Yes, but it is the still living and growing marginal part. And it is that precisely because it does not make “a distinction between political and personal philosophy.” The Libertarian movement consciously chose to evade the philosophical underpinnings that make liberty a prerequisite for a human life. Their quest for the big tent is and will continue to be their downfall.

Knowledge is a pyramid inverted. The broadest generalizations are at the top, the most fundamental principles at the bottom. Disagreements can never be resolved if they derive from one lower in the pyramid. All political arguments over “what government should do” are higher in the pyramid than the ethical principles about “what should be done” from which they are derived.

But that process simply takes too much time and too much effort for Libertarians who want to conquer the world for capitalism with a quick fix (without earning it.) Nor are they able (without intellectual courage) to cope with the personal social turmoil that so often accompanies the adoption of or changeover to a radical philosophy.

Consequently while the Libertarians squabble in the shallows of the pyramid, winning over only the fickle pragmatists, those who grasped the significance of Ayn Rand’s battle plan are busy assembling an army of minds equipped with the necessary intellectual weaponry — an impregnable philosophical foundation.

It is they who will take us back to liberty, and the extinction of the Libertarian albatross would make that journey measurably easier.