THE DAILY APOLOGY

I have not Apologized in a While

2011-10-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

I apologize now for thinking that politics could ever fix anything in our current system. I apologize if I have ever wriiten anything that would lend support to egalitarianism - for I do not support such a notion.

The Strong Will
Be Prepared
Excel
Change of Mind

Apologetic Apology

2009-01-27T09:40:00.001-08:00

I am "sorry" that I made QuoteSella apologize.

I "Apologize"

2009-01-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

To Manuel for using too many "scare quotes."

My Third Apology, but NOT My Third Annual Apology

2008-11-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

Gather 'round ye anarchists. The time is again here for me to fess up. I've been bad. Not only do I need to step up and apologize again, I need to apologize for not apologizing on a firm schedule. I'm such a low life, I can't even apologize properly. What is to become of freedom? (And more importantly, why do I hate Amerika?)

Back to the subject at hand...

I approach my august Daily Apology breathren to say simply this. I apologize for not voting in the latest U.S. election. But it's worst than that. Not only did I not vote---a practice outlawed in Australia---I actually advised others to not vote as well. May the legions of stato-libertarians everywhere have mercy on my soul! I had the gall to not only spout off about the lunacy of voting on Strike-the-Root, but also on LewRockwell.com. The nerve! One would think I actually believed I had logical reasons for shirking on the awesome responsibility afforded me by the Founding Fathers. (Wait. Actually they didn't think people like me should be allowed to vote. Well, anyway...)

But wait, wait. It's even worse than that! Not only did I not vote, not only did I publicly and brazenly advise others to not vote, but---and this almost hurts to admit---I didn't feel a single pang of remorse during that entire day. That's right, I just went about my day with a Zen-like mental ease. Hell, I didn't even turn on the TV. (Listen, I'm a partially-recovering TV-holic. I love TV like a crack whore loves, well, crack. Or so I've heard.) Still, I didn't even watch the returns. There I was, a black man in America about the experience a moment almost as seminal as when O.J. got off, and I missed it. I should be ashamed. (I'm not, but at least I know I should be.)

Sure, I understand the hoopla. (When Oprah gets that excited, it means something.) Maybe, just maybe, I don't think it's a great day when the same people who've been lying, stealing, killing, etc. find out that there's a brother just as ready to help out as the 40+ previously-elected unrepentant rights infringers. By way of comparison, my working theory is that many black folk rejoiced when O.J. was acquitted not because they thought he was innocent, but because they figured it was about time a black guy who looked guilty got away with it. (Full Disclosure: Some of that feeling welled up in my soul too.) I figure at least a few (if not more than a few) of the tears for Obama's victory spring from the same well. I guess one could call it progress when the Mafia Chieftain---or should I say, Grand Wizard---is a brother, but count me among that group that disagrees. It should be obvious as well: I apologize for saying so!

Mises was Right, Part 2: Feulner, Neocons, Heritage, Georgia, Mont Pelerin

2008-08-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

“It turns out, of course, that Mises was right.”
—Robert Heilbroner (1990), "After Communism", The New Yorker, September 10: 92 (1, 2, 3)

Regarding Paul Craig Roberts's "I Resign from the Mont Pelerin Society":

Interesting connected facts:

1. Formerly libertarian Mont Pelerin Society (which lists Hayek, Friedman, "Coase," and others as "Notable Members", but not Mises): its Treasurer is one "Edwin Feulner."

2. Feulner is President of Heritage.

3. In "Saving Georgia," Heritage Web Memo #2021, and The Russian-Georgian War: A Challenge for the U.S. and the World, on "Ariel Cohen, Ph.D." buys into the Bush administration's propaganda that uses "the Russian invasion of Georgia" as an excuse for further American hegemony.

No wonder Hans-Hermann Hoppe founded the Property and Freedom Society to take up the reins that MPS has dropped.

As Guido Hülsmann noted in "Ludwig von Mises and the Mt. Pelerin Society. Strategic Lessons" a speech delivered at the inaugural meeting of the PFS in 2006 (summary; program):

As classical liberal economists were usually not employed in institutions of higher learning (the teaching of economic science was not primarily organized within the universities), they built other institutions, from loose networks to political parties. By 1860 governments realized the danger to themselves that the classical economists posed. Their answer was to create their own economists and thus control the market of ideas. This strategy was first applied in Germany with the German Historical School or “Schmollerism” and soon spread to other countries, each with its own specific national feature. John Stuart Mill in Britain for example changed the meaning of liberalism into interventionism, while the Russian government thought that Schmoller was too tame and hired Marxist economists instead.

This trend continued into the 20th century, with Ludwig von Mises being one of the very few setting himself against it. After demolishing the case for socialism and putting the case for radical liberalism, he insisted that no “third way” was possible, as this would invariably lead to a loss of prosperity and in the end, socialism.

In the first half of the 20th century, a number of societies were founded by liberals to counter the trend towards socialism. By 1938, four schools of thought were represented:

Neoliberalism, i.e., practical and theoretical compromise with socialism; F.A. v. Hayek, for whom a small amount of intervention was permissible; Alexander Rüstow, who considered natural hierarchies as necessary for society; and Ludwig v. Mises, who stood for complete laissez faire.

Nine years and one World War later, these groups convened to form the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS). At the same time, Leonard Read’s FEE in America was publishing leaflets explaining the ideas of Mises and organizing seminars and speeches for Mises and others. These activities were extremely important for spreading Mises’ thoughts, especially to young people. Ralph Raico, George Reisman and Murray N. Rothbard were among those influenced by the FEE papers. Without the FEE, the Chicago School would have totally dominated the field of free market ideology.

Mises was skeptical about the MPS right from the start; he was particularly concerned because of the participation of certain people. In 1947, he stormed out of a meeting, saying: “You’re all a bunch of socialists.”

Today, the MPS, a society of eminent scholars, mainly represents Neoliberalism. Therefore, the PFS could play the role that the MPS was originally designed to play: spreading the uncompromising intellectual radicalism of freedom.

(See also Hülsmann, Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, pp. 871, 989-90, 1003-10, 1032, et pass.)

This helps place in context the principles for the PFS as announced by Hoppe at its founding in 2006:

The Property and Freedom Society stands for an uncompromising intellectual radicalism: for justly acquired private property, freedom of contract, freedom of association .... It condemns imperialism and militarism and their fomenters, and champions peace. It rejects positivism, relativism, and egalitarianism in any form .... As such it seeks to avoid any association with the policies and proponents of interventionism, which Ludwig von Mises had identified in 1946 as the fatal flaw in the plan of the many earlier and contemporary attempts by intellectuals alarmed by the rising tide of socialism and totalitarianism to found an anti-socialist ideological movement. Mises wrote: "What these frightened intellectuals did not comprehend was that all those measures of government interference with business which they advocated are abortive. ... There is no middle way. Either the consumers are supreme or the government."

Oliva on Sandefur and Kinsella

2008-07-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

Oliva continues his bizarre, false attacks on me (last one noted here):

My Last Post Ever…
…about Kinsella and Sandefur. To sum up the two divergent poles of “libertarianism”:

Kinsella: True libertarians never take any action to advance liberty.

Sandefur: True libertarians murder every man, woman and child who doesn’t share his worldview.

He is partially right about Sandefur--he's referring here to Sandefur's devotion to mass-murderer Lincoln and war perpetrated by big Western states against bad smaller states. But the way he wrote it is an exaggeration even of quasi-libertarian Tim Sandefur's views (and strange given his recent praise of Sandefur--here, here, and here).

He's wrong about me--I am not opposed to taking action to advance liberty. I don't even oppose suing the states in federal courts to try to vindicate my rights. I would do it. I simply maintain that outsider analysts should be honest. That's all. I might argue for incorporation as a plaintiff, because I want the feds to stop a state from hurting me. My argument might even persuade the court. (As I noted in my last reply to Oliva, "I of course support any victim of any state crime using another state against the offending state. If I were on the receiving end of a bad state law, sure, I'd use every argument in the book to try to persuade a federal judge to strike it down.")

But bhat does not mean it's honest or correct for a libertarian to say the court's interpretation of the Constitution is accurate, or that that feature is a libertarian one that should be part of any federal constitution.

As for this being his "last post" on me and La Sandefur, well, I remember when he "retired from blogging (2)." Uh, yeah. He has also given up (how does one do that?) "being a libertarian" -- see here.

Oliva's behavior of late is bizarre--attacking me for no reason, after years of friendly interaction. See e.g. here. Pro-Mises Instute, then against, now pro again; pro-Kinsella, now anti-; pro-Sandefur, now anti-; "libertarian", then "no longer". Wow, what a ride.

In Stephan Kinsella’s Libertarianism…

2008-07-10T08:39:00.003-07:00

Presumably in response to recent posts of mine (The Great Gun Decision: Dissent; To Hell with Heller; Heller and the States; The "deeply dishonest" opponents of the President...; ), Skip (not Dave) Oliva writes:

In Stephan Kinsella’s Libertarianism…

…the government can take everything you own…

…the police can murder you and your family without consequence…

…religious fanatics can take control of your body and mind…

…regulators can destroy productive capital and plunge the economy into depression…

…and if you do anything to challenge these acts, you will be branded as the enemy of “true” libertarianism.

Let's take the first four. I presume by "government" Oliva means "state." Now, does he really mean "can"? That just means ability. Certainly, states do steal and murder--and therefore they "can". In my libertarianism, states do not exist since they are widely regarded as criminal.

Perhaps Oliva means "may", as in permission. That is, he is alleging that I believe it is permissible for states to exist, and to rob, murder, and regulate. Where he got the idea that I think it's permissible for states to exist, or commit crime, I do not know, since I'm an anarchist (and Oliva is not even a libertarian).

I suspect what the confused, inarticulate, non-libertarian Mr. Oliva is trying to say is this: if you do not believe that the federal government has (or should have?) the constitutional authority to strike down unlibertarian laws of the several states, then you are in favor of these unlibertarian laws. But when you make plain what he's really saying, it's obviously false.

His last comment is also false. I of course support any victim of any state crime using another state against the offending state. If I were on the receiving end of a bad state law, sure, I'd use every argument in the book to try to persuade a federal judge to strike it down. But there's a difference between advocacy and objective, honest, outside analysis.

The Technopeasant Revolt starts April 1

2008-03-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

Slightly less than one year ago, then-VP of the Science Fiction and fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), Howard V. Hendrix, expressed a distaste for writers who give away their material for free. You can see the original blog post here. The entire post covers SFWA internal business, but the controversial bit is as follows:

I'm also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they're just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they're undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.

Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) -- given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization's development, or who would bless the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch.

The response from the technopeasantry was predictably strong. I first heard about it in a podcast from author Scott Sigler. I later heard about it again from various other blogs and podcasts. The response prompted a clarification from Hendrix:

Although I don't spend much time in the blogosphere, I am aware—particularly through emailings from various SFWA committee members— that the use of the term "webscab" has touched off something of a firestorm.
The term itself is undoubtedly too incendiary, but I hope the discussion will prove salutary in the long term, not only to those of us who are members of SFWA or who write in the science fiction and fantasy fields, but for everybody who works in print.

My primary concern is that the webbification of publishing will increasingly disenfranchise authors—to the benefit of the big bandwidth barons, the media conglomerates. In the short term, free online posting of entire novels for promotional purposes may well strengthen the hand of those authors who gravitate to that promotional technique. My concern is that, in the long term, as more and more people become schooled to reading off the screen rather than from the printed page, free online whole-book posting may set a precedent of "why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?" which in the end will benefit conglomerates rather than authors as a class.

That issue still concerns the Luddite in me, who remembers that what the Luddites objected to was not technology per se, but technology which they viewed as potentially damaging to to their community and commonweal—their work and way of life. I believe I have the right to push back against technologies which I feel are potentially damaging to the community and commonweal of writers.

I may well be wrong. A number of folks have written to say that the very people I've called webscabs are those working hardest to prevent land-grabs by the big corporate congloms. I have a great deal of respect for organizations like EFF, EPIC, and Public Knowledge, but I don't feel that free online posting of whole novels for promotional purposes will in the end empower authors as a class.

I've had some very interesting emails from various people, and I'm learning from their points of view. My thoughts are not carved in stone on this. My use of the term "webscab" has proven unfortunate in that it distracted from what I was really concerned about in that posting—namely the "hypermediation" of SFWA business, where the officers and president are increasingly expected (almost required) to participate in scads of lists, blogs, and newsgroups, and to respond to every note of praise or blame that crosses the electronic transom. It's no way to run an organization, and threatens to run down and burn out the organization's officers.

Lastly, I want to clarify that I was not speaking for SFWA when I wrote that LiveJournal note. I was expressing my own opinion in what I considered a personal farewell comment to the organization and its members—rather like Eisenhower's warning of the "military industrial complex" in his farewell address as president (to compare great things with small).

