In the Pantheon Of Bullshit, Libertarianism has its own vestibule.

This is from the Institute For Humane Studies at George Mason University:

“The libertarian perspective is that peace, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by “as much liberty as possible” and “as little government as necessary.”

Or, put another way: “You’re not the boss of me”.

That’s really the libertarian philosophy — it’s how a little boy thinks. A selfish little boy. Rand Paul took a test for coronavirus last week. Something motivated him to take it. Fear perhaps? Regardless, Rand took the test but apparently assumed he’d test out negatively (in which case why would he have taken the test?). To his surprise, he tested positively for coronavirus.

But, while waiting the 24 – 48 hours needed to get those results back, Rand Paul did what any self-respecting libertarian would do — he acted selfishly. He went to the Senate gym and worked out then went for a swim in the Senate’s indoor pool. Spreading coronavirus wherever he went. And not giving so much as a shit while doing it.

If anything epitomizes libertarianism, that’s it.

There’s a reason most critics & academia as a whole turned its back on Ayn Rand — she’s as bad a writer as she is a philosopher. Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead are badly-written sentence after badly-written sentence amounting to twaddle so self-indulgent and puerile it should be laughable. And it is — except to the club of angry little boys who think Rand’s a genius.

Rand took herself very seriously as a philosopher. And while parts of her objectivist philosophy are indeed sensible, it’s sensible in the way a broken analog clock is right twice a day. For example — Rand “considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception”. That’s great — if your senses perceive everything. Too bad our senses don’t.

We don’t perceive every kind of light for instance which is why cosmic rays beyond sunshine are invisible to us. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, it simply means we’re not equipped to see them. Our perceptions in other words are incomplete. Only an idiot — or a stupid little boy — would assume their perceptions WEREN’T incomplete.

As the coronavirus crisis is driving home to us — a successful human society depends far more on its ability to work together than it does on any “rugged individual”. Sure, sure — we need our rugged individuals to fill out the mix. But, actually, there’s no such thing as a “rugged individual”. That’s a characterization “rugged individuals” give to themselves. As in, “Hey, don’t you tell ME what to do, I’m a ‘rugged individualist’!”.

Don’t tell ME not to go outside my house when I want to. Don’t tell ME not to socialize in close proximity with my friends. Don’t tell ME not to go to the Senate gym & swimming pool even though I might be contagious with a deadly virus that’s sweeping the globe. What will Rand Paul say if he succumbs to the virus. Will his daddy insist that Rand’s death — like the virus itself — was just a hoax?

There’s a reason why most libertarians (aside from Ayn Rand) are men. Ayn must have had a selfish little boy’s brain chemistry. She thought in those terms & wrote in them. Laissez-faire capitalism is crony capitalism. It’s corruption. How can it not be?

It’s a philosophy only a selfish little boy — who’s also a bully — could love.