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This is frustrating. Any conservative who does not understand libertarianism, is someone who probably hasn't read a book not connected to the Left Behind series. No one who understands the intellectual foundations of capitalism and the market economy, would foolishly equate libertarianism with socialism. Anyone who would do such a thing, hasn't read Human Action by Von Mises, Road to Serfdom by Hayek, Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt, The Economic Way of Thinking by Heyne, anything by Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman or Lord Acton, or any other book from the litany of pro-libertarian works that should be required reading for everyone across the political spectrum, yet alone those who claim to be a defender of the free market system.

Because if you are well versed in the intellectual side of the Conservative movement, you wouldn't be calling Libertarians--such as Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek--Socialists. That's just ignorance, and representative of the disgusting anti-intellectualism trend in the Conservative movement. It's pretty simple: If you don't understand the arguments from the Austrian school and Monetarist school, you don't understand Conservativism. If you do understand the Austrian and Monetarist schools, you know that Libertarianism isn't Socialism, and that Conservativism and Libertarianism share the same intellectual roots.

I'm not a Libertarian, and I'm not a pure laissez faire economist. I'm more in line with Hayek, who believed that not only was Government necessary to protect the market system (Rule of Law), but that the Government could actually make a positive contribution to the market process in other ways. I have my qualms with the Libertarian party, many many qualms. But just because you disagree with an ideology, doesn't make it wise to hurl any insult at it, because when you do, you open yourself to harsh criticism from those who know more about what you're talking about than you do.