I've been accused of "lobbing a bomb" by using the "webscab" term. Judging from the emails, it was a suicide bomb whose most likely victim is me.

This sort of reaction is, of course, what happens whenever technology changes a well established industry. Hendrix may well be correct in his concern for "authors as a class," as what exactly is the job of an author may soon change radically. The same goes for what it is to be a publisher.

April 1 may well mark the date of vindication for Sigler's chosen method for promoting his work. His novel, Infected, is slated to be released by Crown Publishing Group on that date. The book is being promoted as a major sci-fi thriller. It promises to be a big deal, as it has a major marketing campaign, and has the potential for a wide appeal. It has already been released as a free podcast, and Sigler is currently releasing an audio version of the soon-to-be-released print version now. It is a bold move, and likely alien to many authors. It is the move of an entrepreneur. Sigler is attempting to kick-start a business. I imagine many artistic people dislike the notion that they are, in fact, running a business, but facts are facts, whether or not they are acknowledged. If his business model proves successful, others will imitate it, and everyone will simply have to adjust to the new competition. Indeed Sigler's model suggests a good way for someone who is as prolific as he has shown himself to be. If an author is immensely popular, they could serialize their content, and get paid subscribers for that serialized content. For budding authors, the content would have to be free to attract readers, but there is no need for well-established superstar authors to so limit themselves. Indubitably, people far more savvy than myself will come up with even more ways to monetize the fruits of artistic talent.

P.S. I forgot to add the apology: I apologize for being a black guy writing about science fiction and geekery and not "keeping it real, yo."

Am I Anti-Ron Paul or Pro-Liberty?

2008-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Again, the time for an apology draws hither. It has been far too long since my first apology -- for not reading enough Rand before becoming an anarchist. This time, I come to throw myself at the mercy of those here assembled for a similar affront. Please don't let this get out, but not only do I not care about politics generally, but I specifically don't really support Ron Paul. (How can I go on?)

Here's the thing though, I remain plagued by a question that scratches at the base of my psyche. That question, to which I haven't gotten a good response from any Paul supporter, is simply this:

Haven't we [market anarchists, anarcho-capitalists, etc.] already decided, among ourselves, logically, that button-pushing scenarios do not necessarily lead to better outcomes?

I've written in other places that I can see some positive motivation behind the Ron Paul campaign. I can legitimately see the value in getting the message of liberty and limited government "out there" during a presidential campaign. What I haven't done, and what I won't do -- and I feel pretty safe saying this is also true about most other anti-Paul folks -- is begin to think that "the answer" to our problems with the state is to take over the state! What logic supports this idea?

Imagine if you will (I'm having a Rod Serling moment) a world where we anarchists are presented with a magic button. Pushing the button will immediately result in the abolition of the IRS, the FDA, the EPA, FEMA, the closing of all US bases in foreign lands, etc. Would pushing that button be the next best action? Not so much. While pushing the button would most assuredly result in some real, almost intoxicating pleasure for most of us, one other relatively unassailable conclusion can be drawn about it. Within milliseconds of that button being pushed, the rest of the populace would begin reconstructing those items that the button-pushing removed, probably supported by violence.

...what I want is a voluntary society that moves toward anarchy and freedom, not my own personally-selected slave master controlling the guns of the state, but hey, I already said I apologize!

(May the ghost of Murray N. Rothbard not haunt me tonight.)

My Second Annual Apology

2007-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

I am a month off my annual apology requirement - so I apologize for that up front.

I apologize for thinking that people ought to make their own way in life, for not believing that the government has any real answers for most of the problems that I or anyone else face and for not seeing any real difference in Republicans and Democrats. I apologize for not feeling sympathy for people that wish to live as victims and seek to blame others for all of their problems. I am sorry that I went to Iraq more than once, spent almost two and a half years of my life there for nothing of real note or value. I apologize for believing that it is ok to be conservative and believe that the government lies, cheats and steals. I am sorry for thinking that small really is beautiful and for wishing that life would just slow down a bit. I am sorry for not shopping at Wal-Mart. I apologize for calling my boss a self-absorbed scoundrel (well, I'm not really sorry for that).

El Cid

IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE BOOMER-IN-CHIEF...

2007-09-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Heroic!!

By Wendy McElroy

According to friend and ex-prostitute Norma Jean Almodovar, married men pay for sex mainly to get blow jobs. This baffles me. Why wouldn't every woman include "hunt and suck" in her sexual repertoire? As a stressed and exhausted boomer, the advantages of fellatio would be Chapter One of my future bestseller entitled "How to Drive Your Man Crazy With an Utter Minimum of Effort and Time." You get to keep your clothes on, thus concealing cellulite and those extra ten pounds. You don't have to be "in the mood." It is the fast food drive-through of sex. Moreover, men become unduly grateful. The first time I gave it my "all," the man told me a woman could get anything she wanted in exchange for "that." It seemed like a fair swap to me.

The call girls I know charge $150 to $300 for a blow job. Imagine investing that extra money in a retirement fund at a 10% annual return. I am not so presumptuous as to advise you to charge your husband a fee. That is your choice. And, if you make the fiscally wise choice, you can always give him a price break by using the going street rate. A price chart, covering some of the major U.S. cities, can be found in the Jayhawke Report on the "World Sex Guide" site. For example, in Washington D.C. in 1997, "A blowjob [sic] usually runs $30-60, sex is $50-100, and anal is $70-150." But the report warns, "There is lots of drugs and crime in DC, so use extreme caution!" In other words, men who go to streetwalkers for blow jobs might come back with more than a grin on their faces. Which is another reason to keep more than a log burning in the hearth.

But where can you learn this fine art? (Are you listening, Hillary?) I recommend against chatting with a girlfriend because, within the week, you'll hear back from another girlfriend about how your sex life needs help. And then a male friend will generously offer to "let" you practice on him. And, no, I won't tell you how I am certain this will happen. Proceed instead to a wonderful and free on-line "14 Lesson Tutorial" on oral sex from a pro. It starts at the basics, "First things first. LOOK at the cock." Ignore the tutorial's references to worshiping the penis and seeing it as an icon. There's no need to make a religion out of this. Go in a straight line to "know his testicles" and how to "deep throat" without that nasty gagging reflex.

Of course, seeing oral sex performed has a certain educational appeal. I vividly remember the first blow job I saw in a porn video. It was a scene in which porn superstar (and sweet human being) Nina Hartley blew a cock in a condom -- as opposed to a "bare back blow job" -- and the sex sizzled. I leaned toward the television screen and exclaimed, "So that's what you do with your hands!" Nina also teaches her techniques in Nina Hartley's Guide to Oral Sex.

My last piece of advice: oral sex has no necessary connection with blowing and it should never be viewed as a job. Enjoy!

Kochtopus and Brownback

2007-08-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

So Cato bankroller Charles Koch gives the max, $2300, to Brownback (also gave $1000 to Obama!)

I'm also told that Mrs. Koch gave the max to Brownback.

And here are Brownback's positions--

***

Border security is my top priority and I have consistently voted to immediately secure the border. One of the primary jobs of the United States government is to ensure the safety of the American people. In order to do so, we must secure our borders. Securing our borders must be our top priority as a nation. Our Southern border is porous and must be secured. Secure borders make Americans safer. I have voted to:

Double the number of border patrol agents over the next five years.
Increase detention space in order to end "catch-and-release".
Build 700 miles of border fencing and 350 miles of vehicle barriers along the Southern border.
Fund 370 miles of triple-layered fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers along the nation's southwest border.
Deploy cutting-edge technology including cameras, sensors, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to patrol the border for illegal border crossers.
Implement a tough, smart border security strategy in order to gain operational control of the border.
Worksite Enforcement is Essential.We will fail to stop illegal immigration until we prove that living and working here illegally is not an option.
We must enable all law enforcement to identify and quickly remove criminal illegal aliens.
A secure, fraud-resistant ID must be the foundation of a robust worksite enforcement system that requires every new employee to be screened for valid work authorization.
Interior and worksite enforcement are essential for homeland security and national security.
Increase cooperation with state and local authorities to enforce our immigration laws.
Implement an Electronic Employment Verification System that holds employers accountable for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers.
Prohibit employers convicted of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants from being eligible to receive government contracts.
Allow the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to share information helpful to law enforcement investigations against illegal immigrants.

Healthcare Our healthcare system will thrive with increased consumer choice, consumer control and real competition. I believe it is important that we have price transparency within our health care system. This offers consumers, who are either enrolled in high deductible health plans or who pay out-of-pocket, the ability to shop around for the best prices and plan for health care expenditures. Also, the existing health insurance market forces consumers to pay for extra benefits in their premiums, such as aromatherapy and acupuncture, which tends to increase the cost of coverage. Instead, consumers should be able to choose the from health care coverage plans that are tailored to fit their families' needs and values. Accordingly, individuals should be allowed to purchase health insurance across state lines. Finally, I believe that consumers should have control over the use of their personal health records. I have a proposal that would offer consumers a means to create a lifetime electronic medical record, while, at the same time, ensuring that the privacy of their personal health information is secured and protected. Over time, the socialized medicine model has shown to deprive consumers of access to life-saving treatments and is downright inconsistent with the spirit of the American people to be free from unwanted government intervention. I will continue to work at the forefront to create a consumer-centered, not government-centered, healthcare model that offer both affordable coverage choices and put the consumer in the driver's seat.

Taxes: I have long championed both lower taxes and reform of the existing tax system, and recently signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge to oppose all tax increases. Much of our recent economic prosperity is directly attributable to the lower taxes enacted by recent Congresses. I believe America’s tax code is overly complex and burdensome. Americans spend roughly $157 billion each year in tax preparation, to ensure they do not run afoul of the Internal Revenue Service. The system is desperately in need of reform. I support a flat tax concept that simplifies tax preparation, applies a low tax rate to all Americans, and respects the special financial burden carried by American families raising children.

Culture and Values: We must clean up America’s culture, beginning in every home. A new callousness can be seen on our television sets and movie theaters, in video games and on magazine racks. While parents remain the first line of defense in the fight to protect our children from inappropriate media content, some of the responsibility for this effort also rests with the producers and distributors of modern media. With this in mind, I introduced the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2006 and was pleased to see the President sign it into law. The Act increased fines on broadcast networks that air obscene and indecent material during the hours children are most likely to be watching. Shielding our children from the violence, obscenity, and indecency in today’s media continues to be one of my top priorities. I have also introduced a bill that would promote greater accuracy and transparency in the rating of video games. Accurately educating parents about the content of the media they bring into their homes is a key part of this process. In addition to these threats, I remain concerned about the proliferation of pornography in our culture. The commoditization of the human person through pornography is a scourge upon our civilization and one of the most insidious threats to the stability of our families. I held a hearing in 2006 where we examined the detrimental effect pornography has on children and families. I will continue the fight to protect families from a variety of cultural threats.

Energy: Due to years of neglect and short-sighted domestic policies, America is on the verge of an energy crisis. Our supply of energy has not kept pace with our demand. Today our nation produces 39% less oil than we did in 1970. This leaves us dependent on foreign suppliers, who often do not have America’s best interests at heart. This Congress, I co-sponsored the Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy (DRIVE) Act. This bill aims to reduce our oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels per day in ten years by taking an innovative, market-based approach that relies on advanced technology and an expansion of renewable fuels. I will continue to fight for energy independence.

Marriage: I believe that our society’s strength lies in its most fundamental building block, the family unit. Family begins with marriage. We must defend the institution of marriage by defending the definition of marriage. The right to marry is not the right to redefine marriage. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. How we define marriage is vitally important because of the message it sends to the culture—to the young, and to the next generation of citizens. Make no mistake, a society that undermines marriage and the family is undermining itself, and a government that attempts to supplant rather than to support the family and marriage is bent on its own destruction. We must recognize that it is our families, built upon the institution of marriage, that are the fundamental and essential centers of commitment and care that have the real power to transform our society.

Human Rights: My belief in the value of human life is what inspired my concern over the international genocides taking place in countries like Darfur. I traveled to Darfur and Rwanda in early 2006 to see firsthand the tragedies that have taken place there. The suffering was unlike any I have ever seen. I believe that we must show compassion to these people. America is a great nation, and we have a role to play in protecting innocent life at home and abroad. Reforming the UN The United Nations continues to be the subject of great controversy. The U.N. has been instrumental in resolving a number of international disputes, and its work should not go unnoticed. However, it too often couples lofty ideals with poor execution. As such, reforming the U.N. must remain a priority. In the 104th Congress I supported the National Security Revitalization Act, which prohibited U.S. military forces from being placed under U.N. command and control in most situations. Further, it provided for the U.S. to be reimbursed for participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations. I believe we should reduce the size of the U.N., and that the U.S. should bear less of the organization’s financial burden. I have long supported - and will continue to support - efforts to condition our country’s U.N. dues on substantive U.N. reform.

