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Madeleine Murphy's avatar

I'm a bit less sympathetic to libertarians, actually. The premise of libertarianism is not that public officials and institutions aren't perfect and need oversight - that's the premise of liberalism.

The libertarian premise, as you say, is that freedom exists sort of a priori; that governments, rules etc. all impinge on a freedom that we're born with. But this is obviously a fantasy. Without community agreements, we all have as much freedom as we can wrangle by force, persuasion, or tribal allegiances. Betsy de Vos is rich, but this adjective only means something in the context of an elaborate network of rules and rights that we have collectively dreamed up. Without them, well, she's not particularly strong or rhetorically gifted - she'd be nothing. Likewise Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, all these titans of leave-me-alone-to-flourish.

Any libertarian that would call 911 in a fire, use the legal system, expect to live in a house that doesn't fall down because a corrupt contractor has crumbled graham crackers into the concrete, trust in medicine and elevators and air traffic control - is not a libertarian. They're just people who believe the state should create just enough freedom to serve *them,* and everyone else can fall into line. As you say, it's fundamentally a revival of an aristocratic Christian social order - some ordained by Providence to shine, others to serve - but without Christian obligations to others, charity, the recognition that we're all equal in the eyes of God.

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