I agree with this.
I have libertarian intuitions (I take Keep Your Identity Small to heart). I have spent quite a while thinking about policy and economics and I think I can discuss it fairly rationally.
Even if you can discuss policy rationally, lots of people have not invested the time into developing that skill. Moreover, it's a much less useful skill than it seems like; coming up with correct answers in policy isn't very useful because it's very difficult to implement the implications of those correct answers (see here and here).
Also, I used to believe in libertarian Fundamental Rights. However, I came to the conclusion that 'rights' is purely rhetorical (used to move people's emotions) or descriptive (descriptions of options that people generally have).
People can benefit psychologically or materially from themselves or others having certain kinds of options (e.g. 'right to free speech'), but these not 'fundamental' in any important sense.
The way I came to this view is by thinking about 'where do the definitions of rights come from?'.
Politics is the mind-killer; but rationality is the science of /winning/, even when dealing with political issues.
I've been trying to apply LessWrong and Bayesian methods to the premises and favored issues of a particular political group. (Their most basic premise is roughly equivalent to declaring that Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma programs should be 'nice'.) But, given how quickly my previous thread trying to explore this issue was downvoted into disappearing, and many of the comments I've received on similar threads, I may have a rather large blind spot preventing me from being able /to/ properly apply LW methods in this area.
So I'll try a different approach - instead of giving it a go myself again, I'll simply ask, what do /you/ think a good LW post about liberty, freedom, and fundamental human rights would look like?