I agree it's not a good system, but the argument is not nearly the slam-dunk you seem to think it is. You can re-cast socialism in similarly distasteful terms: you have no choice but to participate in the system whether or not you agree with the rules. That can result in a substantial minority of people being forced to participate in a system with which they vehemently disagree. Under a libertarian regime, in order to get left out in the cold you have to have alienated everyone -- including those people who think no one deserves to get left out in the cold. And if you manage to alienate them, the argument goes, you probably deserve to get left out in the cold.

I disagree that they're similarly distasteful. It's "dying from a lack of medical attention" vs "being forced to participate in a system that asks for nothing more than some of your money".

And it ignores that people do not have an equal start in life. You get born into a wealthy, well-connected environment, and, well, even if you do some coke and maybe kill some people with your car, your community is still going to stand by you.

It's generally not a question of having to actively alienate people. Not being in a wealthy/powerful community is enough. The Y-believers don't have to hate that lone X-believer to fail to fund his medical bills. They just have to think of the X-believer as somebody else's problem.

If you get born into the wrong environment, all you've got is "the people who think no one deserves to get left out in the cold" - and those people's resources are stretched way past the breaking point. How much do we pay nurses? Does charity provide for adequate medical care for poor inner-city black kids? No.

This libertarian stuff pretends to be progressive, but the actual outcome of the suggested policies is incredibly regressive. It's no coincidence that libertarianism is a politics espoused by the already-privileged.

In the end, I am very happy to choose human dignity being more important than property rights as the hill to die on.