Libertarianism is an appealing philosophy.
There's a fresh-faced honesty to it. "You leave me alone to chart my course in life, and I'll do the same for you". It's hard to argue against more freedom for individuals to discover our own path in life. It feels incredibly egalitarian; everybody gets equal treatment.
Unfortunately, the modern American version of Libertarianism promotes the rights of the strong to exploit the weak rather than anything so progressive as "equality of opportunity".
Modern Libertarianism in this country is increasingly synonymous with a winner-takes-all mentality that has the potential to erode the social edifice upon which our economic prosperity is built. Far from giving everyone their even choice in life, this ideology is actually a smokescreen for the biggest economic "smash and grab" job the world has ever seen. It's an ideology that seeks to legitimize the extraction, by a small number of people, of almost limitless resources from society in a sort of economic "strip mining", leaving us all weaker.
I would very sincerely like to be a Libertarian. In fact, according to my own definition, I am one, but not of the type that's typical in the United States in the early part of the 21st century. I support the rights of the individual to make their own path in life, and yet I also understand that my economic prosperity sits atop an entire civilization, thousands of years in the making. To benefit from that civilization without engaging with it and yes, paying my dues to it, is certainly a choice I can make as an adult, but let's be under no illusions: in doing so, I am making a choice to contribute towards a weakening of that very civilization.
If you've watched one too many Western movies, It might be tempting to view one or two individuals "opting out" in the spirit of rugged individualism as romantic. However, the more accurate reality is that many of those who would opt out of paying their dues to society would take ownership of most of societies' wealth and natural resources with them. We are not talking about hermits in cabins, we are talking about massive amounts of wealth being spirited away to "havens" where the normal rules of give and take no longer apply.
Ironically, it is the notion of "cutting off the takers" (the welfare moms, the benefit frauds) that Libertarians often use to justify their ideas; but this is mere psychological projection. The fact is that the most prosperous members of healthy societies have long found it necessary to provide some measure of support to those less skilled, or fortunate, or both, in order to preserve that society's overall health and cohesion.
To say that the "welfare cheat" is not invested in our society, therefore I should not be either, is a dangerous idea. It is nothing short of an abdication of responsibility by a society's strongest members. If we follow that line of logic to it's bitter end, then the very people who have the most potential to create the conditions for a strong and healthy society are opting instead to extract as much as possible for themselves and offer as little as possible in return. Put simply, we can easily absorb a lack of contribution from society's least productive members, but if society's most productive members opt out from making a contribution, then we truly have the conditions required for the decline of Western Civilization.
Whether we like it or not, humans have always depended on one another for survival and with the immense challenges that humanity currently faces, this has never been more true than today. It has never been more important that our civilization engages with people of other cultures to find mutual solutions to global problems. How can we hope to do that, if we don't even engage with each other?
Image: Eugène Delacroix [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons