Why do people insist on misrepresenting libertarianism?

Over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Freddie's suggestion that some type of government regulation is needed regarding standards for personal trainer certification has created quite a few comments on the subject of regulation, and, of course, several commenters framed the libertarian position in the light of preferring to live in an unsafe world. I see this charge quite often regarding libertarians -- if a libertarian is against government regulation of personal trainers, then the libertarian doesn't care about safety -- if a libertarian is against government regulation of building codes, then the libertarian doesn't care if shoddy buildings fall in on a family of five, with three of them being children!

No matter how many times the libertarian-minded person defends his/her position by explaining that preferring no government involvement doesn't automatically mean the libertarian doesn't care about safety, the anti-libertarian will still insist that if government is not involved, the only alternative is that society is at the mercy of monster-capitalists who will screw, maim and kill consumers. 

I don't know what it will take to break the one-directional thought which moves to government involvement first without considering what the private sector might accomplish in a different environment. Is it a given that if government quit regulating tomorrow that the world would become a place of anarchy and fatally unsafe conditions? No, it's not a given.

I'm a little aggravated, so let me get one thing off my chest -- liberals who support a strong interventionist state don't have a monopoly on caring. A case can be made that supporting the results of much government intervention denies how these results are making the less fortunate even less fortunate, but I won't go into that if there can at least be a starting point that accepts we can all care about the lives of others and disagree on how consumer protection can be improved.

So, going back to the government ceasing, tomorrow, all intervention for the sake of consumer protection. Would consumers put themselves at the mercy of crooks, and would there be an increase in fraud, safety risks, poor quality, etc.? Likely, what would happen is companies would begin considering how they can position themselves to distinguish their offerings as safe, competent, quality, etc. It won't do to just tell the public, because the public has become accustomed to receiving objective (ostensibly) proof of business claims. We can't compare a less sophisticated consumer of a 100 years ago with the consumer today in the information age.

Our society has grown to depend on the government to protect consumers, so private efforts haven't had the assurance to go full bore into consumer protection -- if a company started a consumer-protection company, there's no gaurantee that government would not come along and create regulation that interferes with the company's efforts. So, for the most part, a national mindset has developed that assumes government protection of consumers. But if government officials announced tomorrow they are no longer in the consumer protection business, because they need that money to finance presidential trips to Europe, and to support Goldman Sachs in their quest to to control the world's finances, then there is no reason to doubt that private efforts to protect consumers would develop. Consumer protection not only helps the consumer, it helps companies.

In the present day business environment which can't evade information age scrutiny, even if a company chooses to be unethical, it won't get by with it, and with the suspicion of business at a high level, anyway, companies can't afford to be labled unethical and for this image to go viral. There will likely be companies which do reputation management, companies which create quality accreditation, and watch-dog groups with sites to offer information about company behavior. There's no limit to the competition which will arise to meet the needs of doing business while also protecting consumers, and these efforts, in my opiinion, would be much better for all concerned than government regulation, seeing as how most government efforts are politically influenced and vulnerable to special interest favoritism -- not to mention incompetence.

Now you might disagree with my view of what would develop in a free society regarding consumer protection, but please address my views rather than claiming, as a libertarian, I don't give a shit. If we're going to have an intelligent discussion of issues such as these, it will help to stop creating useless diversions and address the fundamental problems. Again, I'm not saying Freddie made the claim, but some of the commenters there, and plenty of other places, continue to make the claim that because a libertarian has problems with government intervention we simply don't care about solutions -- this libertarian is concerned about solutions.