Agree 100%!

I'm a Linux sysadmin/architect, and recently, within the span of one week, I turned down two different lucrative contract jobs with a big bank because they insisted I'd have to return to the commuter lifestyle and work on-site. The work environment would have been an open floor plan with what I call "dog bone" tables -- like this: http://tinyurl.com/bld6axu

My home office is a 25 x 20 foot room over my garage. I have a private bathroom, my own fridge, and my wife cooks my lunch. I don't pay for parking, dry cleaning, coffee at Starbucks, lunches in restaurants, etc. I don't burn all that fossil fuel driving back and forth 15 miles each way to work -- and that saves me money and helps the environment.

On top of all the other advantages, I'm also WAY more productive working from home. I can close my door and completely concentrate on what I'm doing. When you work with your mind, the last thing you want is to sit in a big open room with people walking around all day, chit-chatting, and asking "How about them Panthers?" while you're trying to focus.

Rant much?

My question was why you chose to use "they all depend on those at the top not being douches" as a specific argument against Libertarianism. It applies to every form of government.

Libertarianism is not about having no rules, and we have not "ALREADY TRIED IT". How can you look at the US history of the two-party system, in which either Democrats or Republicans -- but never Libertarians -- have run the country, and somehow blame that on the Libertarians?

You confuse Libertarianism with oligarchy and anarchy, and you're wrong.

Do you seriously think that the nasty air in China can be blamed on their Libertarian government? Was it Nixon's Libertarian Party who was running the show when the Cuyahoga River caught fire? Was it Grover Cleveland's Libertarian party that ran things during the rise of Big Steel?

Speaking of Big Steel, and as to your argument about joining "that little 1% club", do you realize that Andrew Carnegie pulled himself up from being a common factory worker to become one of the richest men who ever lived? So I guess even in the 1800's -- although, much like your specious arguments this has nothing to do with Libertarianism --there were opportunities for hard work and ingenuity to pay off.

"they all depend on those at the top not being douches"

As you said, this is so with every "ism". So why use it as an argument against Libertarianism particularly? At least in a Libertarian system, you're not required to have very much interaction with the douches in charge.

... and call it Netflix. Sure to be a big hit!

"Once someone has your private key they ARE you"

Only if you're such an idiot that you don't passphrase protect your private key.

This is a very good point. One dumbass user who doesn't keep a passphrase on his private key, doesn't encrypt his hard drive, etc. and bam, you get hosed.

If you're on a current OpenSSH (as available in Red Hat 6.3 at least, or its rebuilds like Scientific Linux or CentOS), you can require both key and password auth. From the release notes at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/6.3_Release_Notes/index.html#id3199604:
"SSH can now be set up to require multiple ways of authentication (whereas previously SSH allowed multiple ways of authentication of which only one was required for a successful login); for example, logging in to an SSH-enabled machine requires both a passphrase and a public key to be entered. The RequiredAuthentications1 and RequiredAuthentications2 options can be configured in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to specify authentications that are required for a successful log in."

To implement on an SSH server where only SSH protocol 2 is allowed, drop this in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

        RequiredAuthentications2 publickey,password

You need to specify PasswordAuthentication yes as well, or you'll be told: "Invalid required authentication list"

Once you set it up, restart your sshd daemon, and you will be good to go.

Nothing's foolproof however, and I mean that in the literal sense of the word "foolproof". Some fool can store his password in plain text on the same system as his key, write his password on his computer in Magic Marker or whatever, and you're screwed again. Allowing SSH access to morons is a major security hole.

I have children. That was a personal choice I made. I take care of them. I don't expect you to tolerate being inconvenienced by them. I don't expect you to "protect" them with idiotic limitations on your personal freedoms. I don't expect you to watch what you say, or how you dress, etc. I don't expect you to pay more for a TV so that all TV's will have v-chips and I can abdicate my responsibility to a machine.

Unfortunately, I have come to expect that the government will push this kind of shit on you and blame it on me.

... go ahead and price yourselves out of yet another industry. Then bitch when six months from now your kids are eating Chinese-made Twinkies.

Wait... you're saying Facebook is a business??

... fighting when Hitler wanted to invade?

Small town South Carolina. Voted in a Catholic church. Was asked for ID. I am not bothered by needing to show ID to vote, so I did not make a fuss, and don't know what would have happened had I done so. There was no line at all. I went straight in, showed my ID, verbally verified my current address, and was taken to a voting booth. Voting was done electronically on a touch screen. The instructions were clear and easy to follow.

Straight-party options (which I don't believe should be allowed) and options for individual candidates were offered.

I was offered an "I Voted" sticker, which I declined.

Everyone was polite and friendly, but serious. There was no police or military presence at all (which probably won't surprise > 90% of American voters, but might be hard for some to believe.) I never felt even slightly annoyed, pressured, or intimidated by anyone during the process of arriving, entering, voting, or leaving.

You can argue all day long about how much supervision children should have, but I think its pretty clear that the company that makes and sells these magnets should NOT be held responsible when adults allow children to use them.

"Should we in North America make sure that public pay phones will always be widely available?"

We the taxpayers? No.

Unions are for people who can't really negotiate individually, because the skills they have to offer are commodity-level services.

Few software devs or other tech heads would classify themselves that way.

"it would make more sense to let it blow down and rebuild it.''

This does not take into account at all the major life disruption that happens when a family loses their home, nor the potential lives saved by "fortress" construction.

If my kids do not get killed in a hurricane and we don't have to live like refugees for several months while struggling to find or build a new home, what's that worth?