@Zeljka – Some effects are actually reasonable as a function of the standard deviation (e.g. Libertarians are half a standard deviation higher than conservatives on openness to experience and reactance). The fact that we showed the full scale in the bar graph may make the effects seem smaller. Still your point is important as in the context of the scale labels, the effects may indeed be considered small. You’re absolutely right about the difference in attitudes toward how to construct society, though liberals might frame it differently.

nevertheless, i believe that your main conclusion “that there is something that liberals can identify with in the american libertarian” is correct. liberal-tarians have argued for a fusion between liberals and libertarians for some time now.

based on the data that i have seen, some libertarians are indeed attracted to liberals but, in my opinion, that is a minority and is likely to remain such.

one of the main differences between liberals and libertarians is their attitude towards elitism – an assumption (wide spread among liberals and progressives) that some people have much more knowledge than others and can therefore be trusted to preempt those other people’s decisions by, for example, (re)designing social institutions from the top down. but most libertarians believe in spontaneous order, which assumes that human ignorance is rampant and that, in most cases, decisions based on the “the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place” are superior to those based on technocratic visions.