Personally, I know a lot of people that claim to be libertarians. Most of them have defended the war in Iraq to me. Defended the suspension of Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees. Defended wiretaps. Defended huge defense spending bills. Were anti-gay marriage (not because they thought that marriage should not even be dealt with in government at all, but rather they used the old slipperly slope argument), and basically held countless views that were "statist".
I have a lot of respect for libertarian ideas. Some I agree with. However I don't know a lot of actual real libertarians.
I'm a conservative that states he has libertarian leans, and at this point would be more likely to join the Libertarian Party than the Republican party in its current form.
In regards to the things you've said:
War in Iraq: I will and do defend this. Not necessarily the initial entrance into it or the strategy, both of which I had issues with from the start. HOWEVER, I do believe that at this point it would be irresponsible and more damaging to us to pull out early and too fast. Its a bad situation, but in this case I don't believe that making your decision for the present based on your feelings of the past is wise. Just because it may've been bad to go in in the first place does not mean that should over ride the negatives of pulling out now that we actually DID go in.
Habeas Corpus: I have issues with this in some way, and some not. I have issues with anyone taken simply due to the "War on Terror". Much like the "War on Drugs" or the "War on Poverty" I don't see this as a legitimate real "war". If they're taken during the War in Iraq or War in Afghanistan as combatants then that's different in my eye. Either way, there is a need to update some of our law and code to address the fact that this force is significantly different than past forces as it is a well trained group of individuals sworn to a purpose but not necessarily aligned to a specific country or uniformed.
Patriot Act: My stance on this has been posted about this in just about every PA thread I think. Essentially, the vast majority of the Patriot Act is needed simply to make current law actually up to date technologically. Unless you're planning on getting rid of TITLE III of OMNIBUS Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and FISA, then the majority of Patriot needs to stay. Most of the more questionable parts of it should, and are, being faught against. However, if one looks at the history of this country, such acts like those in the Patriot Act are oft repeated and oft scaled back in a natural cycle. This does not mean it should not be faught, but it does mean such hysterics need to be made.
Defense Spending: In the defense of...well...Defense...this is at least one of the most core purposes of the government. I'm in strong agreement with Libertarians for the most part in regards to non-intervention and the scaling back of our forces abroad. That said, this goes back to my thoughts on the Iraq War. We're into these things and I believe simply pulling out quick without thought for the repercussions is a foolish endeavor. We need to work at finding quick, but thorough, solutions to ending these wars thoroughly and scaling back at a good but somewhat up tempo rate.
Gay Marriage: Remove marriage from law, make civil unions between two joint people. You remain at two people so multiple groupings can not come together to play the tax code and to limit issues with numerous other privledges bestowed upon Union Couples that would become much more hazardous to deal with if you allowed for multiple (polygamy) or for things that can't give consent (animals, children, etc).
In general, I'd put myself squarely conservative. Many of my leans are more libertarian in nature, and at times I'll acknowledge I'm more Libertarian than Republican per se, but I wouldn't claim to be a rock ribbed libertarian. I'm an admitted odd conservative, who has some views outside of the norm from the Republican party but are generally arrived at by some tennent of Conservatism.
