“The doll houses of Southern agrarianism and Ayn Rand libertarianism”

Heh.

A bit gentler than Russell Kirk’s “chirping sectaries” but all the more true for it.

I think I share considerably more common ground with libertarians than modern liberals, but both are fundamentally movements of the Left and neither is based on a sound model of human nature. The libertarian model is less unsound, particularly as expressed in their campaign literature (“There is no Utopia”) but Homo economicus remains a laboratory strain distinct from its cousin in the wild.