They use "could've grown up to cure cancer" to argue against abortion but deem those who want to cure cancer as evil socialists

Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative," "enterprise," "optimism," etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's problems for them, satisfy everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

A lot of libertarians believe in pure rugged, dependency-free individualism. In my view, living in poverty with no job, no home and no money is the purest form of rugged, dependency-free individualism because in reality we are still dependent on others to an extent even though we aren't entirely dependent on government. We are dependent on others for our jobs, getting paid for our work and having a roof over our heads. You are dependent on an employer for your job and when your employer refuses to hire you are let you keep your job, that affects you as an individual and you having a job is ultimately dependent on an employer being willing to give it to you and isn't automatically handed to you just for having the qualifications even though you worked to gain such qualifications, your employment still depends on the employer willing to hire you and there isn't a guarantee you will get the job for the employer might prefer to give it to someone else who also happens to have the qualifications or even go full nepo and give the job to his son who doesn't even have the proper qualifications. When you get paid for your work, you are dependent on those who are supposed to pay you for your work and gave you the work in the first place. And when people act upon their own will to refuse to pay you, that of course negatively affects you as an individual, that's why there at least needs to be worker protection laws to make sure those you work for don't try to get away with not paying you. When you rent an apartment, you're dependent on a landlord to let you stay in an apartment you pay rent for and when a landlord tries to evict you at whim despite you not being in rent arrears and always paying the rent on time that of course negatively affects you as an individual, that's why there needs to be government enforced laws to protect the rights of tenant and not have the landlord commit breach of contract on the rent-paying tenant. Liberals have a way too binary way of what's individual freedom and think that government is the only thing that infringes on one's individual freedom when in reality what other people do to you without government being involved can badly affect your individual freedom as much as government.

No. When I was young and foolish I was a Liberal Democrat who believed in nonsense like Socialism. Many foolish people do before they grow TF up.

You can be a liberal and not support socialism. I don't.