[Lucky Dog]

I think you can make a strong case for peerage as necessary (or, at least, certainly not antithetical to libertarianism) to protect certain--especially property--rights.

Peerage is a system of titles of aristocracy, historically used in many monarchical systems of government. The term "peerage" technically refers to a subset of the complete system of titles of nobility, with the precise meaning varying from country to country. -- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A true libertarian does not recognize any non-merit based distinctions among citizens as all citizens have the same natural rights. Therefore, any distinctions accorded a noble or sovereign would be unacceptable.

[Publius Valerius]

As I said, I have no problem with peerage, especially as exists in the old House of Lords. They are bound by law (as opposed to a morarch, who is bound only by natural law) and have no special rights other than to sit in the House of Lords. I think such a system could very well be important to the protection of rights.

Even if you take issue with peerage, you can do like our founders did and tweak the concept and just call it something different. We have the Senate instead of the House of Lords, but the Senate was all but peerage. The principle, though--a branch of government made up of those who are wealthy and powerful--is important.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the federal government began to tremendously expand its powers (and consequently, lessening individual rights) around the time we amended the Constitution to allow for direct election of Senators.