From
Earnest, self-described 'libertarian-leaner', in another thread:
I do not, personally, understand this logic. I myself have never cared a whit for the notion that says that centralized local power is inherently better and less coercive than decentralized Federal power. For example, I don't find much, if anything, wrong with the Civil Rights Act of 1964; if contravening the local hierarchies and hierophants is necessary to ensure maximum liberty to the individual, so be it.
I believe this is the one main issue that separates right-libertarians (like I imagine
dead0man is) from left-libertarians, such as myself: for the right-libertarian, what is essential is transferring power from a centralized state to the local collective; whatever they do with their newfound authority afterwards matters nothings. Left-libertarians, on the other hand, desire the greatest possible freedom for the
particular individual, and if it is necessary to invoke an impersonal government - right-libertarianism is the closest thing there is to an anti-statist Protestantism - so much the better for it.
In other words, it seems entirely conceivable to me that these two things are not really ideologically related at all; that right-libertarianism still seeks to empower some collective or another over the individual, regardless of its proximity to him, whereas left-libertarianism seeks the most complete practical abolishing of all such collectives possible. Perhaps, then, neither one really suits the label 'libertarianism - right-libertarianism ought rightly then be called 'localism' or 'regionalism', while left-libertarianism is more aptly described as 'individualism', 'anarcho-individualism', or 'egoism'. Both ultimately seek to destroy the Federal state; the localist in the name of his regional sympathies, the egoist for himself and his fellow individuals. The regionalist will more likely than not refuse to utilize the means of the State to its own demise; the egoist has no such qualms, for he is under no obligation of loyalty to a particular area of culture to favor that thing over the central government, but would sooner see them both destroyed. One argues, "All power to the community"; the other, "all power to the man".
That's simply my interpretation.
