Russell Kirk... called Original Sin the one empirically verifiable dogma. “Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults,” Kirk wrote. “To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things.”
The author is a libertarian and Rand Paul fan who quotes Calvin Coolidge, if that is any help. I would be interested to know how others think this stance may inform his views on the topic of a pessimistic view of human nature.