[MineralMan]

"Your rights are not absolute.

Getting an admission of such is like pulling teeth, however..."

The libertarian cannot admit such a thing. To do so is to refute the entire philosophy. Libertarianism rejects society as an entity. It must. Otherwise, some sort of societal rules must be accepted.

Myself, I'd be perfectly happy if all the libertarians moved to some state like Idaho and set up their own country. They could abolish government there and go about their individual lives however they chose. Of course, they'd have to compensate those already living there.

[Poohbah]

My bet: Idaho would look like Heinlein's Coventry inside of a year.

[general_re]

The funny thing is, I like libertarianism in principle, but I have to temper it with some sense of realism. Like all political and social principles, libertarianism is a means to a better society, not an end in and of itself. And a willful refusal to recognize that sometimes those principles break down and fail to produce a better society than some other solution is hopelessly self-marginalizing. Valuing ideological purity above all else is a prescription for being...well, ignored, at best. Americans are a pragmatic people, inherently suspicious of ideologues, and any attempt to change society that fails to take that into account is doomed from the start.