A couple of years ago, Jonah Goldberg caused a tempest in a teacup by claiming that libertarians are really part of the conservative movement:

Even those libertarians like the indispensable Virginia Postrel, who rightly reject the conservative label — just as Whittaker Chambers did — need to understand that operationally they are still members of the capital “R” Right.

This, of course, earned heated responses from guys like Harry Browne, and even inspired a debate with Reason magazine’s Michael Lynch.

Saying that libertarians are part of the “right” is kind of like saying that Mormons are part of Catholicism. They may share some tangential similarities and have some common inspirations, but the differences are far too many to claim that one can be a subset of the other.

A recent Salon article drives the point home again. If I have anything in common with these cretins, it’s almost purely coincidental.