I just don't get safety freaks. They're great at pointing out dangers, but never seem to offer realistic solutions. No doubt many of the activities they criticize are harmful, but what's the alternative? Not hitting ourselves with hammers and not walking barefoot on rusty metal and hoping that our bodies will somehow magically avoid trauma and tetanus?
Seriously - in the real world, a perfectly valid way to solve a problem is to stop doing the thing that causes it. Why the defensiveness because a libertarian pointed this out?
The author complains about Medicare, Social Security, student loans, and the War on Drugs. Whether or not you agree with those programs, do you think it's practical to just stop them? While I agree with many libertarian sentiments, I rarely find a libertarian argument that even attempts to explain a transition process.
A better question might be "Do you really think it's practical to continue them?", but to answer you: yes.
As for transition processes, to be blunt, many random libertarians online don't bother discussing them because they know it will probably never come to that. If you want good discussion of such things, places like the Mises Institute and Cato.org (full of policy wonks) would be good starting points.
For instance, I don't think that continuing the War on Drugs is practical. But I recognize that ending it is a gradual process, not an overnight one. It's entirely impractical in many regards (economic, social, political) to just stop the War on Drugs overnight. In my opinion, people who are going to complain about something should offer some practical alternative.
Ah, so you completely ignored my post beyond that question. Fair enough, I'll return the favor:
"people who are going to complain about something should offer some practical alternative"
Meh. When the overwhelming majority of the public does not believe that things like the war on drugs are destructive programs that should be stopped, why waste time on trying to satisfy the rare person who says he already agrees, but demands we all have a presentation on a detailed decriminalization/legalization scheme decades before it's even worth talking about?
I don't advocate having a detailed decriminalization scheme, but an overview or outline would be nice. To that end, I think identifying clear steps, as opposed to a strictly ideological argument, is a good way to convince the overwhelming majority that the change is necessary and good.
But of all those examples, the War on Drugs is probably the easiest to "just stop," so to speak. Putting an end to Social Security overnight means that grandparents around the country won't have any source of income. That's a good example of where just ending a program overnight seems impractical to me.
To address your previous point, I have spent some time on Mises before, not as much Cato. But not enough time on either to really comment about specifics on their proposals or lack thereof. I suspect the reasoning you presented is probably accurate, at least in some part.
"I think identifying clear steps, as opposed to a strictly ideological argument, is a good way to convince the overwhelming majority that the change is necessary and good."
Not sure where anyone made any "pure ideological arguments", especially since this is a thread off a very consequentialist blog post...but no, having a plan doesn't convince people that action is necessary or desirable.
Plans are what you discuss after people generally agree that change must happen; the public at large doesn't want most changes libertarians are interested in, so trying to sell them on how to carry out those changes is hugely premature.
It's simply shifting the problem. End Social Security? Great we solve the money problem. New problem: Lots of old people are going to die. Pase it out slowly? New problem: Lots of voters support Social Security and want to see it continue in some form. So obviously the solution is somewhere in the middle and there are no easy, ideologically pure, answers.
Seriously - in the real world, a perfectly valid way to solve a problem is to stop doing the thing that causes it. Why the defensiveness because a libertarian pointed this out?