Since you are being uncharitable with me, I am extremely confident I know much more about political philosophy, political economy, capitalism (and its criticisms) than you do.
The "smug belief" seems to be true, because a lot of people are saying that they didn't realize it. I never made fun of them for not knowing. Some have been taught this, some haven't.
Not a ridiculous generalization? At most my assertion was that being rich is not by itself problematic, because it is not the case that being rich means taking from others, or at the expense of others only (zero sum). That is why I used the latin word ipso facto; it was to hone in on that point.
I am sorry I use those words; I read a lot of heavy material everyday and am formally educated. It's normal for me, and I wasn't doing an ELI5.
I haven't ever read Ayn Rand, and I don't have any respect for her as a philosopher (because I did study philosophy formally, and so we know that her philosophy is bad). I've only read the first chapter of Atlas Shrugged.
The thing you (and every libertarian) are completely omitting is that sometimes people do get rich by gaining wealth to the detriment of others, and this is objectionable.
100% of libertarians know this is objectionable. For example, you can become rich through theft, robbery, fraud, etc. Do you think libertarians are in favour of this? Or corporate welfare, subsidies? All of these things are opposed by libertarians. I can give you a dozen, high-profile libertarian works that object vehemently to wealth accumulation through illegitimate means. (In fact, that's one of the places where leftists and right-libertarians are usually seen to agree.)
Your one conversation with a dumb hippie who doesn't understand capitalism doesn't make every critic of laissez-faire capitalism wrong.
Except if you knew me, you would realize that (a) I've had thousands of conversations with hippies (not one), and (b) I've also spent thousands of hours of reading academic political philosophy, and (c) my supervised thesis was on political philosophy and actually was a criticism of right-libertarianism.
I know the criticisms of laissez-faire capitalism very well, whether it be economic or philosophical.