One of the reasons that American libertarians as a political movement never amount to anything is that they can be incredibly intolerant people. This may seem counterintuitive, but while a great many fiscal and social conservatives are willing to seek compromise in common purpose, libertarians are forever in search of hills to die on for their noble and incorruptible principles, particularly when it comes to locally grown produce or which is the best Von Mises book (Human Action you say? Poseur!). Libertarians form factions within factions, cliques within cliques, and the more libertine they are, the more oppressively dull.

Consider the response of some of the more urban libertarians to the Tea Party, which obviously contains many libertarian minded individuals. But survey data also indicates that much of the Tea Party is opposed to abortion and generally traditionalist in perspective on marriage – they are and were disaffected small-government conservatives, not just fiscal ones. Upon discovering this, some big city libertarians became strongly anti-Tea Party, including certain ones, like David Boaz of the Cato Institute, who took to lambasting Sarah Palin and other Tea Party figures as dull-witted country mice. Where’s the evangelism, folks? If churches took such attitudes toward theological questions, no religious body would exist beyond one or two people.