"REAL" was chosen for several reasons: (not neccessarily in order of importance)
1. So people interested in libertarianism would stumble upon the site.
2. The name is (real) simple.
3. The site make a statement about the name-game situation of real libertarians (anarchists/left libertarians) vs. The Libertarian Party, or right-wing libertarians in general for that matter. To me, right-wing libertarianism is as oxymoronic as the term anarcho-capitalism. This site was originally built in early 2000, but was overhauled shortly before the 2012 election, and all the Ron Paul Rebuplitarian election hype.
4. R.E.A.L. has an acronyml: Rational Egalitarian Anarcho-Libertarianism-- as if we need to add another name to the long list of redundant and hyphenated anarcho-adjectives.
Rationalism, in the philosphical sense of reasoning, is a cornerstone of my phyche. I imagine most libertarians anaylze or reason over situations with librerty in mind. Rationalism, in the "political" sense is relavant to libertarianism as well, but I have to say that personally I'm more of a political Realist than Internationalist. Regardless, I feel better in the middle with Rationalism, and somewhere between individualism and collectivism as well.
To many libertarians, anarchism is the logical equivalent of Egalitarianism. To me anarchism is egalitarian, not in the economic sense of equal pay or rewards for all, but in the sense of equal access to "power." Not Power, as in Hierarchy/Authority, but equal power of choice in making descions (economic or other), and equal power to bypass suffering the consequences or collateral damage of choices made by others. The difference in needs and abilities of people is real, and not very egalitarian, but how we act and address those differences can make a world of difference in just how 'egalitarian' society is-- respecting the sovereign right of all to self-ownership quickly levels the playing field of 'power' and will go a long way to ensuring the best of all possible worlds as different as we may be.
5. REAL also serves the circle-E and circle-A well. The circle "O" meaning "Order," or anarchy is order, and the circle E, egalitarianism.
6. Not that I'm much for logos, thanks to Naomi Klien, but the logo I created represents One vision-- Anarchy as Order-- with many paths (the different arrows) to that "end"-- both individulitic and anarcho-communistic.
7. By using "real" I'm not playing the "one-drop" libertarian card. But it could be argued its an act of aggression-- raising the blood pressure of those that really don't like hyphenated-libertarianism.
Adding "real" in front of libertarian isn't a means to express a holier-than-thou attitude, but a (sad?) reality that left-libertarians face, as we are often not considered real libertarians.
Adding real to libertarian won't change minds on what's proper anyway. In essence, adding real is like adding left in front of libertarian, although the latter is more redundant than descriptive. It could be said that adding real is also redundant.
I really don't know what to call right-libertarianism, as I think its a misnomer. Perhaps "Republitarians"? Nonetheless, there are some things right and left libs can agree on, of course both will claim to be "real." Will the "real Slim Shady please stand up?" Or should I say Thin Shady?
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