Through application libertarian can mean whatever people want it to mean. Its meaning is as malleable as 'politically correct'. Want to discourage people from

Through application libertarian can mean whatever people want it to mean. Its meaning is as malleable as 'politically correct'. Want to discourage people from building dense housing, then you're stopping the government from imposing a plan on freedom lovers. Want to encourage people to build dense housing, then you're removing unnnecessary regulation from the free market and encouraging economic freedom. The only real constant of American libertarians is the fact that they're almost all successful white people. So any libertarian group needs to address their concerns if it wants to stay relevant. Abstract ideological beliefs such as libertarianism can be mapped in many different ways to actual real world problems. So what usually ends up happening is the more influential subgroups within an ideological organization control the mappings of the groups ideology to real world issues. Then can claim anyone who does not agree with their mapping is not a true member of their ideological organization. It's similar the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, but not exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It might seem convenient for libertarians to have a single ideology that they can map to every political problem they encounter. But I doubt many of them realize that in their complex machinations to contort libertarianism to fit political reality they're simultaneously redefining what libertarianism means to them inside their own head. This process is made easier by elected libertarians rarely having to actually do anything in politics. Since there are no libertarians at the national level every person who identifies as a libertarian can maintain their own personal definition of libertarianism that agrees with their ideal implementation of the ideology and still bond with other self identified libertarians exclusively through abstract ideology. In short, libertarianism can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean as long as it doesn't piss of successful white people.