Have libertarians replaced liberals as the new sensitivity police? I have noticed a disturbing trend in conversations with my libertarian acquaintances and students. On matters of personal freedoms, many of them become quite offended quite easily when their libertine values are challenged.
This domain has been the purview of the cloistered left for several decades. Their strategy is to steer all disfavored conversation into a controlled field on which they know they can win. Accusations are made. Conversation stops. Gender feminists and racialists have had the best success utilizing this free speech attack strategy and it has done much to advance their agendas.
Have libertarians co-opted their strategy? Try challenging a libertarian on marijuana laws or gay marriage, or guns, or any other of their favorite issues du jour and you are likely to get steered quickly into a discussion about the police state and the non aggression principle and called all sorts of unflattering names. Try it out for yourself. It's almost as fun as challenging a gender feminist about stay at home moms or salary inequities.
Most libertarians are not like this of course but there seems to be a growing subset of them that fall into this category. They need to lighten up a bit. Or, simply become liberals and make it official.
