> I pulled my blankie tighter around my shoulders, making a mental note the owner would require more bitcoin this month as I'd gone over my allotted 36 hours of blankie time.
> "No, it's for the greater good."
Jokes aside, you've lit on the fundamental part of this disagreement: In theory libertarians believe that; in practice it's hard to know what someone really believes and easy to see what they're doing. Speaking broadly, some people disagree that the actions of libertarian people are helping anybody else unless by accident. Take for example a straw libertarian who buys water rights in drought-stricken regions and sells the water back to the people living in those regions. This person claims publicly (and may or may not truly believe) they are helping people conserve their water. After all, the free market will quickly establish its true cost. To people who think this is fundamentally wrong, it doesn't even matter what the straw libertarian believes -- if it walks like vampire sucking you dry, it might be.
Interesting example. In it, how exactly did this water right transaction take place - was our strawman libertarian the only one trying to buy water rights? If so, why? May be he foresaw drought earlier than his competitors on the market - and in doing so, is rewarded for his climate prediction skills and willingness to investment in infrastructure?
If he wasn't the only one, how exactly did he outbid his competitors? I'm asking these questions because this example doesn't seem realistic in libertarian effective free market paradise - on the contrary, this kind of situation arises with some regulated monopoly, not with a freely traded good. And just let me clarify for clarity, paying bribes to get purchase preference (which, let us be realistic, is the most common scenario here) is certainly _not_ a part of libertarian ideology.
Well, the straw libertarian might be richer than god and the only person with access to enough capital to buy all the water rights at once. He's a straw person, he can be a lot of things. I'm aware it's not the most plausible example but I tried to pick an obvious one to easily illuminate the other side of the argument. I'm sure you could cut my examples down like Scotsmen (one down, n to go!), so I'll leave the remainder to your imagination.
> some people disagree that the actions of libertarian people are helping anybody else unless by accident
Are those the same people that can't seem to snap out of only caring about good intentions, and shrugging off bad policies (none mentioned, none forgotten) as long as they were well-intentioned? And conversely, tend to view as suspicious improvements when they happened motivated by pursuing profit, and not some higher purpose?
> I pulled my blankie tighter around my shoulders, making a mental note the owner would require more bitcoin this month as I'd gone over my allotted 36 hours of blankie time.
> "No, it's for the greater good."
Jokes aside, you've lit on the fundamental part of this disagreement: In theory libertarians believe that; in practice it's hard to know what someone really believes and easy to see what they're doing. Speaking broadly, some people disagree that the actions of libertarian people are helping anybody else unless by accident. Take for example a straw libertarian who buys water rights in drought-stricken regions and sells the water back to the people living in those regions. This person claims publicly (and may or may not truly believe) they are helping people conserve their water. After all, the free market will quickly establish its true cost. To people who think this is fundamentally wrong, it doesn't even matter what the straw libertarian believes -- if it walks like vampire sucking you dry, it might be.