system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I believe the vast majority of libertarians care more about money than people, I want to have some faith restored in humanity, please CMV

I identified myself as a libertarian for a short period of time, but after considering and analyzing the consequences of my beliefs, I went in the completely opposite direction (my political opinions fall most in line with the US Green Party's platform). I was also appalled by the beliefs of many of the libertarians I came into contact with during that time.

To be a libertarian, you have to value letting people hold onto their money more than you value reducing hunger, poverty, homelessness, sickness, suffering, and untimely death. I don't hold that all libertarians value their *own* money more than they value other people (although certainly some do), but rather that they value the ownership of money in general as more valuable than people.

I often consider the following thought experiment:  

>A child is disabled and on train tracks, and there is an oncoming train. There is a heavy object obstructing John's path to save the child that he cannot lift on his own. There are bystanders who could help, but for whatever reason, not enough are willing to help to successfully move the heavy object. However, John has a gun he can use to coerce the bystanders to help him help save the child.

Any reasonable person, I believe, would use the gun to coerce the people to help. A libertarian would not because such action violates the "non-aggression principle".

I'd like to know how someone can both be a libertarian and value people more than money.

I would define a libertarian as someone who would change the current US government more toward smaller government roles, lower taxes than toward larger government roles and higher taxes. So, for instance, someone who wants to get rid of the FDA but also wants to institute universal healthcare I wouldn't really consider libertarian since the latter action would be much more significant than the former.

I honestly would like my mind changed about this as I usually like to believe the best of people.
gpt
The libertarian ideology is not about money, it is about freedom from coercion. The ideology favors individual liberty and upholds individual rights at all cost - generally held to be up to the point where that individual's rights infringe on another individual's rights. This makes the individual the most important entity, by necessity making the individual more important than money. It assumes that with maximum individual liberty the greatest social benefit can be achieved.

Your thought experiment doesn't hold up because it assumes the bystanders have no morals *in order to prove a moral point.* Association with a particular ideology doesn't totally define your morals, especially when that ideology is only concerned with a few particular morals (primarily that the individual has full ownership of himself).

Most people who identify with libertarian philosophies agree that government is necessary for many social reasons (those who don't are anarcho-capitalists). Mainstream libertarians advocate that this government should only be as large as necessary to provide the requisite social services. They believe that the free market can provide other services better and more efficiently. 

Ultimately people hold this ideology for the reason anybody holds a political ideology - *they believe that it is best for society, i.e. people.*