Hi csl,
I think I understand you pretty well. I just don't agree with you.
Here's how I see you thinking: you have a number of principles - things like minimalist government, low taxes, individual responsibility, property rights, markets are always right, hard work and thrift etc.
You see these as inviolable.
You build your politics around them.
They lead you to believe that the libertarian idea is the answer.
For someone like me who believes virtues pull upon us from various directions, and that there's legitimacy to competing ideas such as public goods, the regulation of negative externalities etc., then you have to strike a balance in your politics. The virtues of individualism are important, but so are the benefits of some kinds of collective action. Paying taxes is worthwhile. Governments do some good but they shouldn't exclude free markets. You end up trying to figure how to get the most benefit out of each thing.
I think that many people implicitly understand that reality is made the way people like me observe it. It isn't refinable into unique principles the way libertarians which it to be. It's a mish-mash. We do the best we can. We live beyond Eden. There's a lot of luck in life. Sometimes we need a bit of help. Some solutions don't fit inside a market model. etc.
Ayn Rand just didn't get it right. She fled the extremes of collectivism and escaped to an imaginary realm of muscular individualism at the opposite extreme. But she forgot the in-between world, in which folks inhabit the temperate zones between these poles and in which there aren't final answers.
We just sway back and forth in the breeze of life, not pretending to know whence the wind came from or where it will end up, but enjoying its warmth or its chill depending upon the season.
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