Libertarianism calls for much less government, not the abolition of government. And more importantly, it calls for the government to cast off all the unnecessary things it does in favor of focusing on the most vital and solemn interests of a nation.

Statist liberals get this wrong all the time — and mostly on purpose. When libertarians argue for less regulation on business, for example, you can bet a Democrat in Congress or an elitist chatterbox on TV will respond to that call by mischaracterizing it as a call for NO regulation at all.

It's an old and tiring trick that adds nothing to the national debate.

But to be fair, power-hungry Republicans are also often guilty of hurting the libertarian cause when they act like statists in the hopes of getting votes and donations.

And with his recent call against vaccination laws of any kind, Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman and Libertarian presidential candidate, undermines the cause just as much by acting like an anarchist.

Read MoreRon Paul: Vaccine mandates are dangerous

Congressman Paul also borrows another aggravating rhetorical weapon overused by statists against libertarians, when he wrote: "Giving the government the power to override parental decisions regarding vaccines will inevitably lead to further restrictions on liberties."



Sorry, but the government is always looking to further restrict liberties. Painting all proposed laws with the "restricting liberty" brush would preclude all lawmaking. And again, libertarianism doesn't call for no laws at all.

Let's be even more clear: Libertarians believe in freedom, but we don't believe you have the freedom to kill someone else's children or give them a serious illness.

And the shame of it all is that this vaccination-law debate is such a great opportunity to clarify what libertarianism is and bring in lots of new support.

A national law mandating vaccinating all medically eligible children for measles, etc. could and should serve as the new high-bar standard for all federal mandates.