My Change pt II

Libertarians are accused of insensitivity to issues of public good, and private misfortune, i.e. what happens when we could pave the road at the cost of a few tax dollars; what happens when we could advance our own economic interests abroad with a larger 'defense' budget; what happens to individuals who are unable to pay for their families basic living expenditures.  Big government folks assign these tasks to centralized, tax funded structures, and they see Libertarian policy restraint as a refusal to address these issues.

Libertarians, however, respond by pointing to individual, private action as the proper way in which these situations should be dealt with.  For the Libertarian, it is true that public good and private misfortune should be addressed; at issue is how they should be addressed.  If the individual is the pinnacle of our society, then the individual is the key to addressing these issues.  Individuals, acting independent of their governing structures, will address issues of public good, and private misfortune, and will do so much more efficiently and effectively than governments are able to...

...that is the Libertarian assumption.

The Libertarian is in favor of redistribution of wealth and the maintenance of infrastructure, s/he just believes that the private individual is able to achieve them more effectively and efficiently than public institutions.  Furthermore, the Libertarian believes that public attempts to accomplish these goals move forward at the expense of individual liberty, and are therefore ideologically unsound as well as practically irresponsible.