[traviskicks]

I don’t think there are major differences between Rand and Libertarians. I didn’t know Rand ‘loathed libertarians’, unless she was speaking of the leftist ones, the kind that vote for green party folks and obama, these folks aren’t real libertarians anyway. Atlas Shrugged, one of my favorite books epitomizes libertarian belief. I consider her one of us. :)

[mnehring]

As you probably know, there is a big disconnect between Libertarian as a party and libertarian belief. The party, not libertarian philosophy, is what she was referring to in many statements; calling them the ‘hippies of the right’, and ‘more concerned with opposing the State versus opposing Statism.’ She also mentioned how the Libertarian Party was the ‘perversion of liberty.’ (Peter Schwartz later wrote a great book building on this.)

I think Objectivist and philosophical libertarians have a lot in common, just as Conservatives and philosophical libertarians do. It is the parties who take on the mantle of the philosophy that often stray.