Comment by neilk

It matters not that you were right, but why you were right. If someone says they knew about the NSA taps because they were in cahoots with aliens, obviously they don't get credit.

I don't know what your politics are in general, so I can't criticize them.

But, in my experience, American capitalist libertarians are - in general - united not by a love of liberty, but a hatred of government. And that narrative, I think, does not have much predictive power. It vaguely fits the NSA case, but is harder to sustain when it comes to things like socialized medicine.

P.S. That said, I've learned a lot from libertarians, especially in their skepticism; sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy and sometimes the existence of a government agency is the problem. And it's inspired me to read authors like Hayek, who I respect a lot. But the modern movements seem to be more inspired by Rand than Hayek. Rand's narrative is that government is a conspiracy by the weak to oppress the strong, which I find ludicrous.