I am old enough to remember when Libertarians were actually serious about philosophy and policy.
Back in the 1970's we used to have discussions about Edmund Burke, John Locke, Frederick Bastiat, Ludwig Von Mises, and Ayn Rand... we'd talk about how to go about dismantling the Federal bureaucracy, beginning with the Department of Education and the newly-minted Department of Energy. We would have arguments about whether drugs could be legalized without causing unacceptable damage to actual human beings and their ability to self-govern. We'd discuss how to avoid future wars like the one just (poorly) concluded in Vietnam, without going full-blown isolationist, asking in effect: "How and where does a free nation draw the line on foreign entanglement and responsibilities to protect and defend the rights of other peoples?".
I became a Republican around 1980, when it became clear that the Libertarians were never really going to get serious about governance, but instead preferred to posture and squabble over pointless minutiae, while embracing cultish fantasies, precious metal idolatry and anarchic Utopianism. At that moment in time, Ronald Reagan seemed a far better answer.
It is because of these experiences that today (as an older guy), I have little patience with kooks and crazies on one hand, but also with people who seek a candidate or party that perfectly matches their preferences, on the other.
