To me, it seems that a huge problem for liberals/libertarians is that they do hold correct values, but are unable to communicate them to non-liberals, who with the right arguments and a systematic line of reasoning could easily be “converted”.
Several years ago, when I held no particular political/philosophical point of view, but found myself in a debate with an Objectivist (who’d read Rand several times over and over again, and nothing else). He tried to convince me that libertarianism was the only defendable position one could hold, and focused mostly on the ethics of selfishness, attacking collectivism, etc. His arguments were doomed to fail, because he didn’t realize that to an uniniated individual, such arguments hold no weight - because they’re based on offence against those with opposite views, not with putting forth a sound system of reasoning, emphasizing the incredible gains to mankind of a free market economy, and revealing the destructive forces of a big government. No, instead they argue “every man for himself”. Is that really appealing? In these casual debates, I’m astounded by how little emphasis there is on the importance of cooperation (which Mises and Hayek points out over and over again - do the casual reader miss those points?)
Of course, in the case above, the particular person could easily be classified as a member of the Ayn Rand Cult (if such a thing exists), or in other words - a false prophet of liberalism. It’s a dangerous fallacy to be swept away by the arguments of “the virtue of selfishness” (not the particular text by Rand with that name, I haven’t even read it), and more or less ignoring the fact that this “selfishness” actually makes everyone better off.
Why is it that so many people that I talk to, or discussions I read on various libertarian Internet forums, over and over again state the obvious, concentrating on the self-interest aspect of liberalism, without thoroughly discussing the positive effects of such a morality/econoimc system. Those are the issues we should be concerned with - if we do want more personal and economic freedom, show the benefits of such freedoms!
Sure, there is vast literature on those benefits, what I mean is a problem is that many people are so persuaded by the ideas of individualism, that they cannot, or possibly are not interested in, discussing the whole picture. Those people, to me, might be just as dangerous as those promoting socialist ideas.
What we have in common is the desire to gain more and more freedom - this can in practice only be done through one institution: the political system. We might argue that guns/drugs/prostitution be legalized - I agree with that, but those particular issues are of less importance, at least in relation to the extent that they are presently being promoted. This is why most people just look at liberals as weird hippies demanding total chaos, and will mostly attract only hippie voters.
No, to really make a difference, liberals more often need to set those issues aside, and argue that more freedom in any institution (trade, education, health-care, transports and so on) would lead mankind to be better off than under the current welfare-system.
What are your experiences of such people, pure individualists who adopt this ideology mainly because they don’t want to associate with other people? Do you believe their extremism poses a threat to the liberal movement as a whole and its reputation in the political debate? Are they many as compared to more “diplomatic” liberals?