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This article is interesting, and not without merit. If we can get away from the name-calling (fascist, traitor) we might reach some sort of understanding.

``Recently, however, there have been ominous signs that the danger of a disbalance just as alien to conservatism is arising not from traditionalist quarters, but from an untrammeled libertarianism, which tends as directly to anarchy and nihilism as unchecked traditionalism tends to authoritarianism.''

This sentences makes me want to look for more writing by Mr. Meyer. Pyro, you made part of this sentence boldface, while it is important in its entirety.

This is something I've said frequently here on FR: Liberty and responsibility go hand in hand. Liberty without responsibility leads to mayhem, and responsibility without liberty leads to slavery.

For example, the left-wing approach to drug prohibtion revolves around isolating people from their bad acts with such suggestions like giving people free needles, or free health care and drug counseling. The left cannot see that these undermine personal responsibility. On the other hand, the authoritarian approach to drug-prohibition involves punishing everyone for the bad acts of others. The authoritarian does not acknowledge that some people can handle addiction better than others, and want to jail all users to get the ones would cause trouble.

If we have a balanced approach to drug prohibition, we would in no way subsidize people's bad habits on the one hand, but when someone commits a crime we should lock the door and throw away the key.

Thanks for commenting here. Please do look into the writings of Meyer. He was originally a Communist, and after some soul-searching in the 1940s, he became an influential leader of the emerging conservative movement. George Nash, in The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, calls Meyer "an ardent, argumentative libertarian, as well as one of the formative personal influences on the conservative revial," while others call him a "fusionist," someone who tried to reconcile the libertarian and traditionist schools of conservatism. But one of the best reflections on Meyer's contribution comes from Morton Blackwell, founder of the Leadership Institute. He commented on "In Defense of Freedom" in his essay, Read to Lead. Meyer's basic thesis, according to Blackwell, was that "if the conservative movement was going to succeed, adherents of both lines of thought, natural allies on most issues, must be fused together. Supporters of a conservative economic policy, he taught, couldn't expect their policies to be enacted without the backing of social-issue conservatives. And it was equally true, he continued, that social-issue conservatives couldn't expect their policies to be enacted unless they allied with economic conservatives. The presidential elections of 1980, 1984 and 1988, as well as the congressional elections of 1994 and 1996, were manifestations of the wisdom of Frank Meyer."

Another great quote by Meyer comes from his 1964 essay "Freedom, Tradition, Conservatism."
"But both extremes (of traditionalism and libertarianism) are self-defeating: truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core and soon brings about conditions that pave the way for surrender to tyranny."

I admire your well-thought comments. The "essay" describing your train of thought on your profile page seems to back up my thought that you are a well-trained thinker. I agree with you that the all the name-calling on FR needs to stop. It is very immature. It can be a very anti-intellectual environment on here at times.

If you want to read more about the "tension" between liberty and tradition, a good book (also printed by ISI) is "Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian Debate," edited by George W. Carey. It includes essays by Meyer, and commentary by Murray Rothbard on Meyer's ideology.