Iraq: After my recent trip to Iraq, I am even more convinced that the situation there is precarious, but hopeful. I see hope in the Iraqi people. I believe this hope will be the foundation of a new Iraqi society. Much remains to be done, and I think we need a plan to turn this country over to its citizens. I will continue to work with the leaders in our country, as well as leaders in Iraq, to find a solution that protects the future of Iraq, and the pride and dignity of its citizens.

Israel: America must stand firmly alongside Israel in the fight against Islamic extremism. Every day, Israel is on the front lines of this war, facing enemies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and their patron states, Syria and Iran. As our only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel serves as a beacon of freedom and hope in an otherwise troubled region. Throughout my career in the Senate, I have worked hard to develop the friendship between the United States and Israel, including sponsoring legislation that would declare Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel. In 2004, I traveled to Israel and spoke before the Knesset about my life-long admiration for the Jewish State.

Religious Liberty: Religion, once an integral part of our society, is today being eradicated from nearly every aspect of public life. The First Amendment protects the freedom to practice the religion of one’s choice. That freedom is under attack by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, who profit financially from lawsuits brought against cities and towns that display religious symbols. The ACLU and others have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees from suits brought against local cities and towns. Now they are using those victories to threaten other local jurisdictions. I introduced the Public Expression of Religion Act last year to prevent groups like the ACLU from collecting attorneys’ fees in religious freedom cases. Our country was founded on the idea that its citizens should be free to express their religious beliefs without government interference. I will continue the fight to protect that freedom.

Life: Life is worthy of respect and protection from the moment of conception. I fear that our society has forgotten the value of human life. I believe every life has meaning and purpose, and that the termination of life is taken too lightly in our country today. Abortion ends a human life. It destroys an individual who could have lived, worked, and contributed to our society. And has wiped out nearly an entire generation. I believe we should strive to fully embrace a culture of life through our national politics. I will continue to fight to protect life at every stage. I hope that one day America will remember the value we once placed on human life.

Social Security: The Social Security System is facing a demographic crisis that will someday affect the financial viability of the Social Security Trust Fund. Projections for the financial solvency of the Trust Fund show that as baby boomers begin to enter retirement there will be an increase in the number of people drawing social security benefits, and yet a corresponding decrease in the number of working people who provide those benefits. Clearly, this will present a crisis within the system. We must firmly resolve to keep our commitment to current retirees and those preparing to retire. Further, we must modernize the system to ensure that Social Security is financially sound for our children. I believe every American has a stake in this debate, and I will continue to keep the dialogue open as we work toward a solution. read the in-depth white paper.

Hope for FEE!

2007-05-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

No Longer Affiliated...

My trips to Irvington-on-Hudson are likely to be rather fewer than in the past, as yesterday was my last meeting of the board of trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education. (FEE’s bylaws require term limits after nine years….and it’s been nine years since I joined the board.) It has been an honor to serve on a board that has included so many distinguished business leaders and intellectuals.

Posted by Tom Palmer at May 6, 2007 12:19 PM | TrackBack

The Wizard of Oz and Money

2006-11-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Jeff Saut Presents: The Emerald City presents a theory new to me--that The Wizard of Oz was "based on an economic and political commentary surrounding the debate over “sound money” that occurred in the late 1800s." This article argues that:

... Baum’s book was penned in 1900 following unrest in the agriculture arena (read: farmers) due to the debate between gold, silver, and the dollar standard. The book, therefore, is supposedly an allegory of these historical events making the information easier to understand. In said book, Dorothy represents traditional American values. The Scarecrow portrays the American farmer, while the Tin Man represents the workers, and the Cowardly Lion depicts William Jennings Bryan. Recall that at the time Mr. Bryan was the official standard bearer for the “silver movement,” as well as the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate of 1896. Interestingly, in the original story Dorothy’s slippers were made of silver, not ruby, implying that silver was the Populists’ solution to the nation’s economic woes. Meanwhile, the Yellow Brick Road was the gold standard, and Toto (Dorothy’s faithful dog) represented the Prohibitionists, who were an important part of the silverite coalition. The Wicked Witch of the West symbolizes President William McKinley and the Wizard is Mark Hanna, who was the chairman of the Republican Party and made promises that he could not keep. Obviously “Oz” is an abbreviation for “ounce.”

Palmer backs off

2006-11-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

In the comments to this thread on Tom Palmer's smearblog, some guy "Yuri" posted, and Palmer said it was "Mr. Kinsella of Dallas who writes for LewRockwell.com", something like this, since this guy was posting from some server in Dallas. I posted a correction to this idiot that I live in Houston; and now he has deleted both his accusation and my post correcting him. Good thing. I have half a mind to post the embarrassing picture of Palmer that I have until now refrained from publicizing out of a sense of decency that that scumbag lacks. Don't push me, Palmer.

Omega-Chloride-Redford on my "Plagiarism"

2006-11-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

Over on the Mises blog, my post Don't worry--you don't exist: Or, why long-range planning is really impossible drew some comments from one James Redford. Now years ago he had written some good things about my theory of rights on some boards or groups. So we had some exchanges. I confess I had forgotten most of this.

In any event. On the Mises blog post he wrote in a comment that he was glad "that some of my teachings have had an effect on you." I had no idea what he was jabbering about but had a vague recollection that he was some kind of loon or nut. He was insinuating, I thought, that I was using in my arguments something he taught me... and vaguely implying I should have given him credit. I thought this ridiculous and said so; he escalated with attempts at "proving" how I had plagiarized him and was a liar.

So I have refreshed my memory. First, as to who this dude is. I remember now: he has gone in the past, on various boards, as Count Lithium von Chloride, Tetrachordine Omega, and Tetrahedron Omega. He has written before about his various experiences with drugs, and how this has given him insight into the universe, and the "omega point," some nonsense like this. See, e.g., my discussion of this stuff in this post and in this anti-state thread, where he talks about his "god-trips". In his article Jesus is an Anarchist, he signs off thus:

Born in Austin, Texas and raised in the Leander, Texas hill country, the native-born Augustinian James Redford is a young born again Christian who was converted from atheism by a direct revelation from Jesus Christ. He is a scientific rationalist who considers that the Omega Point (i.e., the physicists' technical term for God) is an unavoidable result of the known laws of physics. His personal website can be found here: http://geocities.com/vonchloride

Uh, yeah--the Omega Point... direct revelation of Christ via drugs which incude various so-called Levels of so-called God-Trips. Like, wow, man. I think he actually believes this stuff. Another funny comment: in our email conversation in 2000, I jokingly used the term "jelly head" to refer to stoners or those who do drugs, after he started going on about all the revelations he'd gotten from doing drugs. He didn't know the term "jelly-head," so I explained:

Jelly head--slang for junkie, drug head, stoner. I guess the term implies that you do so many terms it turns the brain to sludge, jelly.

His humble reply? "Well, my brain is still quite intact and functioning on an I.Q. level higher than almost all people." Uhhh, HOkay.

And in His website shows he's a 9/11 conspiracy nut, too. And let's not forget his various handles: Count Lithium von Chloride, Tetrachordine Omega, and Tetrahedron Omega. He reminds me a bit of Per Malloch, another smart young libertarian who also liked my estoppel theory and Hoppe's argumentation ethics, and who also liked drugs, unfortunately a bit too much--he OD'd in college a few years ago. I wonder how long Redford will be with us. Oh well, at least he's a "Christian," so if he OD's he'll just ascend to the Jesus Omega Point, I guess, where drugs will be free and plentiful.

Anyway, he wrote in the recent Mises thread:

I'm glad that some of my teachings have had an effect on you. Ergo, your somewhat recent statement of "an ought from an ought." (Your September 8, 2006 11:19 AM reply under "How We Come to Own Ourselves.")

He was referring to my comment there to someone: "I agree you cannot get an ought from an is. I am not. I am getting an ought from an ought."

Redford is implying I got this from him. Why? Here is something he wrote me long ago (which I had of course forgotten). During one of those conversations he agreed with my Humean point that you can't derive an an ought from an is; and he said he liked my own theory because in it I derive an ought from an ought. He wrote (back in February of 2000):

One remarkable thing about your rights argument is that it seems to totally by-pass the is/ought dichotomy. Rather than simply derive an "ought" from an "is" (which alone is impossible), it derives an "ought" from an "ought": an "ought" which any objector to libertarian punishment necessarily already holds.

Note that he here was simply agreeing with what my own theory did: that it derived an ought from an ought. Therefore avoiding the ought from an is problem, which I was of course already aware of. (It permeates my arguments; and see also p. 1432 of my 1994 review essay on one of Hoppe's books (discussing how Hoppe's argumentation ethics overcomes the Humean is-ought dichotomy; and p. 136 (text at n. 13) of Hoppe's 1989 book TSC, which I had of course devoured by the time I wrote my estoppel theory: "In fact, one can readily subscribe to the almost generally accepted view that the gulf between “ought” and “is” is logically unbridgeable. .... On the problem of the deriveability of “ought” from “is” statements cf. W. D. Hudson (ed.), The Is-Ought Question, London, 1969; for the view that the fact-value dichotomy is an ill-conceived idea cf. the natural rights literature cited in note 4 above.")

Now. I have used "ought from an ought" on occasion, at least in the last couple of years, as I have explained and defended my views on rights, and the problem with the is-ought dichotomy. Did I get the phrase from Redmond? I have no idea. I suppose it is possible that a phrase he used to describe my own theory stuck in my head and bubbled to the surface years later. If so, I woudl have no problem "admitting" it, as he charges; why not? After all, it's just a natural way to describe what my own theory does, as he admitted way back in 2000. And although he seems proud that if you google the phrase "ought from an ought" in usenet groups his is the first one mentioned, as if he had some great achievement (in just finding a way to describe why my own "remarkable" rights argument!), as I showed him, if you google the phrase on the web, several uses of it show up, e.g. one in 1973. (Redford's emphasis on the fact that he has the first use of the phrase on usenet, and that there are only 13 or so in a web-wide google search, is also odd: there are no doubt various ways to word the idea that you can only get an ought from an ought, other than the literal phrase "ought from an ought", which his and my google search espicked out, so the basic insight or idea or way of putting it is probably out there many more times than that simple one search would show. Not to mention that there are tons of publications not yet searchable.)

Regarding my citing of the 1973 use of the phrase, of course I did not list that to imply that I got the phrase from that source rather than from Redford; but to show that it's probably a natural way for people to describe this, that many people can either independently come to, or that is floating around out there and occasionally used. I think it's likely I either read this phraseology in various places, or maybe independently came up with it myself. I mean if you say that an ought can't come from an is, so you have to start with a presupposed ought (as Hoppe and I both argue, in a sense; even Rand, as I noted before, with her hypothetical ethics), it's, um, natural to say that you can't get an ought from an is, but only from an ought. Redford's attempt grab fame for such an obvious insight is frankly bizarre. If the thought of using that simple phrase to describe my very own rights theory was put in my head by Redford's email to me back in 2000, whoop de doo. Fine. Who cares?

So, he lists part of our email conversation from 2000 (he, um, saved it, you see), to prove I'm a plagiarist and liar. Okay, so let's recap. I think his "ought from an ought" phrase is a kind of obvious way of stating one good thing about my own rights theory. That, er, I came up with. I think it's good Omega, er Redford, came up with it. I think many people have. I may have too; or may have remembered it from Redford's email to me, um, 6 years ago, or maybe from seeing others' writings on related subjects. I'm even grateful Redford was friendly to my rights theory, but I think it's frankly bizarre of him to keep score of such minute things and to try to take credit for such a thing, or to accuse me of plagiarism, or lying. On the other hand, I guess there are worse things than being insulted by a self-admitted drug-using conspiracy-theorizing born-again Chloride-Omega Christian with Direct Revelation to God.

***

Our exchange since then:

REDFORD:

Stephan Kinsella, you wrote:

""
I think it's likely I either read this phraseology in various places, or maybe independently came up with it myself.
""

It is certain that you read the phrase in various places: namely, in my emails to you (which you initiated from having read my public postings) and in my public writings. Nor did you independently come up with it yourself. You got the phrase from me.

In order for you to credibly say that you independently came up with the phrase yourself would have to mean that you never heard the phrase from me before you first used it. Yet we know that is not the case: you heard the phrase from me multiple times well before you ever used it. Hence, you saying the above is more of your disingenuousness.

Repeatedly you have been mendacious in this thread in a myriad of ways, e.g., with your ad hominem attacks upon me (of which is a logical fallacy, and which began even when I was going out of my way to be polite to you and give you the benefit of the doubt that your memory was merely faulty on this matter), with your changing the subject to irrelevant matters (i.e., the logical fallacy known as a red herring, or ignoratio elenchi), with you misconstruing the nature of our contacts and acting as if you never took notice of my public writings, with your acting as if you didn't find my considerations of value (when you are the one who initiated contact with me and asked me for my considerations on a number of issues), with your acting as if the use of fanciful handles on the internet is not a very common practice and thereby implying that I am crazy (i.e., another form of ad hominem attack, as well as a non sequitur even on its own terms), etc., ad nauseam.

