<Well, a couple of observations. First, show me the person who will crawl into the the "wanting to be controlled" box. I don't think anyone will.

First, obviously a lot of people in this world aren't given a choice about whether they are "controlled" or not. The alternative is the gun, the gulag, or the gas chambers.

Second, more people than we would like to admit are more than happy to turn over responsibility for their lives to someone else, usually the government or some other authority. It's better than having to make all those difficult decisions. They don't see this as volunteering to be controlled by someone else, but that's the result anyway. Obviously, this applies to people who are controlled by their religions as well, except that in reality since God doesn't have an e-mail address, they end up being controlled by whoever is "representing" God that day.

People naturally like to live and work with other people, in communities, and on common goals. This applies to libertarians as well as anyone else. Individualism does not mean the same as being an anti-social hermit.

The all-critical key is that the cooperation is voluntary.

A touchstone: when you are examining any "social" "collective" or "community" effort, project, or program, check and see what happens if a member decides not to participate. Does he get to go his own way, or does the rest of the group pull a gun and drag him back in? That separates collectivism from individualism.

This applies equally to left and right, or any other direction you can think of.