From time to time I visit a site calle Public Reason. Yesterday a post there made these arguments...

1) Assumption: Libertarians agree that any existing states must be legitimate and some states should exist.
2) Assumption: Libertarians hold that for any existing states to be legitimate they must only exercise coercive force over (rights respecting) individuals to protect these individuals’ liberty.
3) From Simmons’ argument in “Consent theory for libertarians”: Libertarians should agree that for state to be legitimate, they must secure their subjects’ autonomous consent.
4) For states to secure their subjects autonomous consent, they must do what they can to enable their subjects to secure sufficient autonomy to autonomously consent to its rules.
5) To secure this autonomy most people (in all states) must be able to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
6) So, states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
7) Implicit premise: If libertarians must agree that states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter, they must be (some kind of) welfare liberals.
8) So libertarians should be (some kind of) welfare liberals.

I do not see how #4 follows from #3. Of course, I don't know what she means by 'autonomous consent', but I don't see how that can be defined to legitimize the statement that follows, specifically, mandating that a state enable its citizens to do anything. The way I see it, a legitimate government creates an environment that allows people the freedom to secure food, water, and shelter themselves. That is as far as it should go.

The post is found here, and her paper can be found here. I haven't read the whole paper, but it is long and complicated, and I don't think individual liberties is that complicated. I think maybe she is confusing ideal individual qualities with the qualities of the ideal state. The argument is that the state go beyond the basics, simply ensuring the freedom of individuals to see to their own welfare, to shifting the burden of the welfare of the citizen to the state. I tried googling for autonomous consent, but could find nothing other than references to her paper and references she makes, nothing of which breaks it down in simple terms. Oh yeah, and comments are not welcome at Public Reason unless you have a doctorate. Hence, my comments are here rather than on the site.