That is not the behavior of someone who feels himself to be in the right, but rather the actions of someone who is attempting to shut down honest discussion and figuratively sweep the issue under the rug. Particularly deceitful on your part was your misconstruing the nature of our contacts and acting as if you never took notice of my public writings.

But to answer you on some of your latest irrelevant ad hominem, red herring, and non sequitur charges:

- I didn't save our email exchanges: Yahoo! saved them. I merely looked them up quite easily with the search function within Yahoo! Email. This is a red herring and also an ad hominem attack, as you're attempting to imply with this that I must be crazy to have saved these emails. Of which is not only a mistatement of fact (since I didn't take any measures to save the emails), but also a statement that is a non sequitur (since it doesn't follow that because I am able to produce some of our email exhanges that it means that I took measures to save these emails, as Yahoo! does that automatically). This is more of your disingenuous argumentation tactics.

Although I can see why you would be displeased that I can produce these emails, since they prove that you were being mendacious by misconstruing the nature of our contacts and acting as if you never took notice of my public writings, and with your acting as if you didn't find my considerations of value (when you are the one who initiated contact with me and asked me for my considerations on a number of issues, as demonstrated by the emails).

- Concerning my entheogenic experiences and my direct revelation from Jesus Christ, by bringing this up here you again are implying that I am crazy, of which is a red herring, ad hominem attack, and a non sequitur; hence further implying that what I have to say is not true, of which is a non sequitur.

It is you who has made numerous mistatements of facts within this thread, and have stated that some of this is possibly due to your faulty memory on this issue. Thus, if any one of us has evidenced any form of dementia here, it is you. It is you who has been non-veridical within this thread on numerous occasions, not me.

On the matter of entheogens--not that it has any relevance to this issue, but in an effort to educate you--the following is a very short list of famous, publicaly known psychedelic psychonauts (since your mentality is so peppered with notions and concerns of loserhood): Bill Gates, Cary Grant, Richard Feynman, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve Jobs. And that's just a very short list of famous people who are known about publicly; one could only wonder about the number of famous people who have chosen to keep their use of entheogens private.

Concerning the matter of the authentic spiritual experence and insights gained via the archetype entheogens, see the follow-up to Walter Pahnke's "Good Friday Experiment": "A Long-Term Follow-Up and Methodological Critique," Rick Doblin, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, Vol. 23, No.1, 1991 ( http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/doblin.htm ). See also the recent John Hopkins University experiment, which separately confirmed the findings of the "Good Friday Experiment": "Magic Mushroom Study - 2006," http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/219 .

- Regarding my "conspiracy-theorizing," by bringing this up here you again are implying that I am crazy, of which is a red herring, ad hominem attack, and a non sequitur; hence further implying that what I have to say is not true, of which is a non sequitur.

So far as conspiracies go, they are ubiquitous. Everyone is in agreement that the 9/11 attacks were the result of a conspiracy. But those who are genuinely knowledgeable and care about the truth reject fallacious conspiracy theories, such as the U.S. government's lying, self-serving, anti-historical, anti-factual, and provably false official fairy tale conspiracy theory concerning the 9/11 attacks.

More than four times the amount of non-combatants have been systematically murdered for purely ideological reasons by their own governments within the past century than were killed in that same time-span from wars. From 1900 to 1923, various Turkish regimes killed from 3,500,000 to over 4,300,000 of its own Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians, and other Christians. Communist governments have murdered over 110 million of their own subjects since 1917. And Germany murdered some 16 million of it own subjects in the past century. (The preceding figures are from Prof. Rudolph Joseph Rummel's website at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/ .)

All totaled, neither the private-sector crime which government is largely responsible for promoting and causing or even the wars committed by governments upon the subjects of other governments come anywhere close to the crimes government is directly responsible for committing against its own citizens--certainly not in amount of numbers. Without a doubt, the most dangerous presence to ever exist throughout history has always been the people's very own government.

Needless to say, all of these government mass-slaughters were conspiracies--massive conspiracies, at that.

As well, the term "conspiracy theorist" as you are here using it is simply nothing more than a logically self-contradictory ad hominem attack.

The reason the charge of "conspiracy theorist" is logically self-contradictory is because everyone with an I.Q. high enough to tie their shoes is a believer in conspiracies. Governments are the biggest promulgators of belief in conspiracies--witness all the laws against "conspiracy" and all the criminal charges of "conspiracy" brought against people. The offical U.S. government story regarding such events as, e.g., the Pearl Harbor attack, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 9/11 attacks, etc., are charges by the U.S. government of conspiracy having been conducted against it by other governments or by non-government terrorist groups.

Thus, those making the charge of "conspiracy theorist" are also believers and/or promulgators of notions regarding conspiracies--often far more so than the person being accused as being a "conspiracy theorist."

A conspiracy is simply when two or more people formulate a plan which involves doing something untoward to another person or other people (of which plan may or may not be kept secret, i.e., secrecy is not a necessary component for actions to be a conspiracy).

It certainly says something regarding the intellectual blinders one making the charge of "conspiracy theorist" is wearing that they don't even stop to realize the logically self-contradictory nature of this charge, as going by the literal meaning of the two words in the phrase "conspiracy theorist." For the one making this charge is himself a believer in conspiracies.

And so it is here where we come to the real meaning of the term "conspiracy theorist" as it is used by those making the charge. What they mean by this charge is that the accused believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which have not been offically sanctioned by the accuser's government--whereas the accuser making this charge believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which his government has deemed appropriate for the public to believe in. The difference between the two is that the accuser believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which are statist in their implications, in that they merely reiterate the offical government line--whereas the accused believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which are anti-statist in their implications, in that they go against what the accuser's government would have the public believe. (And being a libertarian or anarchist doesn't change that fact, since it's quite possible to desire no state to exist while still believing in the conspiracies that the government promotes.)

Also, the term "theory" as it is used in this logically self-contradictory ad hominem attack is misapplied and inappropriate. The term "theory" suggests a principle or law of operation. Thus you have the General Theory of Relativity and the Theory of Evolution. Yet almost always the logically self-contradictory ad hominem charge of "conspiracy theorist" is against those who are making specific claims regarding historical events. To illustrate this point, if someone says that it rained over the Bahamas on September 2, 2004 are they then a "theorist" for saying so?

As Prof. Murray N. Rothbard wrote:

""
It is also important for the State to inculcate in its subjects an aversion to any "conspiracy theory of history"; for a search for "conspiracies" means a search for motives and an attribution of responsibility for historical misdeeds. If, however, any tyranny imposed by the State, or venality, or aggressive war, was caused not by the State rulers but by mysterious and arcane "social forces," or by the imperfect state of the world or, if in some way, everyone was responsible ('We Are All Murderers," proclaims one slogan), then there is no point to the people becoming indignant or rising up against such misdeeds. Furthermore, an attack on "conspiracy theories" means that the subjects will become more gullible in believing the "general welfare" reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in any of its despotic actions. A "conspiracy theory" can unsettle the system by causing the public to doubt the State's ideological propaganda.
""

(From the article "The Anatomy of the State" by Prof. Murray N. Rothbard, Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Summer 1965, pp. 1-24. Reprinted in a collection of some of Rothbard's articles, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (Washington, D.C.: Libertarian Review Press, 1974): http://www.mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp .)

*****

The above are some rebuttals to some of your latest ad hominem, red herring, and non sequitur charges against me, Stephan Kinsella, i.e., your disingenuous argumentation tactics. Being a lawyer, I would have thought you might have known about such logically fallacious arguments. Yet you copiously spew them out and and wallow in them as if you find them to be one of the greatest things ever devised. Or are these yet more failures of your memory?

But as I said previously, it's not that I cared that you used this phrase and its concept without crediting me (as you most certainly did get it from me). Indeed, I was glad that you did use it and hence I said so! What incited me was that you acted as if I had a second head growing out my neck when I simply made an innocent and friendly comment to you on the matter (in which you even managed to misconstrue what I was referring to with an irrelevant red herring). I then went out of my way to give you the benefit of the doubt, that this was due to some form of mental laspe on your part, while at the same time refreshing your memory as to when and where exactly you got the phrase and its concept from me. You then replied with personal insults upon me (i.e., ad hominem attacks), and with more irrelevant red herrings.

None of your behavior in this matter has been that of an honest person who simply made an honest mistake. You even went out of your way to misconstrue the nature of our contacts and imply that it was crazy to think that my public writings have caught your attention. Your responses in this thead have been a sustained exercise in ignominious and underhanded insults and fallacious debating tactics.

Even though you've treated me like crud just to avoid having to admit that I imparted something of value to you (i.e., to save your ego from having to admit that you obtained something intellectually valuable from a "loser" like me), being that I am a true Christian, I still love you. But I also call a spade a spade.

Posted by: James Redford at November 18, 2006 6:01 PM

***

KINSELLA:

A few final comments to this ridiculous thread.

Redford's original comment may have been friendly, as he now claims, although I did not construe it that way. He wrote, "By the way, Stephan Kinsella, I'm glad that some of my teachings have had an effect on you. Ergo, your somewhat recent statement of "an ought from an ought.""

Calling me by my full name; insinuating that I learned from his "teachings" (which he now admits is at most just a way of *wording* one positive aspect of *my own rights theory*). If I had thought he was just being friendly, I would have replied something like,

Redford, I don't remember what you are talking about, but if you are insinuating that you came up with the wording "ought from an ought" as a way to explicate my own rights theory, I don't remember getting it from you. If I did, er, thanks, I guess, although I suspect this is not unique to you.

The problem is Redford called me a liar, which is false and insulting; and a plagiarizer, which is also false, and bizarre to boot in this context. He also implies I would not want to "admit" I got anything from him. But why? I would of course freely acknowledge anything like this.

And I of course do not "resent" him dredging up his old emails; it proves nothing whatsoever that bothers me. All his email shows is that he used "ought from an ought" to describe what my own estoppel theory does. It does not establish that I am lying when I deny being certain that I "got the phrase from him." I honestly do not remember, even in reading this email. Redford insists that I must be lying now if I don't admit I got the phrase that I have recently used, from his original email.

First, I might have already been using it before Redford used it in an email with me. Why does he assume he gave this expression to me? After all I have shown that others at least occasionally use this phrase--one back in 1973. Second, even if his usage was the first time I'd heard it, it's possible I forgot and then either heard it again years later and thus used it, or just came up with it again myself. It is also possible that I forgot about Redford's phrase and it stuck in my mind, and I used it again later without explicitly remembering its origin in some email back in 2000 with Redford.

But all this is obvious to anyone sane and normal. I guess it's not to "psychadelic psychonauts." As for the relevance of Redford's being crazy, I leave it to the readers to judge. It is at the very least interesting.

Posted by: Stephan Kinsella at November 20, 2006 10:09 AM

REDFORD:

Mr. Kinsella, it's spelled "psychedelic," which is how I spelled it--not "psychadelic." Not that I'm much of a spelling Nazi, but you put your mispelling in quotes of me.

Nor was I aware that using your middle and last name in sequential order is a problem with you--all the more so since that is how you sign off on your posts here.

And the fact that you are even going on about notions of sanity here further demonstrates your underhanded debating tactics. That is called an ad hominem attack, which is a logical fallacy. Even if it were quite true it would still be quite irrelevant, since if I had made a factual error here then you would simply tell people how I am factually wrong. Yet I have made no error: it is you who has repeatedly misconstrued and mistated the facts in this thread. Such as with your misconstruing the nature of our contacts and implying that it is crazy to think that my public writings have caught your attention, to name one among many such examples. As I preciously said, your responses in this thead have been a sustained exercise in mendacity, as well as ignominious and underhanded insults and fallacious debating tactics.

Your behavior in this thread has not been that of someone who simply made an honest mistake. If that were the case then there would be no reason for you continously misconstruing the facts on the matter, such as with the nature of our contacts. And if it were the case that you are being an honest person on this issue then you wouldn't have such an impossible time coming to terms with the fact that you got the phrase and its concept from me even after I refreshed your memory as to exactly when and where you got it from me. An honest person, if their memory had actually failed them to that extent, would have reviewed the facts in the case and said something to the effect of "You know what, upon reviewing our contacts and the dates on this, it quite probably is the case that I got it from you. Thanks."

There also is a thing called "intellectual dishonesty." It's not the same as outright, deliberately lying. Rather, it's when a person deliberately avoids certain lines of thought or lines of investigation for fear of what it might reveal. But it's the worst lie of all, because it's lying to oneself. Perhaps that is your problem.

Nor do I think this phrase and its concept is such a small matter. Mises never expressed the concept of deriving "an ought from an ought" (whether in those exact words or something equivalent), neither did Rand, Rothbard, or Hoppe. Had Mises known that such a concept was possible then possibly he would not have been a utilitarian (since he avoided objective ethics due to his concerns on the is-ought dichotomy). Hoppe developed his argumentation ethics, but he never expressed it in those terms or equivalent terms. Nor did you, until well after our contacts where I used the phrase in my emails to you and also in my public writings.

