Did Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard take liberty down a bad path?

            by KEVIN CZARZASTY

            Nelson
Hultberg, author of The
Golden Mean, suggests that in response to exploding government in the
1930's, some libertarians became too extreme.  In turn, Anarchy-leaning
Libertarians dividing the freedom movement into one part radical, one part
conservative.  From there, Hultberg argues, Liberty had a tiny chance at
prevailing, because its proponents were fighting against themselves rather than
exponentially growing government.

            This
battle, I believe, illustrates the genius of Milton Friedman.  Freedom
fighters often run into the following problem: To be principled or to be practical?
 All too often, this is seen as a black and white issue, but as Milton
Friedman showed, the grey area is where the most progress can be made.  It
is in the spectrum between principles and practicality that we can begin to
reunite the cohesive freedom-thinkers that split apart in the early 20th
Century.

Below is a short explanation by Hultberg...

"When it first began in the early 1940s, the freedom movement in America was not split between libertarians and conservatives. It was one coalition unified in rebellion against FDR's welfare state. By 1970, however, the movement had become tragically bifurcated. Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard took libertarians off into anarchy, while the Burkean philosopher Russell Kirk drove conservatives into the complacency of welfare-statism. This split has created two incomplete visions (contemporary libertarianism and conservatism) that are, in their singularity, incapable of effectively challenging the authoritarian mega-state."