Asperger syndrome and Libertarianism idea

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What part of the early internet was owned and run be the government? -

Even from the very beginning - all the computers used were manufactured by private companies - all the modems were manufactured by private companies - that carried the data over private company owned phone lines.

What the government was involved in was the starting up of Use-net - the precursor to the internet. The defense department and several Universities (public and private) started working towards a continuous computer network system. While the defense department was involved - nearly all the early routers and servers were in the hands of the Universities. By the time I was first involved - still in the dial-up modem days (very early 90s) most of the routing and servers were already in private hands. Further in the mid 80s I was involved in some BBS (computer Bulletin Board Systems) that were beginning to work toward continuous networks of these systems to the point that for ever increasing times we were connecting between cities. I am of the opinion that had the Use-net not come along and displaced the BBSs that they would have continued to expand their functionality to the point that we would have still wound up very much - where we are now.

From the very beginning - government has been playing catch-up trying to keep up with the changes that are taking place in what is now an almost totally privately owned internet at least in the western nations.

Matt Welch and Nick Gillespies' short description of the libertarian mind:

I've always been more comfortable with socialism and social democracy. Libertarianism has always seemed ugly to me. Yes, I'm not very sociable, but it would be foolish to take my own point of view and generalize to all of human nature and society. I depend on others even if I don't always feel it, therefore socialism better expresses my aspirations and ideals.

Most libertarians don't believe in total isolation. They are very quick and generous to help each other out.

The difference is that it's people helping people, communities coming together to help vs taxation and government helping people.

There are certainly pros and cons to both.

I'm confused by this thread. Libertarianism as I know it is about freedom from oppression, a small or nonexistent government and bottom-up cooperation of free people instead of top-down rule.

This discussion however seems to use it as a synonym for the political right, namely the individualism-based egoism, capitalism etc. Why is that? The OP seems to notice that there's something wrong (see quote below), but then blames that on libertarianism being hypocritical instead of blaming it on his -in my eyes- strange view of it.

People can be purely libertarian, or they can be socially libertarian or fiscally libertarian.

A lot of people also assume libertarian is right of Republican.

It seems like this thread was written with the American right wing version of Libertarianism. Originally Libertarianism was a far left socialist tradition and in most places outside North America it still is. One of the few Americans who uses the term appropriately to describe themselves is Noam Chomsky. People like Glenn Beck, Ayn Rand and Ron Paul for instance are more 'Propertarians', people who place great emphasis on the individual's freedom to material gain and consumption. They're interested in giving 'liberty' to capitalism whereas the first true Libertarians were people like Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Mikhael Bakunin, Emma Goldman etc and they wanted to replace capitalism. So I don't think that kind of American 'Libertarianism' specifically reflects autistic traits but rather it's probably more of a general interest in efficiency that drives some autistic people towards wanting limited/no government. Wanting to cut wasteful inefficient state run ventures is very rational whether you do it from a left or right position. But so called right wing Libertarians also can't deny that mutual aid in the form of public funding has helped society progress a lot. Taxes that have gone to the funding of the Pentagon, airline companies and NASA etc are the reason we're communicating so easily right now with miniaturised electronics in our computers over the internet, technology which has been spread all over the world thanks to fast air travel. In a more leftist volunteer society you could still use direct democracy to vote for public contributions to research and development knowing that it can one day cure diseases or create incredible tools like the internet or space probes. Whereas in a purely capitalistic Libertarian society you completely remove the state and things can only be done if they are deemed profitable in the short term. Things like space shuttles, the internet and disease treatments that run at huge losses would no longer be viable and the type of world that people like Ron Paul envisions would place us back in the 19th century.

Actually, Chomsky describes himself as an anarcho- syndicalist, although he has praised libertarian socialism.

I remember a saying I heard somewhere:

"If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene abroad, you're a Conservative. If you don't want government to intervene in either, you're an extremist.[b]

I'm personally a Social Democrat/ Democratic Socialist, but still uncertain, as I have been a hardline right winger in the past.

Wow..just wow... that is so sad. That is so sad that you would like to live in an almost totalitarian state with minimal civil liberties.

One thing I've learned is that forced interactions aren't genuine. We did that crap all throughout school, forcing children with differences to be around each other. It doesn't work, people self segregate, people are attracted to people like themselves.

You can force people to be tolerant, but you can't force people to like you.

So I must fundamentally disagree with you.

I would rather live alone and be excluded but have my freedom than live in a restrictive, repressive semi-totalitarian socialist state.