Often the most profound of concepts are also the most "simple." Yes, "an ought from an ought" is quite simple and so obvious--yet it is not at all obvious for most, as evidenced by the fact that it doesn't show up in the writings of some of our greatest thinkers in this movement (and indeed is virtually unknown anywhere). It only becomes "obvious" after the concept has been put out there and adequately explained and understood. Rothbard's arguments for liberty are so simple and obvious. I find Austrian economics to be rather simple and obvious. Now. Now it's so simple and so obvious. The great political, economic, moral, and spiritual truths are so simple and so obvious only after they have been put out, adequately explained, and understood.

Nor did you get the phrase from any source other than me. Back in February 23, 2000, most of those Google hits (via the World Wide Web search) for the phrase would not even have existed; probably none of them would have existed. Nor does 13 Google hits (via the World Wide Web, of which one of those pages was by you when you first used the phrase, so 12 Google hits to be more exact) demonstrate that there are "Tons of references" for the phrase (as you formerly said above). Nor did you get the phrase from one of the rare and obscure journal articles that contains it, of which you haven't even bothered to state which one of them you have read which possibly contained the phrase.

Yet we do know with certainty that you got the phrase from me circa early 2000, as well as other times later from me. So why is it that you have such an impossible time admitting that you quite probably got the phrase and its concept from me? That is, assuming your memory actually failed you, then based upon the evidence on this matter an honest person would at least admit as much once it had been brought to his attention in order to refresh his memory. An honest person would at least admit that, based upon the evidence, I am likely correct. Yet even acknowledging that much seems to be an impossibility for you, lest your ego has to take the blow that you obtained something of intellectual value from a "loser" like me.

And I will here restate again that it's not that I cared that you used this phrase and its concept without crediting me (as you most certainly did get it from me). Indeed, I was glad that you did use it and hence I said so! What incited me was that you acted as if I had a second head growing out my neck when I simply made an innocent and friendly comment to you on the matter (in which you even managed to misconstrue what I was referring to with an irrelevant red herring). I then went out of my way to give you the benefit of the doubt, that this was due to some form of mental laspe on your part, while at the same time refreshing your memory as to when and where exactly you got the phrase and its concept from me. You then replied with personal insults upon me (i.e., ad hominem attacks), and with more irrelevant red herrings.

As I also said before, even though you've treated me like crud with your continuous insults and underhanded debating tactics, being that I am a true Christian, I still love you, Mr. Kinsella. But I will rebuke your present opprobrious behavior, even though I still value you as a child of God, and hence as family.

Posted by: James Redford at November 20, 2006 3:04 PM

KINSELLA:

Redford:

Nor was I aware that using your middle and last name in sequential order is a problem with you--all the more so since that is how you sign off on your posts here.

If you are not aware how odd and idiosyncratic it is to refer to someone as "Stephan Kinsella" then you must be on drugs. Ahem.

And the fact that you are even going on about notions of sanity here further demonstrates your underhanded debating tactics.

It's not underhanded. You vilely and wrongly referred to me as a liar. It's natural for me to explain to any remaining lurkers what a loon you are. You do not seem stupid, so I assume you are the nutjob equivalent of a functioning alcoholic.

That is called an ad hominem attack, which is a logical fallacy.

Whatever. It helps explain to lurkers why you would engage in such a bizarre, extended harangue over such a petty issue.

Even if it were quite true it would still be quite irrelevant, since if I had made a factual error here then you would simply tell people how I am factually wrong. Yet I have made no error: it is you who has repeatedly misconstrued and mistated the facts in this thread.

Your factual error is in assuming that it is established that I got that phrase from you--just b/c you used it in an email to me does not mean I got it from you, as I noted. I could have already had it, or forgot it and re-learned it from another or independently came up with it myself. These are all possible. Your factual error is in calling me a liar, and a plagiarizer.

Such as with your misconstruing the nature of our contacts and implying that it is crazy to think that my public writings have caught your attention,

Not at all; I have never denied that I noticed your promoting my estoppel theory and email you about it and discussed some aspects of it and other things, like your drug use and bizarre religious views, a while back. So what?

...underhanded insults

Hey, you admit your wacko-ness in public, so don't blame me for pointing it out. I only mentioned things on websites. You, as a matter of fact, first replied publicly, here, with a quote from a private email I sent you. Very inappropriate.

Your behavior in this thread has not been that of someone who simply made an honest mistake.

I didn't make a single mistake at all, except perhaps in not realizing that your bizarrely worded and toned intitial comment here was friendly instead of hostile. My interpretation of your initial comment was not unreasonable; it reads like a snide accusation of me, as if you caught me at something. No one accuses my integrity, Redmond. You have no grounds for that. I am scrupulous at intellectual honesty, crediting sources, etc. I have articles where I have cited people who have insulted me and reviled me; intellectual honesty compels me to. I would never not acknowledge something like this. The entire idea is just ridiculous.

But had I realized you were just being friendly, my response would be basically the same, in substance.

If that were the case then there would be no reason for you continously misconstruing the facts on the matter, such as with the nature of our contacts.

I've not misconstrued that at all. I never even commented on it. I believe your summary of our contacts was basically right. When did I ever say otherwise?

And if it were the case that you are being an honest person on this issue then you wouldn't have such an impossible time coming to terms with the fact that you got the phrase and its concept from me even after I refreshed your memory as to exactly when and where you got it from me. An honest person, if their memory had actually failed them to that extent, would have reviewed the facts in the case and said something to the effect of "You know what, upon reviewing our contacts and the dates on this, it quite probably is the case that I got it from you. Thanks."

But I did review this and then I admitted:

I have used "ought from an ought" on occasion, at least in the last couple of years, as I have explained and defended my views on rights, and the problem with the is-ought dichotomy. Did I get the phrase from Redmond? I have no idea. I suppose it is possible that a phrase he used to describe my own theory stuck in my head and bubbled to the surface years later. If so, I woudl have no problem "admitting" it, as he charges...

I did say that I may have gotten it from you. I really don't remember. I may have already used such a wording before you emailed me in 2000. Why do you assume I didn't? I may have forgotten it and re-coined it, or read someone else use it. I really don't know. Why are you so certain that you do?

There also is a thing called "intellectual dishonesty." It's not the same as outright, deliberately lying. Rather, it's when a person deliberately avoids certain lines of thought or lines of investigation for fear of what it might reveal. But it's the worst lie of all, because it's lying to oneself. Perhaps that is your problem.

Maybe if I just snorted some weed I would be a self-honest jellyhead.

Nor do I think this phrase and its concept is such a small matter. Mises never expressed the concept of deriving "an ought from an ought" (whether in those exact words or something equivalent), neither did Rand, Rothbard, or Hoppe.

It is implicit in me, Rand, and Hoppe; and arguably Rothbard. You should write something on this if you think you have something to add.

Hoppe developed his argumentation ethics, but he never expressed it in those terms or equivalent terms.

Maybe. Dunno. He was of course aware of the is-ought problem and how his argument sidestepped that.

Nor did you, until well after our contacts where I used the phrase in my emails to you and also in my public writings.

How do you know this? I have not yet used that phrase in any public writings, that I recall, but have used it in emails and discussion lists and internet boards etc., from time to time, and have no idea when I started doing this--before or after you wrote me.

Often the most profound of concepts are also the most "simple." Yes, "an ought from an ought" is quite simple and so obvious--yet it is not at all obvious for most, as evidenced by the fact that it doesn't show up in the writings of some of our greatest thinkers in this movement (and indeed is virtually unknown anywhere).

Well, but most of them are not transcendentalists. Those who are are using this basic idea. Even Rand and her followers have pointed out that her entire ethics is hypothetical.

Nor did you get the phrase from any source other than me. Back in February 23, 2000, most of those Google hits (via the World Wide Web search) for the phrase would not even have existed; probably none of them would have existed. Nor does 13 Google hits (via the World Wide Web, of which one of those pages was by you when you first used the phrase, so 12 Google hits to be more exact) demonstrate that there are "Tons of references" for the phrase (as you formerly said above). Nor did you get the phrase from one of the rare and obscure journal articles that contains it, of which you haven't even bothered to state which one of them you have read which possibly contained the phrase.

Redford--how do you know? Did your LSD trips give you some omniscient, infallible insight into the list of phrases "out there"?

Yet we do know with certainty that you got the phrase from me circa early 2000, as well as other times later from me.

How do you konw this? How do you know I had not alreayd used it that way myself?

So why is it that you have such an impossible time admitting that you quite probably got the phrase and its concept from me?

Oh, I do think it is likely, now that you refreshed my memory on our correspondence. If so, it's quite useful. Thanks. Let's say, there's a 65% chance. That's my best guess and final offer. Do we have a deal?

That is, assuming your memory actually failed you,

and I'm not a LIAR, right? Wow, such charity. Only a drug-addled loon would think that I would have any motive to lie about this. I never even claimed I have come up originally with most of my own stuff; just presented and synthesized it. As you can see from my writings I am generous to a fault with citing sources and giving credit wherever possible. It would never even occur to me to deny this. What, do you think I want all the "glory" or "credit" to myself? There is none of note. And what there is, is for the substance of my views, not for a subtle way of expressing an aspect of it that you helped me come up with. Do you think I'm in line for the Nobel Peace Prize and want to keep all the award for myself? Your entire suspicion here is utterly bizarre.

then based upon the evidence on this matter an honest person would at least admit as much once it had been brought to his attention in order to refresh his memory. An honest person would at least admit that, based upon the evidence, I am likely correct.

I think it is probable; I even said early on, after you pointed out our original correspondence to me, that it was possible. What I was initially objecting to was your immediate attack on me and assumption that I was lying. for me to be lying, (a) it had to be 100% true that I got the phrase from you; and (b) that I remembered this.

I was showing that your lying charge was outrageous and unjustified by showing that neither (a) nor (b) is true. For that purpose it was not relevant for me to "admit" that it was "likely" or even "probable"--that is just irrelevant.

What happened, is that you and I corresponded long ago. I probably dimly remembered your oddities (drug use, personal revelation, freaky email handles) and thus associated you somewhat with the category "loose cannon/nutjob". So your bizarrely toned/worded initial comment here drew a curt response from me, in a private EMAIL to you:

It may be news to you that if I post something it does not mean I agree with it. Of course I don't agree w/ this article. It's utterly stupid. Duhhh. ... Thanks for figuring out the is-ought dichotomy for me. And Hume.

The first part was in response to what I took to be your implication that I was agreeing with the article I had posted. My response there is irrelevant to our current debate. The second part was quite reasonable and not "mendacious" since I had not remembered what you were talking about.

So far, you had NO grounds for accusing me of anything improper: even if you knew we had emailed me in the past, you had no reason to know that I was aware of this in what I wrote. So you had no charge to reply that

So I find it scandalous that you are here attempting to pretend that you didn't derive this phrase and the concept expressed by it from me. This is one of my babies that I'm quite proud of, and for you to here affect that you didn't get it from me is opprobrious.

I hope your words above are the result of some form of mental lapse. But I here ask you to never again act as if you didn't get this phrase and the concept expressed by it from me.

You are here already saying I was lying (pretending) and saying not only that it was probable that I got the phrase from you: you were asserting that I DID, as a matter of FACT, get the phrase from you; and that I KNEW it.

This was all--and still is--utterly false and a lie. Your response should have been (you know, how normal people--no offense--do things), something like: "Sorry for my abrupt, contextless interjection and presumptions. Maybe you don't remember, or maybe we have a different view of things, but if you recall, we discussed this 6 years ago--I can find the emails for you, if you like--where I introduced the expression "ought from an ought" to you--or at least, I thought I had introduced it to you, but you seem to have forgotten."

See, that would be an appropriate reply. But, in your monomaniacal obsession, in instantly leaped to accusing me of pretending, lying, plagiarizing, etc. Everything that happened after is solely a result of your wickedness in this respect.

Yet even acknowledging that much seems to be an impossibility for you, lest your ego has to take the blow that you obtained something of intellectual value from a "loser" like me.

But you are just wrong. You are simply factually mistaken. Your psychologizing is just preposterous.

And I will here restate again that it's not that I cared that you used this phrase and its concept without crediting me (as you most certainly did get it from me).

Ah. Back to "certainly". I thought we were on probably?

