You know, I spend a lot of time in libertarian/pro-free-market arguments in other forums online... usually refuting poor assumptions. My favorite one is where someone thinks libertarians are all assholes who are trying to create slave-labor monopolies. How do you guys keep from just getting frustrated and completely giving up?
First, come to grips with the hardest part of Libertarianism. You don't exist to convince others, satisfy their needs, or save the world.
Second, don't go to some non-political forum with the agenda of convincing people. You just be competing for air on an already poor signal to noise ratio soapbox.
Third, the core of what we are, really, is people who want to be left alone. Fire in the belly is fine and good, when you believe in a cause passionately, but when you give up what freedom you have to tilting at windmills/pissing into the wind, it only wastes
your life.
Four, live a life of freedom. Do as you see fit. Live by the NAP. Don't lie, cheat or steal from people. And when put to the test, take the moral high ground. Say so when asked about it. People will start to respect you and your opinions. Then when they ask you what you believe in, (When you know them well enough.)
then tell them, in light, non lecturing words, without the suggestion of condemnation of people you disagree with. You
can convert people to Libertarianism, but only one person at a time. It's an individualist view that requires individualist methods. I have been a Libertarian since I was eighteen, and in that time, I have introduced four people successfully to freedom. My wife, (At the age of 38, Former Republican) My Father, (Aged 59, he's just read Atlas Shrugged, and is getting into The Fountainhead.) My Father in law, (May he have peace. He voted non-republican for the first time in his life, for Michael Badnarick, at the age of sixty-three.) and my best friend since the age of twelve. (Aged 32, was a violent nihilist type anarchist, turned capitalist hero.) That's it for all that time.
Just remember, being free also means not enslaving yourself to others.
I fought and fought for
fucking years, to get people to listen. You can't get people to listen by fighting them. Reach for the ideal in yourself, and people will see that natural charisma that comes from true self esteem, and be attracted to it.