Phil, you mention loss of privacy as if the libertarian philosophy was focused on that issue while other political systems don’t care about it. Though I am not a liberal, many liberals are also extremely concerned about the loss of privacy. That issue crosses all political spectra.

Nothing in my column touches one way or the other on privacy issues and there is no justification for assuming that my criticism of libertarianism means that I am in favor of government or private espionage. Quite the contrary.

My main criticism of the libertarian philosophy is that it is unconcerned with individual human freedom and is focused on protecting the power of corporations, often to the detriment of human beings. You and I share a concern for the danger to individual human freedom, but my position is that the libertarian philosophy itself represents such a danger for the reasons set forth in the column.

As for the idea that I was criticizing an extreme version of libertarianism and not the mainstream philosophy, I recently received this comment: “ I am running for Congress on the Libertarian ballot line AND I agree with most of what you way [say]” so I don’t think I missed the core of the libertarian philosophy at all.