Being libertarian because you want to smoke pot versus not trusting a authority that has the power to ban it at the state/federal level. My aggravation since being a high schooler is how the former became the household definition, because the mode averaged person has an allergy to cynicism for some gods' forsaken reason. These naive idealists, coinciding with single-issue fuckwads, are so invirtuously useless for society that the proggie NPC has a point when he paints a libertarian as a social loser living in fantasies. Then we have anarcho-capitalism, a designation stemming from humans irresistible urge to subdivide into counterproductive tribes, to be divided and conquered by the outside culture. Any hypothetical minarchist state and ancapistan would be indistinguishable in practice.
Paleoconservative/paleolibertarian would be great brands if they weren't syllablistic vomit doomed to irrelevancy to the average Westerner. Would someone notable start a movement that isn't complete anathema to social marketing, but not so vague as to be amorphously inclusionary? I propose the axiomatic party. Principled yet without delusion, unique, and only slightly more grating to pronounce than "Democratic" or "Republican". I suggest taking a lesson out of Heinlein's History and Moral Philosophy class, sticking to uncomfortable, unambiguous social truths as a serious science. Of course the conditions in Starship Troopers were different, where hard men emerged out of truly hard times, and not bread and circuses limbo we're stuck in.
If my axiomatic ideal were attempted in my lif, neurotypes and grifters would just pervert the meaning like they did to liberalism. Principled will be confused with being a dense zealot. But really, libertarianism needs to rebrand.
This applies to many parts of the philosophy, and I've notice two types of proponents of libertarianism:
People who recognize the hierarchy and think they'll be at the top. (the
kingslandowners)People who pretend this hierarchy won't exist. They're either fooling themselves or knowingly being deceptive to gain more converts to libertarianism.
I like the idea but I don't imagine some utopia where maximum liberty means every man a king.
Equal treatment under the law is a tool to keep people happy. People can superimpose whatever hierarchies on top of that they want. They are wont to do it, and it happens. The principle can be useful. However, I don't think it's "divine" or inherent as certain people claim.
When people already have a high degree of egalitarianism in their culture -- Americans PRIOR to 1776 were some of the freest and most equal people in the world -- you don't want to have a caste system. If your population is made up of Hindus who've known nothing else, you probably do.
The question is always who decides, and you might have some very unhappy hoi polloi if you straight up tell them they have no rights.
I wouldn't propose a hierarchy. I'm simply recognizing that hierarchy is natural law. Enforcing a caste system is as silly as enforcing equality. If someone is able to move up a level in the hierarchy more power to them. That's what liberty allows. It also allows some people to fail.
A functioning hierarchy is better for everyone across the tiers. The lower tiers have something to aspire to, the higher tiers have something to uphold.