Bartlett on Epistemic Closure of the GOP

Bartlett rounds up some examples of the conservative establishment's ostracizing of anyone harboring a dissenting voice. 

Another example of how social pressure is brought to bear against dissident conservatives occurred shortly after this incident and also involved Heritage. Ryan Sager, then a columnist for the conservative New York Post, published a book in 2006 called The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party. His argument, similar to the one I made in my Impostor book, was that the Bush White House had abandoned the historical libertarian position of the Republican Party on many issues in pursuit of votes among anti-libertarian evangelicals.

Sager had been invited to talk to a group called the Prosperity Caucus, a loose-knit private group that meets about once a month in Washington to discuss economics and politics over pizza and beer. Usually, the group borrows a room on Capitol Hill or at a conservative think tank. As it had done often before, this particular month the Prosperity Caucus had booked a room at Heritage.

Even though Sager’s criticism of Bush was far milder than mine, he was deemed radioactive by Heritage, which canceled the Prosperity Caucus’s reservation and booted them out of the building when it came to its attention that Sager was speaking.

I have friends who chide me for "going liberal" in recent times.  It's something I love and hate all at the same time.   I love it because those who do are simply proving the point that the modern day GOP has only power-grabbing and obstructionism in mind and are mentally allergic to pragmatism.  I hate it because it's an indication that the battle for power in the GOP between the Libertarians and the Bible Thumpers is being controlled by the latter. 

I'm no liberal, this much I can assure you.  But I'm left only with a choice between these:

a) Cut taxes and spend heavily on Defense and Medicare while working to restrict Civil Rights
and
b) Leave middle class taxes alone, spend domestically on much-needed reform and be mindful of individual rights

Is there even a question which way I'd choose?