This is an interesting argument by Jonah Goldberg in response to Jim Pinkerton's suggestion that Rush Limbaugh emerge from rehab advocating libertine libertarianism Pinkerton writes:

But there's a better path for Limbaugh. He can build upon his own personal experiences to strike a signature blow for liberty. He can get back on the air and use his mega-microphone to proclaim that personal freedom means that people should have a right to pursue happiness in their own way, so long as they don't hurt others. He can say that he escaped from the coils of justice -- in truth, injustice -- because he had money and influence, but that others, not so rich, are rarely so luck.

I'm with Jonah on this one. Although in my younger, wilder days I thought it was a hoot to play the cynical libertarian - let everyone go to Hell on their own was my motto - as I've matured I learned the wisdom of Aristotelian moderation. The sociological truth is that the net outcome of individual pleasure seeking behavior is not greater individual happiness. If everyone plugs into a virtual world of sybaritic hedonism, no work gets done and everyone suffers.

Likewise, the libertine libertarian view is long on theory but short on facts. The historical fact is that chemicals that produce a pleasure effect on the human brain are singularly destructive when introduced to new populations. Like "childhood diseases" that were originally killers until the population developed an immunity, a long and destructive dance of Darwinian cultural and biological evolution is required before a cultural immunity is developed against drug addiction. The canard of the destructive effect that "firewater" had on Native American populations is not simple racism. Different populations have different levels of tolerance to alcohol. Libertarians forget the social evils caused to the British by the cheap production of gin during the eighteenth century, aperiod known as the "Gin Madness." Gin madness would cause wage earners to throw their wages way on alcohol to the resultant misery of their families as they "exercised their right to pursue happiness in their own way." Gin madness was eventually cured by a variety of devices, including weaning the population off gin and onto beer and by instilling an appreciation of the virtues of temperance and the evils of drunkenness. In other words, by stigmatizing drunkards and by otherwise being judgmental about a lifestyle choice.

Jonah's also right about fundamental unfairness of wealth. For Limbaugh, a drug addiction means that he blows disposable income - and maybe his hearing. For someone on the "water line" of society, it can mean the difference between survival for his or her family. It's not fair, but it is life, and since I have never understood it to be a fundamental part of the libertarian program to care for the children of addicts through social welfare programs, and, yet oddly, they haven't recently advocated the return of workhouses, I'm going to throw in with Jonah on this one.