Libertarians be like

The interconnectedness of the world and our systems make it too complex for small government now. I mean, what’s the libertarian answer to global pandemics or climate change? Hands off doesn’t work in all cases

Omfg this is perfect

Don't know exactly how you define 'libertarians', but if you mean right wing/small government advocates, I'm with you.

I think they're referring to right-wing libertarians specifically.
- The only libertarians in the general population's consciousness are right-wing, as libertarian political parties were literally financed by fossil fuel, tobacco, and weapons manufacturer oligarchs — the US Libertarian parties first presidential candidate was a fucking Koch bro (billionaire fossil fuel oligarch) — all because they wanted to pay less taxes and deregulate their businesses, after regulations like the clean air act meant they could no longer destroy waterways and create acid rain without consequence.
  
  99% of the human population have no idea that left-wing libertarians exist, or that libertarianism was considered left-wing and progressive prior to right-wing appropriation in the 1960/70's.
I think another implication here is they trust a corporation more than a government
- I'm not condoning this, but one argument I've heard is that it's easier to pick a different corporation (i.e. don't buy from them) than it is to change your government (every 4 years ish) and it's only the political party, not the civil service / employees (or whatever it's called in the USA) that change.
  
  Of course monopolies, huge barriers to entry for new companies, etc, weaken this argument.
  
  As a final note; I think the combination of unions, govt., and private enterprise is the best we can hope for under the existing system.
Libertarian definition 1.Conservatives who like to smoke weed.
- Taxpayers who'd rather not.
- Closer to Trump supports that smoke weed. I was once a conservative but the party shifted from my views to racialized Christians.
  
  Now my political stance is closer to liberal.
- I'd say go hard on crack.

I read that as librarians and was very confused.

Same same

Impecable use of this meme format.

tHiS iS sO mUcH bEtTeR bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe

I've never understood the hate for libertarians. It seems to me some of the biggest injustices in the world never could have happened if governments weren't allowed to have the authority to control those aspects of individuals lives. Such as the legalization of slavery, manifest destiny and illegalization of drug use, gay marriage, gender affirming care, birth control, abortion were all aspects of government controll in our lives that they had no business dictating IMHO. Edit - missed a word

Because Libertarians don't care about people's rights (in the modern US usage at least). For example, without government legalization of slavery would be the default since nothing is stopping it. Libertarianism would say if you can afford to buy a person, and they ended up in slavery because they weren't good enough or whatever, then it's fair that you should be able to purchase them.

Libertarianism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. They're the people who want to remove government so they can fuck children and exploit people. They don't want liberty. They want authority, but by rich people not voters.

What you are talking about is Anarchism. Government shouldn't be telling people how to live their lives but should provide protections and assistance to allow them to live the best they can.
- I don't agree with the assessment on slavery because in that system nobody would have the authority to sell another person in the first place. Although I suppose you could sell yourself and have indentured servitude.
  
  Edit and I guess I'm going to get all "no true scottsman" over here and say a libertarian that doesn't believe in liberty and freedom isn't a libertarian at all. But thanks for explaining it a bit.
Modern, specifically American libertarians are imposters. Rejecting basic concepts of actual libertarianism like public ownership of natural resources. And are ideologically at least (economic) liberals. Not libertarians. Who chant weird self defeating tautologies that have nothing to do with libertarianism like the Non Aggression Principle.

Basically they're Libertarians in the same fashion Marxist Leninist are communist. Not.
It's because the good libertarians just call themselves anarchists or maybe even syndicalists.

Your typical online libertarian is like the stereotype of the "parasitic socialist" who doesn't want to work and just wants free stuff.

To continue my gross simplification: libertarians want to be able to boss around poor people using their wealth, but don't want poor people to be able to band together to stop them from doing so. And they definitely don't want to share their wealth.
- I see. It sounds like "liberty for me, not for thee". Not cool.
- Sounds like fascism with extra steps.. Oh wait!
I used to consider myself a libertarian because I believe, as you say, that government authority is responsible for all these things and we are better off without it. I never went to the extreme of saying we should get rid of it (I can elaborate, but that'd be digressing). But I still believe in the core values of libertarianism.

Thing is - in all the libertarian communities I've visited/joined online, I've noticed that the other libertarians treat these values not as principles but as aesthetics. Half of the activity there (the other half was criticizing everything the government does, whether it's good or bad) was about using the NAP as a creative limitation - how do we control the populace without technically infringing on individual freedom?

Want to censor people, but you can't because "freedom of speech"? Just take their stage from under their feet (other than the air though which their voice vibrates, everything was considered "public property" which they are not allowed to use for their "personal" agenda) or have their employers fire them (they don't have to employ them - that would infringe the employer's liberties)

Want to enforce regulations? Just use insurance companies. Make it so it's impossible to operate without insurance, and then the insurance companies can impose whatever regulation they want or else they won't insure you.

Want brutal law enforcement, but that's a literal violation of the NAP? Just call it "private security companies" and everything is okay. Actually, the idea here is that the private security companies won't want to fight each other, so they'll come to an agreement between them and force that agreement on their customers. And if that sounds like how organized crime families work, then

Slavery is a big no no, so how do we get slaves? Debt slavery to the rescue!

And these are the relatively reasonable things. At some point I had to conclude that either none of them was a true ~~Scotsman~~ libertarian - or that maybe I should just abandon libertarianism itself (though not necessary all its teachings)
legalization of slavery

I'm sorry but do you think private commerce had zero interest in the trade of flesh?

A government is not some magic special construct. Am authoritarian governance system is the same whether it's enacted by something with a national moniker or a corporate one.
- What no I'm not saying that, of course they did. I'm saying slavery was allowed under the authority of the government and backed by state sanctioned violence. Corporations don't have that same authority over our lives the way governments do. Under an actual libertarian system it's impossible to to have slavery without violating a persons liberty.

Another person who's never read the platform of any actual Libertarian politician. Supporting tyranny of any kind is inherently antithetical to those platforms. The root word of Libertarian is Liberty, my dudes. That is what they are primarily about.

You mean abolish all labor laws and enforce all contracts to the letter by the government. We know that this is going to lead to company towns, slave contracts and similar setups. We had those everywhere before the workers won those laws. You end up with a capitalist class ruling everything in a nearly aristrocatic fashion. This is already the case in many ways, but this would make it so much worse.
- Clearly a moderate position is needed here. Let's start by repealing the Taft-Hartley Act.
- Proving my point - you have not read anything about the Libertarian party platform, because those are not positions they hold. You are talking about the cartoon version of libertarians that you made up out of the whims of prejudice.
  
  Here's what they actually stand for: https://www.lp.org/platform/
To be fair, it's super rare to see a Libertarian Politician gain any following without a platform that isn't textbook conservative but with more weed or absolutely batshit insane.
I think the downvotes you are getting are from people who have only heard "Libertarian" in american context.

American libertarians are conservative/capitalists

In Classical definition/for the rest of the world, Libertarians are closer to Anarchists
- Nah, you're giving GP too much credit. He's the American right-libertarian variety.
- Typically capital "L" Libertarian refers to the Libertarian party. You'd use a lower case "l" for ideological libertarians.