I'm proudly not part of the religious right, as my longer analysis clearly indicates. Here's the link again:
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--1794-GOP_battle.aspx
Take a careful read of the language from both the Goldwater 1964 and the Reagan 1980 platforms. That's the vision to which Republicans need to return. (By the way, Rand didn't back Reagan in 1980. I did and I thought she was wrong. I'm an Objectivist, not a Rand cultist.)
To repeat my central political point, the libertarians -- small "l" -- and traditional conservative factions of the party agreed that the rule of law, constitutionally-limited government and checks and balances were necessary barriers to the abuse of political power.
To the extended that Republicans today -- whether social conservatives or neocons -- want government to manage our lives, only from the right rather than the left, they should at least be honest like Santorum and declare themselves opponents of individual liberty. (See extended quotes from him in my longer piece.) I'd rather at least know if my liberty is being targeted from the right and the left.
There is no liberty of a non-owner to "liberate" your real estate.
There is no liberty to murder the innocent unborn.
There is no liberty to force taxpayer subsidies of the faux "marriages" of Bruce and Lance or of Bruce and Lance and Bowser or of a thirteen ring "marriage" of twelve dormitory resident college students and Puffy, the Perfect Persian Puddy.
I am generally a proponent of individual liberty. If Bruce and Lance can leave the innocent household pets alone, I have not the slightest desire to know much less to witness their perversions so long as they keep them behind closed doors and out of the public eye. Actually, I am not anxious to witness Romeo and Juliet in action either.
As Americans, we not only tolerate but protect many people whose behavior may disgust us as individuals. In her Romantic Manifesto, Rand was right to regard the comprachecos (who kidnapped and distorted the bodies of living toddlers to become circus freaks) as being less evil than those who would purposely pervert and distort the minds of children. A teacher who subverts the consciousness of students by persuading them that socialism is somehow a virtue is an evil but protected person. Not protecting that teacher paves the way for suppression of better men like Ed Hudgins who would teach others the virtues of freedom, markets, responsibility and the fact that the initiation of force or fraud against the innocent is an evil.
Regrettably, la Rand was not always so insightful. She inspired Ludwig von Mises, at his 75th birthday party, to lie in wait for her expected late arrival, to wheel upon her at a distance upon her entrance, to speak to her in a voice above the noise of the crowd and start a fifteen minute tongue lashing with: "So you are the silly woman who thinks you can be free without God!" She never attended a conservative movement gathering again and a good thing too!
I do regard myself, as a Roman Catholic, to be part of the "religious Right." This nation of ours was not founded as a Catholic friendly place but the public institutions of the US have proven hospitable to people of my Faith. We have thrived here despite the opposition of a small minded few. Likewise, other Christians and also Jews have thrived here. I don't try to make you go to Mass. Jerry Falwell does not try to make you attend the Thomas Road Baptist Church. No Jew tries to make you a Lubavitcher. Heck, no Unitarian or Universalist drafts you either. You seek to persuade but not to draft anyone into Objectivism. Well, as the saying goes, America: It's a GREAAAAT country!
I may or may not read your "longer analysis." These are initial thoughts.
It is good that you are not a Rand cultist. Barry Goldwater (using the rhetoric crafted by the late and brilliant Karl Hess) made me a Republican and a conservative when I was 17. By the time he died, I would not have voted for him for dogcatcher (and not just because dogs should be free). Killing babies is not conservatism. If they have no rights, neither do you, neither do I.
You might want to consult Doris Gordon of Maryland, the atheist who runs Libertarians for Life (assuming she is still alive) or her associate John Walker, a degreed philosopher without any religion of which I have known. They fight the lonely battle among the libertarians for innocent human life. They are my answer to anyone who suggests that I might deny that the agnostics or the atheists cannot be moral people. They can be moral and when they are, they are particularly heroic.
As a Catholic, I believe in the efficacy of grace provided by God via the Mass and the sacraments. You probably do not share that belief. That does not mean you cannot be moral but, at least in my mind, it makes it much more difficult for you and therefore more heroic.
Finally, the ritual use (actually misuse) of the term "neocons" does not assist a conservative argument. Properly speaking, neocons are a group of quite elderly or quite dead refugees from the Great Society who walked away from the Demonrat Party over its increasing McGovernism and chosen doormat status in the face of Marxism-Leninism. Jean Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Sidney Hook, Alexander Bickel, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Bell, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They are neither their own children nor are they the PNAC. The latter group have been mislabeled "neocons" by the New Republic magazine which is scarcely conservative and by the pathetic pantywaist "paleocons" who are also scarcely conservative but in other ways similar to Neville Chamberlain or to the "blood and soil" racism that sees Monetenegro as a desirable and quaint little satrapy.
I would love to resurrect la Rand to have her debate Pat Buchanan on the question of hermetically sealed borders. I would be more likely to side with the Rand who wrote of borders in We the Living. I cannot imagine that Rand chanting "rule of law" as an excuse to shoot the would-be border crossers.
The "paleos" are irrelevant by their own hand. Guzzling port wine to excess while speculating on imaginable but not terribly likely applications of the 10th Amendment and contemplating the wonders of the foreign surrendermonkeyism of lavender Justin Raimondo and antiwar.com is NOT conservatism either. Reagan regarded them as not ready for prime time, not likely to become ready for prime time and as an embarrassment. They figured this out in year 6 of Reagan's administration and revolted at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting that year, beginning their pretense of being the "real" conservatives. They have rendered Buchanan a laughing stock.
If we need Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi or John Murtha to wield "chacks and balances" then checks and balances must be vastly over-rated. I don't need to have anyone else's view of Scripture or the Constitution preached at me. I can read and I have copies of both. I'll bet you are a lot like me in those respects.
BTW, if you know, how is Doris Gordon doing?