Whither Libertarianism?

ka1gu1a on Freedom Democrats with a provocative post:

With all due respect to Lane, now is the time for libertarians to actually be picking up their manifestos, not putting them down. Low-tax liberalism now is about as much a pipe dream in the US as it would be in one party states such as China or historically, in Mussolini's fascist, corporatist Italy. I'm sorry, libertarianism is not about providing the swing vote for which party gets to select the puppet masters from the same pool of ruling class overlords.

Here's my comment:

You've written an interesting and provocative post. I disagree, but want to raise just one point here. The market's reaction after the Lehman refusal showed that the markets and investors were expecting a bailout. In other words, there was an implicit government guarantee to intervene in a crisis such as this. In this instance, to try and go against the expectations of the market would be very hard and complicated. On the other hand, going forward, it will be clear that this implicit guarantee, which will now be explicit, was partly responsible for this crisis. I believe that this will come to be widely understood. Contrary to what you are saying, the moral hazards of this arrangement are more widely understood and accepted, and will finally have to be addressed.