I am sometimes asked to explain how/why it is I don't go about referring to myself specifically as a political "libertarian" anymore; usually in the context of an accusation that I (and others) mainly dropped it because it's been adopted by the so-called "Tea Party" and thus no longer "cool" - which, to be fair, is at least partially accurate...
The thing of it is; while I am mostly simpatico with "small-L" libertarians on policy and civics details, where we seem to differ is when it comes down to broader worldview.
Simply stated, it strikes me that "name-brand" Libertarianism as it exists now is about "freedom" in general but regards absolutist ECONOMIC freedom - in the form of low-to-nonexistant taxation - as the most important form thereof. And while I'm as averse to wasteful spending as anyone I can't quite go there with them. Entertained as I am by the fantasies of "Atlas Shrugged," Galt's Gulch (or Rapture, for that matter) is not my vision of a better world.
The "better world" I'M striving for is a world free not from the frequently irritating but largely practical economic limitations of a shared society; but rather freed from the unnecessary boundaries of outdated systems of "morality" and/or "consequences" rendered no-longer-mandatory by science.
To place it in less flowery language: My "highest freedoms" are the freedom of individuals to eat, drink, smoke, shoot WHATEVER they want (with the ALL IMPORTANT caveats of adulthood and responsibility) and to fuck, marry, divorce WHOEVER they want (with the ALL-IMPORTANT caveats of adulthood, consent, sound-mind, etc) impeded by as few unnecessary consequences as possible; and if a tax-funded "social safety net" is part of the aparatus necessary to make such freedom-from-unecessary-consequence possible... then, quite frankly, Uncle Sam can HAVE my goddamn money.
I dunno if there's a "name for that position, but it's mine.
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