Something like that happened to me, but I'm European, and I never had many illusions about much American libertarianism. It was clearly funded by people who wer

Something like that happened to me, but I'm European, and I never had many illusions about much American libertarianism. It was clearly funded by people who were just using the movement to get favorable regulation. And that was reflected in the issues they were talking about. I think there is no contradiction between a small government and one that can fine or arrest people aggressively when they break the rules. In addition to that, it always had a strong southern "state rights" dog whistle. Personally I never liked Murray Rothbard. And the Rothbardian full on appropriation of Mises. Plus they often welcomed 'libertarians' that had very bad ideas, like Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In terms of Austrian economics, I always much prefer the George Mason people. I think the economics fundamentals of Austrianism were very forward thinking and they produced a lot of great stuff and people, both directly and in the larger bubble of associated researchers. > I realized over the years that while I’m still very skeptical of government power, I don’t hate the state, and I prefer good government over chaos. I value liberal institutions and feel they should be defended. I think American Libertarianism basically went way to far into hyper-individualism and total freedom of action and defense of historical privileges and laws. While different classical liberal philosophies would focus way more on the cost of those actions and negotiation a balance between individual freedom and society. Classical liberal philosophy was never supposed to mean that you can park your car anywhere and throw garbage out of the window or that you can carry your gun everywhere. Also I think there is a huge difference between restricting government on a federal level and on a local level. I don't think any philosophical school has really figured out this issue. Both centralizing and localizing have lots of problems. I'm at the point where I am not really have a clear 'movement' that I can point to. I still agree with much of the criticism of communism, socialism and many typically left ideas. I disagree even more strongly with the far-right. In Europe we have central parties, but those often are socially conservative and have sub-optimal economic policy and bad local politics. So like many others I have to end up voting center-left even if I don't agree in principle with their philosophy. On thing that helped me is not to think of absolutes and end-states, and only think of incrementalism. Even if I disagree with the something in principle. As current laws exist I might support things I wouldn't in a different situation. In Swizterland where I life, at least we can often vote on specific issues. And that can cut across parties. And the consensus based federal government is globally unique and works pretty well for stability and consistency.