I'll defend this. I think it is closely related to rationality, and I find it ironic that the "Politics is the mind-killer" is such a popular response to an unpopular quote - it makes that point.
A rather basic fallacy is: A, B, and C lead to D. We must stop D. Therefore, we must stop A. The error, of course, is that without further premises, you could equally well get stop or C. Stopping A is merely sufficient, not necessary.
Libertarianism is usually more of an ideology than a politics (just as liberal and conservative are ideologies, to Democratic and Republican politics). This quote shows how it tends to be shaped into a politics. When there are clearly many things to be done, it is in fact bizarre that people focus heavily on one of them, particularly given the above structure.
People are very willing to believe that the market is unfree in ways that unfairly benefit others. People are not nearly as willing or interested when the market is unfree in ways that harms others or benefits themselves. I can see why people are concerned with this being excessively political, but it does seem accurate. Of course, there may be additional factors or explanations that the speaker was not crediting, but I'm not really aware of any.
Inconsistently applying an ideology is kind of the essence of politics being the mind killer, and this seems to be a good point about that.
The question is, who exactly is being targeted in this statement:
But it’s a messed-up libertarianism that looks at that situation and says, "Man, first thing we gotta do is get rid of that welfare!"
Looking at the article from which the quote comes, the target of the discussion is apparently this quote, to which he claims to have a "sequencing objection":
...The Libertarian Party supports reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope or power of government at an
It looks like, this month, I get to be the one to start the quotes thread.