Posted by: Stephan Kinsella at November 20, 2006 3:55 PM

sorry doesn't cut it

2006-11-15T08:52:00.001-08:00

Onion Radio News

With Doyle Redland

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Report: Sorry No Longer Cutting It

Sullum on Borat

2006-11-09T11:13:00.000-08:00

In Jacob Sullum's comments on the Borat movie, he writes:

Because I live in the U.S. rather than Russia, last night I had the opportunity to see Borat, which I highly recommend. In addition to making me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe (the look on former Georgia congressman Bob Barr's face during his brief encounter with Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh alter ego is by itself worth the price of admission), it made me sympathize a bit (a teeny-weeny bit) with the Anti-Defamation League's concern that people confronted by the outrageous anti-Semitism of Borat and his compatriots might not get the joke.
During the Running of the Jew, a traditional festival in Cohen's version of Kazakhstan, the townspeople chase a giant papier-mache figure that looks like a Nazi (or Arab) caricature of a Jew down the street. The Jew is followed by the Jewess, who lays a huge Jew egg that the children of the village attack with gusto, smashing it to bits. It's pretty damned funny, but I couldn't help wondering if the rest of the audience at the theater in Dallas was laughing at it for the same reasons I was. [italics added]

It's this last sentence that bugs me. Just seems condescending--"I am laughing at it for the right reasons, of course--but these Southern rubes? I'm not so sure...."

Tom Palmer Does Amsterdam

2006-11-02T08:28:00.000-08:00

I just heard an interesting story about Tom Palmer. Apparently he was in Amsterdam recently for the Reason conference, and someone snapped a picture which is going around which shows Palmer splayed drunk on the floor in a quasi-sexy pose with a goofy look on his face. I won't post it here--it's too embarrassing for poor Tom.

I became a libertarian without reading ANY Rand...

2006-10-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

I apologize dammit! I have completely embraced libertarianism, and not just the "touchy feely" legalize drugs stuff, but the caustic, damn-the-torpedoes, Kool-Aid enhanced version that apparently goes by the designation anarcho-capitalism. But that's not the bad part. I came to these conclusions and embraced this lunacy without reading one single word from any novel by Ayn Rand! Please don't tell anyone. I apologize deeply and hope the amount of Rothbard, Block, and Hoppe I've consumed will get me through. For now.

Yearly apology of a non-apologetic paleoconservative

2006-09-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

I apologize for all of the offenses and outrages I have undoubtedly committed over the last year. My views are too divisive, too subversive and just too darn foreign to be accepted by any but the most radical (or enlightened depending upon one's perspective). Therefore I humbly apologize to all mainstream and mundane thinkers and ideologues for my thoughts and actions. Expect no further apologies for offenses to be committed in FY 07 until next September.

Regards,
El Cid

I never fininshed reading Atlas Shrugged

2006-08-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not having finished Atlas Shrugged when I tried it some years ago. I think I'm on page 300 or so. Maybe I'll give it another try these days. Or not.

Holocaust Palmer v. Muslim Cartoon Palmer

2006-02-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

Palmer today:

The cartoon images of Muhammed may have been offensive. They may have been shocking to some. Perhaps publishing them was in bad taste. Maybe it was even a sin. But no one should be harmed for publishing them, nor should the Danish government either punish the publishers or apologize for their publication.

Palmer a year ago:

The ban on the swastika, images of Hitler, and other emblems of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was imposed after the defeat of the Third Reich. And quite rightly, in my opinion, for it wasn’t merely a matter of “free speech,” but of preventing a brutal criminal conspiracy that had murdered millions from regrouping and taking back power. Banning it in, say, Canada or the U.S. would have been unjustified, as there was little chance that such people would organize to take over power here. (Ditto for restraining the speech of “holocaust deniers,” who should be allowed to peddle their crackpot views, which are about as plausible as denying the occurence of World War II.) But in the countries of Europe that had suffered through National Socialism, the ban was justified, on libertarian grounds, viz. a form of self-defense against known criminals.

Res ipsa loquitur.

P-word redux

2006-02-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Apologies from the gym

2006-01-30T10:47:00.000-08:00

I apologize for reading this on the elliptical runner and this on the bike. I'm a nerd.

Give Us Us Free!

2005-12-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

My friend Mush and I often break into spirited emulation of the slave character in Amistad's impassioned pleas to be freed from slavery: "Give Us Us Free! Give Us Us Free! Give Us Us Free!" Usually we do it to our wives when they harp on us to do something.

Oldie but Goodie: Palmer v. Raimondo

2005-12-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

Hilarious interchange between the heroic and funny Justin Raimondo and the execrable Tom Palmer.

Secret Service Man

2005-12-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

When someone disagrees with me, or sometimes just randomly, I'll tell someone, "don't you backtalk me in public!" Usually in a private conversation. Sort of puts them off balance.

I also like this: someone says, "Stephan, will you..." and I cut them off, "Don't you call me Stephan!" Usually stuns them, so they wonder for just a microsecond if they have my name wrong.

Also, when I go shopping w/ the wife, if I have my sunglasses on, as we walk across the parking lot or into a store, I circle around her and hold my hand up to block traffic and people, and scan around like an owl, playing Secret Service man. Wife hates it.

Sometimes, when we approach a restaturant, as I grab the door, I shake it as if it's locked, and give her a crestfallen look. Then she shakes her head and says, "Catholic High"

Funny Review of Lord of the Rings

2005-12-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

Here. By fellow Apologist Michael Barnett.

feminism poem

2005-12-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

Someone sent this to me:

Thoughts on Feminism

Feminism's steminism:
Ugly chicks are plentyism,
And require lots of ventilism
From years of neglectilism

-- The Insightful Buffster, 2002

King Kong

2005-12-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

I apologize for having an unalterable prejudice that anyone who wants to see the new King Kong movie is a moron.

Palmer on Friends of Freedom

2005-11-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

Well well well. This is interesting. Our boy Tom Palmer praises some "inspiring friends of freedom," including "Paata Sheshelidze and Gia Jandieri of the New School of Economics of the Republic of Georgia..."

I agree with Tom and thank him for promoting Paata, who is indeed a great libertarian. But a bit surprising, since the group he praises--Paata Sheshelidze and the New School of Economics--has published and promoted the work of those P-dog elsewhere condemns as racists, morons, and impediments to the cause of liberty, such as Hoppe and myself. I speak of the heroic "Library of Liberty" series published by the New School of Economics in cooperation with Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which contains Georgian translations of essays by various free market oriented writers. For example, Book I: Basics of Liberalism, published in February 2004, contains Georgian translations of classic essays by Mill, Bastiat, Mises, Ropke, Acton, Hayek, and of course, that great libertarian hero, and Palmer's bete noire, Lew Rockwell. Book II: Liberalism and Power (September 2004) has chapters by Tucker, Spencer, Oppenheimer, Nock, Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, and--gasp!--another pebble in Palmer's shoe--the great modern libertarian theorist Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Book III. Liberty and Property, was published just last month (October 2005), and I believe Book IV. Liberty and Intellectuals will be published shortly. Book III contains works by Locke, Bastiat, Mises, Rothbard, Demsetz, James Buchanan, Palmer's buddy (and mine! :) Tibor Machan, David Theroux, Richard Stroup, James Dorn, and--heavens to betsy--Hoppe, as well as yours truly. (Full lists below.)

All this, of course, just makes makes Tommy boy's relentless, dishonest, monomaniacal attacks on Hoppe, Rockwell et al. look like the ridiculous, unfair bleating that it is. Poor Tom. I guess everyone but him is blind to the Misesian Menace. Not enough people are infused with his sense of Dimwit-Serioso High Libertarian Purpose, goshdarnit.

I bet it just drives P-dog nuts when he traipses around the world and keeps running into libertarians who love Hoppe and Rockwell. Heh hehh hehh. I apologize for taking a bit too much gleeful satisfaction in this thought.

Update: see page 8 of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation's Summer 2005 newsletter, reporting on the New School of Economics of the Republic of Georgia, and noting:

The idea of organizing a free-market think tank in the Republic of Georgia was born in Auburn, Alabama, USA in August of 2001. At that time the two future founders of New Economic School – Georgia (NESG), Paata Sheshelidze and Gia Jandieri were visiting the Mises Institute, which inspired them to create an institute in Georgia that facilitates change by educating people.

[...] Since 2001, NESG has strengthened itself by building partnerships with like minded institutions around the world including Mises Institute, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Atlas Foundation, and Foundation for Economic Education (all based in the US US), Hayek Institute (Austria), Fraser Institute (Canada), Naumann Foundation (Germany) etc.

Oh, wow, the NESG has close ties to the Mises Institute--and was even "inspired by" them. Poor Tom.

***

The "Library of Liberty" Series
(published by the New School of Economics in cooperation with Friedrich Naumann Foundation)

Book I: Basics of Liberalism (Feb. 2004)

1. N. Gorgadze & P. Sheshelidze, Introduction Notes on Liberalism
2. Henry George, Ode to Liberty
3. John Stuart Mill, on Liberty
4. F. Bastiat, The Wisdom of Adam Smith
5. L. von Mises, On Equality and Inequality
6. W. Ropke, Cultural Ideal of Liberalism
7. Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity
8. F. A. Hayek, Liberalism (Introduction)
9. Lew Rockwell, An American Classical Liberalism
10. Paata Sheshelidze. Forward to Liberty

Book II: Liberalism and Power (September 2004)

1. Paata Sheshelidze, Introduction Notes - Man's Life as a State's Property
2. Akaki Tzereteli, Kudabziketi (Snobbism)
3. Benjamin R. Tucker, The Relation of the State to the Individual
4. Herbert Spencer, The Great Political Superstition
5. Franz Oppenheimer, The Idolatry of the State
6. Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, The State (shorten version)
7. Friederik A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (shorten version)
8. Ludwig von Mises, Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism
9. Murray N. Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State
10. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Political Economy of Democracy, Monarchy and Natural Order
11. Paata Sheshelidze, End Notes for those who wish to Read More on Free Market

Book III. Liberty and Property (October 2005)

1. John Locke, Of Property (parts from The Second Treatise of Civil Government)
2. Frederic Bastiat, Property and Law
3. Ludwig von Mises, Liberty and Property
4. Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, The Property Right Paradigm
5. Murray N. Rothbard, Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution
6. Roman Kapelushnikov, Theory of Property Rigths (part)
7. James M. Buchanan, Property as a Guarantor of Liberty
8. Tibor R. Machan, In Defense of Property Rights and Capitalism
9. David Theroux, Property Rights v. Environmental Ruin
10. Leszek Balcerowicz, Towards an Analysis of Ownership (part from Socialism, Capitalism, Transformation)
11. Richard L. Stroup and Jane S. Shaw, An Environment Without Property Rights
12. Stephan Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property
13. James A. Dorn, The Primacy of Property in a Liberal Constitutional Order: Lessons for China
14. T. Anderson, L. Huggins, How Secure are property rigths?
15. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Ethics and Economics of Private Property

Book IV. Liberty and Intellectuals (forthcoming)

Jeremy Sapienza Apologizes

2005-11-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

I'm so, so sorry Tom Palmer of the Cato Institute is a lying douchebag. I also profoundly apologize for fraternizing with the likes of Stephan Kinsella, Karen DeCoster, and other crazies from LewRockwell.com.

Lucy & Desi -- I don't Get it

2005-10-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

One thing I have been curious about--Lucille Ball in 1940 married Desi Arnaz, a Cuban--a hispanic. He played her husband Ricky on I Love Lucy. Now it seems to me that for a hispanic to marry a white chick back in the 1940s would have been a bit taboo. Yet I can't recall ever having heard that this is the case. I am not aware of any mention ever being made that when I Love Lucy came out, there was controversy about Lucy being married to a Cuban; that the show was "brave" and "heroic" and "pathbreaking" etc.

What gives? How come it was not likea big scandal?

Palmer on Hoppe, Coase, and Wealth-Maximization

2005-10-27T09:11:00.001-07:00

In a recent post I noted that around 15 years ago, Palmer published two law review articles (Intellectual Property: A Non-Posnerian Law and Economics Approach and Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects) arguing against patent and copyright and also critiquing the wealth-maximization "law and economics" approach of Richard Posner. In the first article cited he criticizes "A jurisprudence that claims to be based on “law and economics” but that would constructively assign or rearrange rights as part of a strategy to achieve some pre-determined outcome (maximization of utility or of wealth, for example) .... " Notice that Palmer characterizes Posner's wealth-maximization framework as one that would lead to the rearranging of property rights to try to maximize wealth.

Now Posner is of course a Coasean. And in fact others such as Rothbard, Walter Block (2, 3), Gary North, and Hoppe (2) have made a similar observation about implications of Coase's views (see also the views of Roy Cordato (2); Timothy Terrell's and Sebastian Storfner's summaries of Austrian critiques of Coase). Some of them note that the Coase Theorem could be interpreted as a recommendation that courts assign property rights so as to maximize wealth--in fact this is exactly what uber-Coasian Posner recommends, at least according to Palmer.

