“Libertarianism is like a piece of legacy software that has been patched over and over but never rewritten — a sprawling, contradictory, and sometimes surprising mess. This unsettles me. Becoming a libertarian in my formative years, it has since become part of my self-identity. But what does it mean when I call myself a ‘libertarian?’ I am still not sure. And thus began my current odyssey in libertarian hair-splitting and navel gazing. But this hair-splitting is important. One half of the hair is a completely different color from the other. Subtle differences in ideas can lead to large differences in how we think human society should be organized. And it is hard for me to see how people with vastly different visions of the ideal world can form part of the same movement.” (01/04/09)