Here’s an interview with novelist Scott Nicholson, who apparently describes himself as a libertarian writer. However, in the response to this question, he demurrs, stating:
“Well, libertarianism just plain won’t work in the human world. It would only work if we each lived alone, in a vacuum, where our actions didn’t affect other people. But we live in communities that are bubbles inside larger communities. And I also diverge from the traditional party line: for example, while I favor the legalization of most drugs, I don’t favor unlimited access to guns. The government’s role could be much smaller in our lives, but it also can do good things. Libertarians are mostly out on the extreme fringes of both major U.S. political parties, and if you really press them on their beliefs, a mass of contradictions emerges. So I don’t articulate that so much in my fiction.”
And, in the other corner, we have Claire Wolfe, who does seeks some solitude in her life, stating something quite the opposite in a blog entry:
“So many things can bind us to a place. Family. Work. Inertia. Fear. History. Money is a big factor, considering leaving the country. But the ties can be so intricate, so multi-layered, so difficult to convey to anyone who isn’t walking that mile in one’s own moccasins. Being part of a community like this one — where people help each other so freely and with such enthusiasm — is a little miracle (especially for people like me who grew up rootless and unattached to the places we lived and the people who lived there). So I speculate often about getting out of this going-to-hell country. Then I think I’d have to be mad to leave a place like this, a place that embodies the essence of real, old-fashioned community, a place that is what America was at its best and ought to be again.”
Judge for yourself. Libertarianism: an atomistic impossibility, or the true spirit of a voluntary community?
