“I didn’t go nuts; this movement did,” he concluded before launching into a series of cartoonishly reductive descriptions of what he thinks are the ultimate libertarian ends. …

When Maher declared himself a “libertarian” back in 2001, Salon declared it a “joke,” noting that only a handful of his beliefs (specifically in the social issues realm) overlapped with libertarian ideology. His staunch support for the expansion of government over guns, education, business, etc., were all in direct opposition to what libertarians generally believe — and yet, somehow, he bizarrely believes to this day that the movement left him.

Ultimately, it seems what Maher thought “libertarian” meant is actually what “liberal” is supposed to mean. American liberals are supposed to support the social issues and civil liberties causes he extols, yet they never fully commit when in power. Maher was never a libertarian; just a staunch liberal. As Reason‘s Nick Gillespie notes: “For better or worse, a Venn diagram of Maher and libertarianism is going to show a huge amount of overlap on things.” And that’s a welcome fact. Libertarians and honest liberals will always get along on civil liberties; but we’ll just have to respectfully disagree on economics.