions. From a strategic perspective Al-Qaeda would not been able to inflict large scale military casualties on America prior to 9/11.

Thank you for your reply. I think you have touched on an important point namely the difference between the broad idea of libertarianism and its particular incarnation in the American libertarian party. If we are assuming that when the term libertarian is used in public discourse it refers to the American libertarian party, then Bill Maher is certainly not a libertarian. I was simply questioning the validity of this assumption. The link was provided to show libertarianism is more nuanced and was not an endorsement of Noam Chomsky. Thanks for the link; interestingly the article touches on similar assumptions made when when we use the term liberal.

When a soldier is willing to die for a cause that they believe in they are celebrated for their bravery and sacrifice. However when a terrorist is then willing to die for a cause that they believe in with no less conviction than our brave solider we label them a coward. There is a clear inconsistency here. I am not suggesting that the two motives are morally equivalent but if we accept the idea that the act of self-sacrifice is an act that requires courage then we have to accept that terrorists are brave however repugnant that idea may seem.

In response to Patriot66.

It is true that in Britain the new coalition government is currently implementing large-scale spending cuts to public services. The National Health Service however has been ring-fenced with the new government promising to match the previous labour governments proposed investment.

People on this board are making the same mistake Maher does in dismissing those who disagree as stupid. It was a shame he had to bring a premature end to the debate on climate change because it was “boring” I thought that this was an example of precisely the sort of anti-intellectualism he is supposedly so against.

There are number different philosophies that come under the term “libertarian “ and so there is no single “libertarian position “on a particular issue such as healthcare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism. Murray Rothbard and Noam Chomsky could both be described as libertarian despite a radical difference in ideology http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM.