I've been watching a set of Discovery Channel reality adventure miniseries called Out of The Wild, where a group of nine ordinary people (Lord the Rings reference, perhaps?) are dropped into the deepest, darkest wildernesses on Earth and have to fend for themselves along a predetermined route with only modest help from caches and established shelters. And that got me thinking: Wouldn't a premise like this, taken a bit further, be a great opportunity for libertarians and conservatives to demonstrate their persistent belief that people should just "stop whining" and "pull themselves up by their bootstraps"? So allow me to outline a proposal for just such a program.
Premise: Every libertarian or conservative who wishes to participate can do so, provided they sign various liability waivers and such. As small government values do not accept collective planning on the basis of safety or practicality, there would be no limit on the number who could participate. Also, because they are Ubermenschen and do not need to be coddled with foreknowledge of anything related to the program, they will not be told where they are going, when, under what circumstances, what to do when they get there, or how to win the contest. They will renounce their US citizenship, because it was a handout from their parents, and seek to earn their fortunes through pure individual initiative.
At an appointed time, contestants will be dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night, blind-folded, and stuffed into the cargo holds of aircraft as closely together as is physically manageable. Each contestant will then be stripped naked, given a parachute, and pushed out the door at roughly 5,000 feet over the North Pole at midnight in the dead of winter. They will have no provisions, no maps, no clothing, no compass, no GPS, no weapons, no tools, and no communications equipment, and once they reach the ground their parachute packs will be reacquired by armed personnel of the show - since, after all, the chutes are the property of the program, and the contestants do not need any handouts.
Since Arctic temperatures on naked flesh are no obstacle to the Will of a Superman, those who perish from the cold will be justly mocked by the survivors for their lack of faith in free market principles. The true believers, however, will have the opportunity to innovate their way out of the situation by making clothing, shelter, tools, food, and heating fuel from the bodies of the dead - or in the language of the free market, repurposing the assets of failed enterprises for the good of going concerns. Contestants with plentiful bodily resources in these departments - e.g., abundant fat, good skin, and strong bones that could make good cutting implements - may face a hostile takeover of their assets by stronger individuals/enterprises. Still others may freely sell their labor in exchange for compensation, such as a guarantee that they would not be killed and eaten.
Meanwhile, the camera and logistics crews filming the show would live in a walled, armed compound just a few hundred yards away with abundant food, heating, electricity, and medical care. The cooking smells from the compound's kitchen would be directed at the contestants' encampments from the stove exhaust vents, and the walls of the compound would be made of thick, transparent glass so that contestants could see the crews lounging inside, relaxing in shirtsleeves, and enjoying hearty meals. Any contestant who attempted to scale the walls would be shot, since they are invading the sovereign private property of others - a capital offense, according to libertarian/conservative values. And any who begged for entrance, food, or a handout of any kind would be sprayed with a hose and pelted with copies of Ayn Rand literature - copies that would then be retrieved in force to avoid giving the lazy bums free paper.
The first contestant to make a million dollars under these conditions wins, and the Grand Prize is that they would be granted sovereign ownership of 1 square meter of Arctic ice upon which to establish their own personal republic. Since global warming is a hoax, their land would be secure in perpetuity. Any true rugged-individualist would soon turn such a republic into a wealthy, prosperous, technologically advanced society teeming with productivity and commerce. The contestant who is second richest will win a log from which they can fashion a canoe. Third richest wins a used toothpick from the crew compound for the miniscule fraction of a calorie on it. Everyone else who still survives will have to face the shame of returning to socialist civilization without having become gods, and paying taxes in exchange for prosperity like mere mortals.