Part One Warning this will be a long thread Congrats to anyone who sticks it out till the end “I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents, and I make all the interns read it. Ayn Rand, more than anyone else did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism and this to me is what matters most” - Paul Ryan   So I’ve got myself a notebook and pen, and I’m going to going through Leo’s new video in its entirety and posting my notes and thoughts as I do, I consider myself a libertarian. So as I go through each of Leo’s points I’m gonna make some notes on what I think, hopefully this is helpful to anyone reading, show my thought process too, as a libertarian, and hopefully get you guys insight and or meta insight on this as well. So far as I’m writing this I’m only 20 minutes into this 4 hour video and there’s already a lot to unpack. So I’ll keep watching the video, making notes and adding addendums to this post throughout the week. What I’m going do is when I write out Leo’s points I’m going to put them in italics, to separate from my own thoughts, and any questions that I have I’ll put in bold. Here’s the video :-   0:38 “Libertarianism is an ideology”   Leo talks about dropping ideologies, inherent to ideologies is dogmatism and Leo compares ideology to a mind virus. Leo says that one should always think through their worldview, and that libertarianism and ideologies are a worldview. Leo says ideologies hold you back from advancement. Leo says that he’s made a list of epistemological and metaphysical problems with libertarian ideology that he will go into with greater detail. But his critiques aren’t coming from an ideological place.    This reminds me of some Terence McKenna quotes “Ideology always paves the way toward atrocity” “I think ideology is toxic, all ideology. It’s not that there are good ones and bad ones. All ideology is toxic, because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking.” Ideology by its nature precludes its believer from believing its opposite, so you deny the opposites reality, ideology is firmly rooted in ego But isn’t everything I just said in the previous paragraph ideological, my ideology is that I don’t like ideology, ideology is a part of human experience and to deny that is to deny the truth, I don’t know it seems paradoxical to me.   Question are these  How can you decide to opt out of having an ideology? If you take an position that’s ideological. Leo’s says that his critiques aren’t coming from an ideological place but how? How can you me any ideology is wrong without you yourself having an ideology? Believing in right and wrong is a truth statement which in it of itself is ideological?    Which Leo later attacks Libertarians later for, for being too idealistic (I’ll come back to this point later).  Anyways Leo continues from 0:38 - 4:02   4:02 Libertarianism Defined   Leo uses the wiki definition, here it is… “Libertarianism (from Latin: libertas, meaning "freedom"), or libertarism (from French: libertaire, meaning "libertarian"), is a political philosophy and movement that upholds libertyas a core principle.[1] Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing individualism, freedom of choiceand voluntary association.[2] Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions.” Leo goes into talking about how there’s a range of thought among Libertarianism. In the degrees in which the support government. But goes into identify what he says are the core pillars which all libertarians share, Im gonna list what I’ve wrote down so far here, and the cover them point by point.  There’s nothing to be said here as so far it’s just defining terms. Note I’ve only watched 20 mins of the video so far.   Core Pillars   5:14  1# Most Libertarians believe freedom is an absolute good.  2# They treat freedom as an ultimate goal in it of itself.  3# That taxation is immoral.  4# Hold personal responsibility highly. (Cancer patient analogy)    6:51 5# Individualism is good and collectivism is bad   8:10  6# Monopoly of Force   10:16 7# Strong notion of inherent alien able rights    10:50 8# Remove Bureaucracy    11:05 9# Smaller government is better.   11:20  10# Unlimited free speech / market place of ideas   11:55  11# Work there way back from their ideals and principles   Okay so there are the core pillars that Leo will address in greater detail further in the Vid. I’m going to address them point by point now. Before I do that I’m gonna list what Leo refers to Libertarianism as.    12:51   Libertarianism is…    Immature Juvenile Naïve Arrogant  Entitled  Ahistorical  Utopian Self Biased Ideological Masculine  Biased Selfish   Okey dokey So I’m now gonna cover these 11 point one by one