> American conservatives have followed a deliberate strategy of destroying, undermining, and sabotaging the Federal government. That's not libertarianism. > T

> American conservatives have followed a deliberate strategy of destroying, undermining, and sabotaging the Federal government. That's not libertarianism. > They even conveniently forget the arguments when advancing business interests in ways which contradict every last iota of Libertarian political theory. Sounds like they're doing it wrong. > Frank quotes one of their policy wonks freely confessing that he constructs his reasoning with no concern for intellectual integrity or even internal consistency. The arguments are only a means to an end. This is true of both sides, Republican and Democrat. Again, not Libertarianism. > If you think it through, this should be enough to destroy Libertarianism for you. Not at all. You've indicted current and past administrations. That in no way reflects on libertarianism or its principles. > This means that if you want to achieve a Libertarian transformation of the United States, your only possible winning strategy is to get as much money from business as possible. But that means that the only way to get government out of business is to get business into government. Whoa! Slow down there, chief. Nice straw man, there (not really). Business will be naturally attracted to libertarianism. > In order to affect this revolutionary change, you would need to leverage a great deal of political momentum from campaign contributions originating with business interests. Then, once you had achieved a Libertarian transformation, you would need all the people with strong ties to business interests, who would owe their political careers to these strong ties, to turn their backs on their business allies. The idea is not to lure constituents in by political favors. That is antithetical to libertarianism. > It just doesn't work that way. Yes, finally! Libertarianism is about principles, none of which have been addressed. All of the bad behavior -- real and hypothetical -- pointed out here in no way indicts libertarianism or its principles. We are all as disgusted with the bad behavior as you are.