"The thought is that if freedom is the highest standard it eventually eats up all other considerations, so it ultimately becomes defined as getting whatever it is you happen to want."
This is begging the question. By definition, getting what you want is a statement about outcomes, which is the concern of leftists. Libertarians are concerned about whether legal obstacles (not your own ability, etc.) prevent you from pursuing what you want.
Thus, you have already engaged in proof by assertion in your first sentence.
I think that there are multiple possibilities to explain the evolution of classical liberalism into leftism. One is that if you combine Rousseauian views with liberalism you get leftism, as I hypothesized. Another is that the combination of secularism (i.e. loss of transcendent truth) with classical liberalism produces leftism. Another is that modernism and a lack of respect for tradition, a negative view of the past, will combine with liberalism to produce leftism. We also could say that there are reasons why the same person tends to embrace secularism, lack of respect for tradition, a Rousseauian view of human nature, and liberalism, hence it is impossible to disentangle all four factors and identify just one or two smoking guns.
I guess there are two lines of investigation: logical and historical. Logically, what must lead to what? I am not convinced that there is a logical inevitability here. Historically, what do the writings of classical liberals reveal over time? What influenced them? Rousseauian views of human nature? Secularism? Anti-traditionalism? All three? To what degree of each?
We can make plausible hypotheses that are persuasive to our readers, but the historical questions can only be answered with primary sources. Tom Sowell's A Conflict of Visions provided a lot of quotations showing the influence of the Rousseauian view. But, he might have found lots of other quotes on these other factors if he had looked primarily for them. In fact, he provides examples of anti-traditionalist liberal thought in his other writings (e.g. "the dead hand of the past" is how liberals refer to our heritage). So, again, which factors were the actual historical influences and to what degree? Hard to say just by logical argument.
Logical vs. Historical Argument
"The thought is that if freedom is the highest standard it eventually eats up all other considerations, so it ultimately becomes defined as getting whatever it is you happen to want."
This is begging the question. By definition, getting what you want is a statement about outcomes, which is the concern of leftists. Libertarians are concerned about whether legal obstacles (not your own ability, etc.) prevent you from pursuing what you want.
Thus, you have already engaged in proof by assertion in your first sentence.
I think that there are multiple possibilities to explain the evolution of classical liberalism into leftism. One is that if you combine Rousseauian views with liberalism you get leftism, as I hypothesized. Another is that the combination of secularism (i.e. loss of transcendent truth) with classical liberalism produces leftism. Another is that modernism and a lack of respect for tradition, a negative view of the past, will combine with liberalism to produce leftism. We also could say that there are reasons why the same person tends to embrace secularism, lack of respect for tradition, a Rousseauian view of human nature, and liberalism, hence it is impossible to disentangle all four factors and identify just one or two smoking guns.
I guess there are two lines of investigation: logical and historical. Logically, what must lead to what? I am not convinced that there is a logical inevitability here. Historically, what do the writings of classical liberals reveal over time? What influenced them? Rousseauian views of human nature? Secularism? Anti-traditionalism? All three? To what degree of each?
We can make plausible hypotheses that are persuasive to our readers, but the historical questions can only be answered with primary sources. Tom Sowell's A Conflict of Visions provided a lot of quotations showing the influence of the Rousseauian view. But, he might have found lots of other quotes on these other factors if he had looked primarily for them. In fact, he provides examples of anti-traditionalist liberal thought in his other writings (e.g. "the dead hand of the past" is how liberals refer to our heritage). So, again, which factors were the actual historical influences and to what degree? Hard to say just by logical argument.