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Interesting discussion.
Here's what I've gleaned from debating with a few Libertarians:
- Every one of them have a personal anecdote about "working hard" and "pulling themselves up by their boot straps", and have projected their personal story onto the world as a whole. I've never met a Libertarian who tried hard and failed.
- They are extremely pro-business and anti-government. I've had a few "by-the-book" Libertarians argue that we should eliminate not only the EPA, but OSHA, the FDA, etc., because the "market" would eliminate the companies that were making unsafe products or created an unsafe work environment.
- Despite some protests to the contrary here, Libertarians are very much in it for themselves. Altruism and Libertarianism do NOT mix. The irony is that the argument is often that we should (or could) eliminate all government social programs and replace them with private donations, despite the fact that the general Libertarian mindset is to keep every penny that they "earn", and fuck those who don't work as hard. Where are all these private donations coming from?
Admittedly, these are broad generalizations and don't apply to everyone, but I've gone head to head with quite a few self-proclaimed Libertarians and the pattern is pretty consistent.
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