Reply #6: In his own words:

[muriel_volestrangler]

By the time I was an undergraduate in the mid-eighties, having
joined the Federation of Conservative Students, and somehow
affecting to wear fake bow-ties and cheap suits (whilst endlessly
debating the merits of Anarcho-Capitalism versus Minimal
Statism), I had at last found a small number of like minded
souls. Marc Henri Glendenning the then national chairman of
FCS spoke a language I could understand - Thatcher on drugs.
Still it was right-wing anti-Communist, anti-Wet and mainly
reactionary. Battling in Student Unions to rename the “Mandela
Bar” the “Bruce Forsyth Bar”, arguing with CND feminists and
generally opposing the left wing campus establishment whilst in
the real world the Conservatives won elections by landslides and
the war of ideas. Only on campus were we a radical minority
and intentionally antagonistic, in fact so obnoxious that the
Conservative Party decided to close down its youth wings.
That antagonistic, sod you attitude continued after I failed to get
a degree (I was thrown out for being a right-wing pain in the
butt who was more interested in student politics than essays)
when I went to work in the various right-wing pressure groups
and think tanks that proliferated in the late eighties. The
deliberately provocative attitude still maintained – I never wore
a “Hang Mandela” badge but I hung out with people who did.
Why? What did we gain from doing so? Did we make ourselves
more popular by calling for the death of a man who was fighting
injustice by the only means available to him? Did this “shift the
parameters of debate” in our direction?
Did the over the top aggressiveness of the ultra-sound cadres
put people off the broader ideas and positive agenda of Libertarianism
Clearly it galvanised our enemies against us in much the
same way that the crude jingoism of many Little Englanders puts
people off supporting a more liberal European ideal.
I am the first to admit that in the past when challenged on issues
I have been provocative – “What will Libertarianism do for the
homeless?” “Nothing”. Not a way to win friends and influence
people. I think its time for a more effective, kinder, gentler kind
of Libertarianism. Principled, but pragmatic. Selling out – no,
but better salesmanship certainly. A lot of us who came to
Libertarianism via FCS and student unions as well as battling in
the Conservative Party factions, have a take-no-prisoners
attitude that does not play out well to wider audiences. We are
unsympathetic and uncompromising, we are “Sound” but little
heard. What profiteth an idealogue if his ideology is ignored? Or
even if it is just rendered unpalatable.

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/freelife/fl037.pdf