It is worth reminding that adoption of the gold standard is mere possibility of the central point libertarians are trying to make.<p>The real issue is force. Libertarians do not believe that it is okay for the government to exercise sole monopoly over issuance of currency with force. They want free market system that would allow competing currencies to develop rather jail those who issue their own currency.
I don't think I'd want the gold standard to come back, but I definitely support the idea of much higher transparency in what the Fed is doing and who are they giving money to. Some are saying this might end the Fed's independence, but will it really? I think higher transparency would just lead to them becoming more honest with what they are doing with the money. I don't think other countries have overly secret central banks with nobody knowing where the money are going and how much they are printing, do they? I'm generally of the opinion that higher transparency is always a desirable quality of a democratic Government and its institutions.<p>I also find it surprising (to say the least) that after 20 or so years of advocating for Fed transparency, Harry Reid is the one who's going to put a stop to the Audit the Fed bill in the Senate, which already passed the House with a big majority.
The choice between fiat and gold (or gold/silver) is a false one. On a free market people would trade a wide variety of things, an important class of which are stocks and bonds, which indeed did function as money in the early United States, and would be even more practical today given that we have computers to facilitate conversion. A diverse, free market money system would put an end to global financial crises, which can only happen when everyone is using the same currency (or same small set of tightly coupled currencies) and therefore are all subject to the same general conditions: a centralized currency centralizes the crises as well.<p>But what's even more important is that a free market money system is the only <i>moral</i> system -- people have a natural right to trade in whatever denominations they please.