Don't Know Much About Libertarianism

I am new to the libertarian “scene”, and my involvement has been limited entirely to reading libertarian material and blogs on the web and to speaking up about freedom whenever I can in social settings, around the water cooler, and on other occasions. I love it that there are thousands of other people who share my views and feelings about freedom and the state, and I get a lot out of my daily wanderings through the libertarian blogosphere.

My own weblog is sometimes an embarrassment to me since I often find that I am stating some hideously obvious point that a more well read libertarian would respond to with a resounding “Duh!” (Let alone the fact that I can’t figure out how to post pictures or set up a blogroll.) Everything that I think about has been thought through before by much better minds, and every issue that I struggle with has a body of literature out there with which I am sadly unfamiliar. But I soldier on as a “lay” libertarian, just another schmendrick trying to get by in the world with some dignity, and I find that the more experienced and advanced libertarians I have encountered have been extremely gracious and always willing to point me in the right direction.

Strangely, it always seems that the very topic that I am struggling with gets addressed in the blogosphere just when I need it or that I find a whole new neighborhood of blogs that have what I need just when I need it. That’s what happened when I discovered the “left” libertarians. Thank you, Independent Country http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/ , and thanks for your blogroll. (They have shown me that I can be subversively free in my every day life and that I can work to build free institutions even in the presence of the state.) And right about now they are talking about the different kinds and schools of libertarianism and how they differ (see for example, http://freemanlc.blogspot.com/2005/07/clarification-concerning-term-left.html). This is fantastic, although it would be helpful if someone would work up a “Libertarianism for Dummies” manual for those of us who are just would-be foot soldiers in the movement. (A “Chicken Soup for the Libertarian Soul” should not be far behind, I suppose.) It’s hard to tell the players without a program. Odds are, there is such a tome already at my disposal, and I am just too ignorant to know it.

What I need sometimes are plain old talking points, ways to talk to my acquaintances (most of whom are not all that intellectually gifted and none of whom is well educated, although often possessing professional degrees). I need to relate to my conspecifics on an emotional level, and this is where my own libertarianism really has its foundation. I didn’t think my way to libertarianism; I came to it intuitively and emotionally based on my personal search for dignity, autonomy, and meaning in life. It comes from my most deeply felt religious convictions. My conspecifics probably won’t embrace libertarianism out of the weight of logic or reasoning; if they embrace it, it will be a matter of the heart. My problem is that I fear that I don’t know how to communicate my libertarianism on these levels, that I will be a poor witness.