Though I am unsure when this essay was written, Kirk predated Goldwater and the conservative movement. Indeed, he was one of American conservatism's foundational figures, but he was consistent enough to see the major flaws in the "fusionist" movement which has often usurped the title of conservatism.
Kirk himself would probably look down on today's GOP. He opposed the first Gulf War soon before his death. He denounced automobiles as mechanical jacobins, sacrificing real community on the altar of industrialization. He wrote ghost stories.
Libertarians are more at home in today's conservative movement than Kirk would be, and we are a poorer nation because of it.
(On another note, one of his daughters has a blog.)
Wow, I never even looked at the Author of that article...LOL. Yes, I am very familiar with Kirk and his writings. You are correct, he surely predates the Goldwater movement. Kirk was obviously much closer to what I might call a "utopian libertarian" than the "practical libertarian" who emerged to become part of the Conservative movement during the latter half of the 20th Century. As for our being a poorer nation because libertarians moved away from Kirk's ideological purity...well...we will have to agree to disagree. While I myself am largely guided by a theoretical belief in libertarian principles, I feel it is, at best, naive to ignore the basic realities of human nature that limit pure libertarianism to a utopian dream rather than a coherent, truly viable, political ideology. I am pretty much the walking embodiment of the so-called "fusion" that Kirk held in such contempt...LOL
WAIT..I'm wrong, I'm thinking of someone else. Russell Kirk was NOT a Libertarian. He was a pure conservative. I am confusing him with someone else. My apologies.
Automobiles arose out of the problem-solving efforts of people who hoped to serve both their fellows and themselves, and the widespread adoption thereof is precisely the sort of "organic" evolution of society that Burke described. Kirk's complaint is thus inconsistent with his professed philosophy -- worse, it is itself a utopian "vision of the anointed" claim that society should be (forcibly?) reordered to fit a romantic ideal.