What is interesting is that in Palmer's campaign to smear Hoppe by repeatedly distorting Hoppe's views, he also has attacked Hoppe several times (1, 2) for interpreting Coase the way Palmer interprets Posner. He says Hoppe's and Rothbard's reading of Coase as meaning that "that courts assign property rights to contesting parties in such a way that 'wealth' or the 'value of production' is maximized" is an "absurd parody of an interpretation" and a "bizarre misstatement" of Coase. Palmer goes on:

Hoppe once attacked another panelist at a conference who had discussed the Coase Theorem by accusing the panelist (and Coase) of arguing that judges should be empowered to confiscate and rearrange property whenever the judge determined that the new distribution would be efficient. Now Coase has never said that and that’s not a part of or even an implication (at least, not without a number of questionable additional premises) of the Coase Theorem.

So, let me get this straight: Palmer's interpretation of Coasian wealth-maximizer Posner is reasonable, while Rothbard and Hoppe's interpretation of Coasian wealth-maximizer Coase is absurd and bizarre...? Of course a given interpretation of Coase is open to reasonable criticism, but is Palmer's attack here--given his history of blatant distortions of Hoppe's views, repeated even after being exposed, and given his similar views on one of the chief Coasians--a reasonable one, or merely evidence of his desperate attempts to smear Hoppe?

For links to other libertarian critics of Coase, see this post.

Palmer on Patents

2005-10-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

Palmer's recent comments about patents are interesting in view of his previous publications about intellectual property.

First, around 15 years ago, Palmer published two law review articles (Intellectual Property: A Non-Posnerian Law And Economics Approach and Are Patents And Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy Of Property Rights And Ideal Objects) arguing against patent and copyright and also critiquing the wealth-maximization "law and economics" approach of Richard Posner. Note that he opposed patents on principled grounds, and rejected the wealth-maximization approach. E.g., as he noted in the first article (p. 303),

A jurisprudence that claims to be based on “law and economics” but that would constructively assign or rearrange rights as part of a strategy to achieve some pre-determined outcome (maximization of utility or of wealth, for example) overlooks the analogy between the spontaneous order of the market and the spontaneous order of a legal system.

I.e., according to Palmer, Posner's wealth-maximization framework would lead to the rearranging of property rights to try to maximize wealth. Something he presumably opposes.

Anyhoo, back in 2003 some of Cato's scholars (Doug Bandow and Michael Krauss) came out in favor of restrictions on free trade based on the notion that reimportation of drugs would allow consumers to avoid some of the monopoly price charged due to the US patent system. Cato's adjunct scholar (and utilitarian) Richard Epstein has also argued in favor of patents, especially in the field of pharmaceuticals, and on this ground also opposed reimportation. Thus, as I have noted previously, support for intellectual property rights leads once again to the undermining of genuine private property rights, such as the right to trade.

This call for restrictions on free trade caused an outcry in the libertarian community, prompting Ed Crane and Roger Pilon to meekly disavow Bandow's and Epstein's protectionism. Interesting, this piece apparently endorses "the need for drug patents to encourage R&D"--this apparent endorsement of a utilitarian, wealth-maximization approach to policy seems to conflict with Pilon's principled, deontological, non-utilitarian, rights-based libertarianism--as shown in his 1979 Georgia Law Review article "Ordering Rights Consistently: Or What We Do and Do Not Have Rights To" and his 1979 University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation, "A Theory of Rights: Toward Limited Government."

In recent posts Palmer appears to bend over backward to soften his previous principled anti-patent stance so that he does not conflict with other pro-patent Catoites--apparently now including Krauss, Bandow, Epstein, Crane, and Pilon. Writes Palmer:

I've been critical of the patent system in the past. Mr. Brady has given me a quiz about whether I conform to his vision of right-thought or have drifted further into thought crime[,] as he defines it. I am not a fan of the patent system and think we could generally live well without it. (I've posted a few articles on my web site indicating why.) The one exception to that general hostility to patents, as I have suggested elsewhere, is the system of patents for chemicals, notably pharmaceuticals. Because chemical compounds are relatively easy to reverse-engineer and can be successfully marketed independently of their role in a larger product (unlike, say, innovations in jet engine design, which often are only valuable as part of a kind of engine), patents may indeed generate incentives for innovation that greatly improve human welfare. That's an argument for them. Since the innovation has the characterstics of public goods (costly to exclude and non-rivalrous in consumption, the latter being the relevant feature here), a good profit maximization strategy ought to be price discrimination, by which those who can pay more do so and others pay less.

Re the "public goods comment--note in the "Non-Posnerian" above piece Palmer's sensible criticisms (pp. 284-85) of the coherence of the very notion of public goods. As for the "suggested elsewhere" comment, he must be referring to this post, where he writes:

Pharmaceuticals and chemicals offer undoubtedly the best cases for patent protection on utilitarian grounds. In my Hamline Law Review article ..., p. 301, I quoted from a study by Edwin Mansfield from the American Economic Review in which he pointed out that "patent protection was judged to be essential for the development or introduction of one-third or more of the inventions during 1981-1983 in only 2 industries -- pharmaceuticals and chemicals." That seems not to have changed. The reason is pretty easy to understand: reverse-engineering in the case of chemicals (which broadly includes pharmaceuticals) is quite easy. In the case of pharmaceuticals, at least, R&D costs are very high and would still be high even without some of the very costly efficacy tests imposed by the Food and Drug Administration. Furthermore, the benefits of new pharmaceuticals are enormous. If one were to make a case for patent law, that's the strongest industry for which to make it.

Palmer has elsewhere rejected the wealth-maximization approach, so what does it matter that pharmaceuticals is the "best case" that can be made under this approach? Why does he say the case of patents for pharmaceuticals is "one exception to" his previous "general hostility to patents," when this case is utilitarian and wealth-maximization based, an approach he has rejected (and presumably he still maintains that even under the wealth-maximization approach the case fails).

Note how snippy he is to Mark Brady's questions to him about patents--"Mr. Brady has given me a quiz about whether I conform to his vision of right-thought or have drifted further into thought crime[,] as he defines it." It is as if Palmer is annoyed that in response to his seemingly pro-patent comments, his previous principled and anti-patent writings are being waved in his face. Given so many of his colleagues' utilitarian endorsement of patents, is Palmer now embarrassed by his previous opposition to both? Is he trying to say that he is still principled, and anti-patent, but that the dominant pro-patent, utilitarian approach of prominent Catoites is "respectable"--or that he has (sort of?) softened his "hostility" to this approach? It wouldn't be the first time Palmer's views have "evolved".

Hurricane Rita and its Devastating Effect on Houston

2005-10-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

From an email going around:

With all the news lately about Hurricane Katrina, we shouldn't forget That Houston has had it's share of devastating weather also.

The attached photo illustrates the damage caused to a home when Hurricane Rita passed through the Houston area a couple of days ago. It really makes you cherish what you have, and reminds us not to take life for granted!

the P word

2005-09-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

I apologize for being insensitive in my use of the P word.

Katrina and Country Music

2005-09-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

No comment on this news item:

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything - all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

On Lawyers as Commodities

2005-09-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

In the September 2005 issue of Corporate Legal Times, a piece called "Bidding Wars" profiles GE's recent move to reduce the number of outside law firms it uses from 500 down to 94. The first cut was based on quality; this reduced the number of law firms to 200. Then they cut based on RFPs and references from other clients, leaving them with 142 firms. Then they cut down to 94 firms based on cost--they made the law firms place bids in an auction type process. The reaction from the law firms was a bit amusing:

"An auction is a great way to buy pencils," says John Marzulli, a partner at Shearman & Sterling, one of GE's preferred M&A counsel. "It doesn't seem to me to be the best way to select your counsel for a complex multibillion-dollar acquisition. We like being part of their network, but we didn't enjoy the selection process."

I bet not.

Interesting Hurricane Katrina Comments and Links

2005-09-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State, Objectivist Robert Tracinski
Katrina and the End of Illusions, Justin Raimondo
Interdictor: Survival of New Orleans Blog, Michael Barnett

A Dismal Reality: It Wasn't Supposed To Be This Way, Fred Reed
Africa in our Midst: Lessons from Katrina, Jared Taylor

New Rouge

2005-09-06T07:32:00.000-07:00

As I previously noted on the LewRockwell.com blog, an emerging nickname for Baton Rouge is "New Rouge," because of the huge number of New Orleans residents moving there in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. See, e.g., Capital city struggling with inflow (Sept. 3, 2005, Houston Chronicle).

So, Daddy has registered www.newrouge.org and am temporarily pointing it to www.kinsellalaw.com/newrouge. Of course, I apologize for this shameless action.

Funny Australian Travel Questions

2005-08-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this is legit (see version here), but it's fricking hilarious in any case.

"The questions below about

Australia

are from potential visitors. They were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a raw sense of humor.

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)

A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles. Take lots of water.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia? (USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is north in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? (UK)
A: You are a British politician, right?

Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca, which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of a bear and lives in trees. (USA)
A: It's called a Gum Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Do you have perfume in Australia? (France)
A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia? (USA)
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)
A: Only at Christmas.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first.

Quoting La Me

2005-08-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

I apologize for quoting myself: from this Chronicles thread:

I agree that most people do not want liberty; that is why we do not have it. IMO those who think we can "win" the battle for liberty are just deluding themselves. Why libertarians, who denounce altruism etc., feel as if it's some moral duty to go around wasting large parts of their life in some campaign for liberty is beyond me--it's altruistic; it's futile; it's a waste of time, since one is at most barely increasing the odds, that we will temporarily and slightly increase liberty, the puny benefit of which falls primarily on those who do not deserve it.

I have spoken. So let it be written, so let it be done (affecting Yul Brenner Pharao pose)

Coda:

In the wake of some emails, let me add a few clarifying commments. I am not saying that it is a waste of time to try to work for liberty. To the contrary. I am saying that one would have to view it as a waste of time, if one really believed the costs of fighting the battle must be justified by the gains achieved--because one must delude oneself into making the equation balance. I just reject the equation. I help fight for liberty because it is the right thing to do. If I strutted around like some libertarians who claim that in their devotion to the struggle for liberty they are "making a difference"--certainly "more of a difference" than people like me who don't write "influential books" or a daily op-ed column or give speeches to socialist legislators in Arabia--then if I were honest I would have to say, it's really not worth it. If the justification for spending time and effort and money etc. to fight for liberty is whether or not we are "winning," then the project is a failure, on those terms. As I noted above, the actions of most of us at most result in a slightly higher chance at barely, and temporarily, increasing liberty--or, more likely, slowing down the rate of increase in government growth--primarily for the benefit of the masses who at root are to blame for the problem in the first place. And honest analysis realizes this.

Freeing oneself from self-delusion is essential for self-honesty and integrity. It also frees one to take principled positions and to avoid making the dishonest and irritating mistake of judging the truth or value of a theory or view by its "strategical" significance.

I cannot count the number of times some irritating jerk libertarian says to me, in response to a theory or normative proposition, "but that is not going to persuade anyone." They immediately assume that everything is to be judged by strategy, rhetoric, persuasiveness. I see nothing wrong with using such standards when appropriate. For example if I am proposing a method or argument to persuade people, then it is relevant whether the proposed argument or technique is persuasive. But when I assert to a fellow libertarian that we have a right to such and such, or that there is no right to xyz, for such and such reasons--it is just a non sequitur, a category mistake--and usually smarmy disingenuity, IMO--to say BUT that is not "going to persuade people." Hey dumbass--I never said it was gonna persuade others. These type of libertarians are in my view basically moral skeptics, relativists, and/or utilitarians. They are incapable of discussing anything normative. Moral talk is simply not "useful." What good, after all, does it to do identify moral truths, if it does not persuade others?

By this logic, there are no rights violations; there is only power. After all, even if libertarian rights could be proved by the Word of God delivered in an engraved envelope--still, an aggressor could disregard it. "Telling" him that he is violating your rights will "do no good." Yes. So? And so? What is the point of this elementary school observation? This entire mindset is that of the self-proclaimed "pragmatist" who does not want to say there are no rights--after all, it might be "useful" if some people do believe in them--but he does not really believe in them. He, in engineer-like fashion, cares only about "practical" "results." And I have no problem with this. But I would prefer they be honest. If I say, "there should be no murder," don't say "that's not practical"; it's not "impractical"; it's a normative truth. To say the rule against murder is "impractical" is to fail to distinguish between ought and is.

Every 5-15 years you see some libertarians waxing about how we are winning the battle, or that we can win the battle, all we need to do is... As far back as the 1930s etc.... They have to delude themselves and engage in wishful thinking and rah-rah political rally self-delusion ("we can win! we can win the Presidency! This year we will get 100 million votes if we just get our message out there!!!"). They have to delude themselves because they have bought into the idea that the cost of the fight is a worthwhile "investment" in the struggle to "achieve" liberty. They must believe that worth it to fight for liberty, implying they think we have, or can, achieve suffiient "gains" to "outweigh" the "Costs". This is naive and wide-eyed gullibility, wishful thinking.

