Why are Libertarians their own worst enemies?

If you've ever been involved in the ongoing oxymoron of "organized libertarianism", this sort of thing will come as no surprise. Some people seem to have to go out of their way to be offensive even to potential friends and allies:

As a frequent contributor in energy, effort, time, and money to the Badnarik for President campaign (I also gave a nominating speech for him in Atlanta), I was pretty shocked at how Liberty magazine tried to make Badnarik look, at best, like a stooge or idiot and at worst like a fellow-traveler of some neo-nazi.

For those who didn't see it, Liberty claimed that Michael Badnarik is a friend of Rick Stanley (he is), and that Rick Stanley is an anti-semitic neo-nazi. Nice touch, wouldn't you say? Lets paint them both as nazi-sympathizers, goose-stepping Aryan warriors. Too bad its not true.

Alan Weiss then goes on to introduce Rick Stanley:

In Rick's own words to me, when I asked him directly if he's anti-semitic, he responded:

"Truly nonsense. Yesterday at church, I asked the Jewish Pastor, who is a servant of Jesus Christ, to give the sermon he just related to the "Church in the City" in Denver, Colorado, to my radio show in a few weeks, when he returns from a mission in Argentina. If I am anti-Jewish, why would I do this? I have personal friends who are Jewish. I have personal friends who are homosexual. I dislike their sin, I do not hate the person. All Jews are sinners, as are we all. (that you will notice includes me and you). As we are all sinners, no "group" is better or worse, than another. We are all equal. However, anyone not receiving Jesus Christ as their Savior is of this world, which is of satan. I am not anti-Semite, I am anti-sin. I have never advocated the killing of Jews."

So it seems that Rick Stanley is simply a good Christian, who hates the sin and, if not loves, then tolerates the sinner, and has never advocated the killing of Jews.

Well, that is a relief, isn't it?

Those wacky libertarians, always joshing around. Perhaps I don't know that many "good Christians", but I'd certainly view someone differently if they frequently dragged discussions around to the religious plane. You know, even the tone of the explanation is enough to set the hackles rising among the less devoutly religious (never mind the secular and anti-religious types).

It helps to indicate how difficult it can be to get a bunch of radical individualists to co-operate, never mind "all pull in the same direction", to borrow the well-worn communitarian phrase.