"Why don't you leave now," Murray Rothbard exhorted Young Americans for Freedom libertarians 36 years ago, "and let the 'F' in YAF stand then for what it has secretly stood for all along--'fascism'?" Tell us what you really think, Murray. Don't hold back.

Rothbard's tirade, revisited today by LewRockwell.com, demonstrates the libertarian penchant for imprudence from the brilliant. It also shows that the fissures on the Right today are nothing new. "So what kind of a free market position is one that favors the outlawry of marijuana?," asked Rothbard, "And what of the state monopoly military-industrial complex that the system has spawned?" Rothbard colorfully points to differences between conservatives and libertarians in their attitudes toward civil liberties, the draft, the war, and the police.

In addition to highlighting the libertarian tendency toward injudiciousness and the durability of the Right's internal debates, Rothbard's analysis reveals a more depressing thought borne out of what he doesn't say. Rothbard quibbles with conservatives--of the man and strawman variety--over such issues as military spending and space exploration, but does not outright charge his opponents with desiring to make government bigger than the Great Society behemoth. There's no debate about medicare, federal education spending, nationalization of airline security, farm subsidies, federal disaster insurance, and nation-building because both Rothbard and his stated enemies--"the fusionists, those misleaders" and "the frank theocrats, the worshippers of monarchy, the hawkers after a New Inquisition"--didn't dream of supporting such nonsense. From the privileged vantagepoint of the future, it is easy to see that past libertarian/conservative disagreements belie agreements. The 2005 conservative no longer takes this common ground for granted among others speaking in his name.

Rothbard's dichotomy of Right ultraists and Right accomodationists demonstrates how far we've come, and in what direction--left. Any purist of 2005 would happily settle for the government as envisioned by the pragmatists of 1969. Any pragmatist of 2005 would have been called a liberal in 1969.