I would consider myself a palaeoconservative and I would describe the apparent disconnect in this way:
Palaeoconservatism believes that there is such a thing as cultural particularity and that particular social/economic orders appear to work best when ensconced in their proper cultural milieu.
For example - Rothbard postulates a completely free market economy with a highly articulated financial apparatus built upon a few basic principles.
I believe that in his model there are a number of cultural assumptions that are necessary but unspoken postulates to his expressed axioms. I believe that his economic order works for people like himself and myself. I do not believe it works for someone who would nod his head in agreement at Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March address or Noam Chomsky's latest lecture or someone who is addicted to scatological pornography.
Rothbard himself based his observations on a tradition of thought beginning with Aristotle and continuing through Aquinas and the Physiocrats.
The palaeoconservative realizes that systems are not perfect and that cultural and historical factors intrude. Was Franco the absolute best ruler for Spain? Probably not. Was he immeasurably better than a Stalinist client state? Assuredly.
Because I think that Spain could have done a lot worse than Franco in 1936, does that mean I think his style of government appropriate for the US in 2001? Not at all.
Palaeoconservatives are most properly cultural patriots. If we believe that strict construction of the US Constitution is the cultural and political apex of American civil society, then we are not being inconsistent. If we believe that the US Constitution is not the perfect form of government for Myanmar because it is alien to their cultural traditions, we are again not being inconsistent.
There are certain bedrock principles of human nature and morality which apply to all men - but there are also myriad cultural differences which it is foolish to disturb.
Thank you, wideawake. I understand that part. What I don't understand is how that meshes with radical individualistic libertarianism. Is it perhaps that some palaeos advocate a radical individualism within a given ethnoculture, but become collectivists "at the water's edge," so to speak?
What do you make of Rothbard's comments on police brutality against "the Negro people" and his praise of the New Left?
P.S.: I agree that Franco was immeasurably better than any puppet of Stalin's.