Me--I say, be a libertarian activist if you want (of whatever stripe: more academic, like some of us; a blogger; a writer; join a local discussion group; run for office; donate your time or money to something; help promote economic education and literacy; whatever). I am, myself, to a degree. It's okay to spend effort on a cause one is passionate about. I expend effort reading science fiction, and don't seek to justify it w/ some made-up phantom tangible gains. Fight for liberty for its own sake. If you fight for it based on the gains, you will soon give up.

Please forgive me

2005-08-24T19:59:00.000-07:00

It has been over a month since I last fired my 9mm. I am going to the gym more often and drinking less beer and have eliminated junk food. I have lost weight and bulked up. Also, I will be getting a haircut, an oil change, tire rotation/balacing and alignment this weekend. I did laundry and backed up a hard drive. What's wrong with me!?

Called to the Bar

2005-08-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

I am very annoyed when lawyers--usually pretentious foreigners from Europe or some third world backwater, or do I repeat myself--say things like, "He was called to the bar in 1992..." Gag me. As bad as "He was graduated from Harvard..."

Also, I notice many Europeans put their last name in all caps, like my co-author Noah RUBINS. Not sure why they do this. It's on the verge of being annoying, but I think there may be some reason.

World's Worst Weatherman

2005-08-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here. Thanks to Swim Tanson.

stevedores

2005-08-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

I apologize for having the inexplicable gut feeling that use of this term is a bit nelly.

Falling Woman; cool quote

2005-08-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

1. Interesting animation of a bikini-clad, animated woman falling through a balloon-populated sky.

2. "The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then." --Baron Bramwell, in Andrews v. Styrap (Ex. 1872) 26 L.T.R. (N.S.) 704, 706.

Yuppie Birthday Parties

2005-07-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, we had simple birthday parties. A cake, maybe a pin the tail on the donkey, often under someone's carport, with makeshift tables set up. A few cheap paper conical hats perhaps.

Now that I have 2-year old, and live in a big city with a bunch of yuppie breeder friends, a trend that I had only been dimly aware of is starting to manifest itself more clearly to me. It's now routine for parents to have over-the-top birthday parties, inviting dozens of kids with any connection to their own--neighbors, classmates, what have you. I know parents who have to go to 3 or more such parties in a given weekend. I went to one this morning myself; and am having another at my own house this afternoon (but family only, thank God).

The kids love it. It's often done off-site, at a place like Gymboree, or an indoor soccer stadium, or indoor playground (Houston is HOT in the summer), with various personnel hired to entertain the kids--clown, referee, "poodle lady", whatever. Catered food, for both kids and adults. I am not sure if they try to outdo each other, but they are sure lavish. And now it's standard to provide "party favors"--little parting gifts for the kids attending, so they don't feel "left out". Aww, we are so careful not to bruise their precious little egos nowadays, aren't we?

The worst thing, as my wife pointed out, is the kids don't even open their gifts there--it's like a wedding reception, with tons of loot piled on a table somewhere, to be opened later, with thank you cards duly mailed out. Ridiculous.

However, if there are at least 2 milfs present, it helps ease the pain.

UN approves new international symbol for "marriage"

2005-07-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

As reported here -- "After 5 years of heated debate, the Commission of Human Rights approved the new International Symbol of Marriage." (similar report here).

Will the REAL Tom Palmer Please Stand Up?

2005-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

See the post on Palmer Periscope; comments should go there.

Is this Palmer?

2005-07-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

See post on Palmer Periscope.

Wiki on Mises and SPLC

2005-07-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Addendum: Wiki rejects this blog post as authority for the contention that "some view SPLC as hypocritical and PC" etc. Please comment below w/ any links or sources you are aware of that criticize SPLC.

***

From Wiki's entry on Mises:

the Southern Poverty Law Center alleges the Mises Institute to be a Neo-confederate organization, though its application of this term is controversial.

In my view, this kind of charge is merely the result of an excess of political correctness run amok. The politically-correct and liberal types often hypocritically excuse or whitewash the genocides and mass murders committed during the twentieth century by governments they would otherwise view as benevolent. Charges of Neo-confederacy and the like fly in the face of the tremendous amount of anti-socialist and anti-Fascist writing on the Institute's website and demonstrated in their programs, e.g. seminars such as the The Economics of Fascism.

I have edited the Wiki entry a bit; others may be interested in correcting the entry (or massaging my own comments as noted above) but should do so from a neutral point of view only.

The Wiki entry may link to this very post, so feel free to post comments below criticizing groups like SPLC who would make such ridiculous allegations.

GNAA

2005-07-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

Re this site: I apologize for ... umm... nevermind. (Wiki entry)

Niger Innis typo

2005-07-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

I apologize for MSNBC doing this (2) to Niger Innis. And for thinking to myself, "Roy Innis, what were you smoking when you chose your kid's name?"

Literary Apologies

2005-07-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

I have fallen to the Harry Potter mania and have bought the latest book. I have decided to read that instead of *gasp* Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps I don't need to apologize about this after all...

Plain Text

2005-07-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

I hate people who send me emails formatted in plain text. When I reply, I need to convert it to HTML, then change the format back to normal, etc. Dumb morons.

Almost as bad are those who forward me a 17th-generation forwarded email, where each previous forwarder was too fricking stupid to remove the forward info so that the meat is buried 17 floors below in a nest of headers. Or, it's one email attached to another, and so on, you have to drill down 3 or 5 levels to find the original. And they are invariably all these 7th grade level humor things or some dumb religious crap or pro-war or anti-Arab humor. Jesus. If tree-huggers are the brain-numb foot soldiers of liberalism, these blue collar rubes are their Republican analog.

Here's another. I ask someone to fax me something on FINE mode. "Do whutt?" I explain it to them, "Look, there's a button on your fax... oh fucking nevermind."

Annoying also are the dipwads who send me email with stationary font in the background. Or they put their name in script font, sometimes in blue color. What, do they think that'll fool me?

And why do some poeple insist on deleting context when they reply to an email. Do they think the CIA is tailing them?

And I love these ignant morons who, when you send them a PDF file attached, say, "Uhhh, Ah cain't open it. Eeet won't open." I invariably say, "Do you have the latest version of the free Adobe Acrobat reader?" And if the answer is, "Uhhhmmm, how would I know that," then I know the answer is no.

And if I see one more person click twice on a hyperlink, I will go berzerk.

NASA, Palmer, and the Handicapped

2005-07-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

Three apologies today.

First, for this joke: Hey, did you hear the shuttle launch was canceled? Yeah, NASA couldn't afford the gas.

Second: for wasting my time battling with Palmer.

Third: Yesterday I picked my baby up from school during a bad thunderstorm. On a fairly main road that was getting too flooded for normal cars, I just plowed through with my trusty Land Rover. I hit a huge patch of water creating a huge arc of water spraying up from the passenger side wheels; my baby was delighted. So I did it again; and then espied on the sidewalk, inexplicably, this nurse lady pushing some handicapped kid in a wheelchair--in a thunderstorm. I saw her raise her arms over her head and a look of fear on her face, as my tsunami wave arced over toward her. I felt so bad, but nothing I could do; I hit the brakes, but the spray of water was on its way to her. I had passed her but I am sure the wave of water drenched her and her poor handicapped kid (who were no doubt wet already from the storm). I really apologize!

some hnn comments restored

2005-07-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

Following up on this post: the comments on hnn were not deleted. The links to them were. I had some links saved from my previous duplicate posts, so was able to get some of them. They provide some context for some of my comments:

From the Miserable Libertarians post: some comments; and some more comments
From the I'll Let You Know In A Couple Years post: some comments

Anyone reading these comments and my other comments elsewhere in this blog can judge for themselves whether or not Palmer is relentlessly on the attack (as are, to varying degrees, others including Steve Horwitz and Charles Johnson--have I left anyone out?).

hnn comments deleted

2005-07-13T11:35:00.000-07:00

I can't say I'm surprised--but some of the hnn threads I have posted on recently, primarily arguing with Tom Palmer and combatting his repeated libels of fellow libertarians, have been deleted. The editors means only to cut off comments but inadvertently deleted the comments. Nonetheless, I'm not surprised, as can be seen from the last several posts where I re-posted some of my comments there, on this blog, just in case they ended up disappearing.

Here are the posts that mention the deletion of the comments sections:

Civility (Jason Kuznicki)
More Civility (Steven Horwitz)
Hear, Hear, Libertarian Gaggism! (my comment, Do Not Equate the Initiator with the Victim, is reproduced below--guess why)

***

There is of course nothing unlibertarian with "private" censorship; the fact that we feel compelled to explain this to each other is a bit depressing.

Personally I do not buy into the "both sides need to simmer down" type of view. My opinion is this: Tom Palmer (and some others, to varying degrees) repeatedly resort to personal attacks on the character and motives of fellow libertarians, as part of a response to substantive discussions. The motivations behind our views are questioned and snidely impugned, etc. It's to the point where if you have a differing view on federalism, it's because you come from the "fever swamp" of neo-confederate slavery apology. These type of personal attacks and libel seem to me to be prohibited by this blog.

It is not surprising that others, such as me, respond to these completely outrageous, uncivilized attacks on the character and motives of people I know to be decent people and sincere advocates of liberty. If anyone wants to equate my or others' response to the outrageous personal attacks of Tom Palmer or others, they are free to make this mistake. But just as there is a difference between initiating force and responding to it, there is a difference between launching an assault on someone and the response to it.

I and others that are regularly attacked by Palmer et al. are perfectly happy to go about our merry way, trying to understand and advocate liberty as we see it. There is no need to respond in a non-civil way to people who are not already breaching rules of civility, etiquette, courtesy, charity, decency, and honesty.

In my view personal attacks like those hurled by Palmer and implicitly or snidely suggested by others on this forum, ought to be prevented or a warning issued. But until this is done, I can tell you right now, whenever I see anyone maligning decent, fellow libertarians and impugning their motives, suggesting outrageous things like racism, bigotry, anti-semitism, I am going to call a spade a spade and denounce it. Ban me for doing this if you will. It's your property.

The problem is that Tom Palmer has demonstrated he will not treat me or others affiliated with the Mises Institute with civility, other than calling me "Mr. Kinsella." So blinded by malevolence and irrational emotions is he, he hardly sees us as humans, much less libertarian. Just like liberals, who act morally superior despite being willing to inflict terrible harm on individuals, Palmer here has the gall to adopt a superior stance all the while acting like an utter cad.

And I also posted this reply:

And a good place to intercede might be at the first sign of a personal attack on a fellow poster or fellow libertarian. This would include allegations that the other libertarian has a given, say, political or constitutional view because he does not care about liberty, or is racist, or anti-semitic, or yearns for slavery, or is not a "real" libertarian. It would include snide comments that imply the advocate of a given argument has evil, hidden, unlibertarian motives.

In fact, since accusing someone of anti-semitism, bigotry, racism, etc., are arguably libelous, not to mention outrageous and not conducive to honest discourse, it would be a very good idea for a given forum not to tolerate it.

No offense, Tom Palmer.

looking for free crawler

2005-07-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

I wish to crawl a specific website to extract all the PDF's from a particular sub-tree. Anyone have any recommendations on a (free) program that will do this (I have Linux and Windows machines) -- I loathe the prospect of doing it manually.

Oh, and I apologize for using this forum to plea for technical help.

More hnn replies

2005-07-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

A few more posted here, in case hnn deletes them.

First, this reply:

P-dog writes:
A very weak retort. Thomas Jefferson did not lead a revolution for the purpose of furthering slavery. The signers of the South Carolina secession resolution did. There's a difference. Evidently you don't get it. A libertarian, on the other hand, would.
Ah. I see. Can't reply direclty to my own post--don't want to sully your hands. It's all electrons, Tom, you know. And no one cares about you finnicky rules. You insinuate here I am not a libertarian. I think you are not one. So there. Where are we now? Fisticuffs? On Segways?

Look, you obviously have a carefully-mapped out list of what is permitted, and what is not. It's okay to worship Jefferson, even though he owned slaves and raped one of them... but not to admire Jeff Davis, who freed his slaves.... because of "the" "purpose" of the "secession." Jefferson was in favor of secession... so was Jeff Davis... both secessions resulted in independent nations where slavery was legal... hmm, but "the" "purpose" --heck, I didn't konw there was "a" "the" purpose. You sure are smart, Tom.

Jusy give us the list of officially approved rules (run it by your benefactor first, would you) so we will know how to conform to the new world order.

And another one:

P-dog sayeth:
When someone says that I'm a contrarian at root, I'm tempted to deny it.
Interesting. Do they say that to you often? I don't think anyone's ever told me that. But then, I mostly hang out with normal people, most of whom have never used the term "contrarian" in their life.
But in this case, it would be true. To be a "contrarian" per se is just to be contrary: against what others believe. I believe in liberty. It is a positive value. I want it and I work for it. That's the difference between libertarians and people who are merely "anti-state." The latter are merely against something, but not for a positive alternative.
And here goes the shiv. P-dog first subtly implies that we--you know, the ones he constantly libels on his smearblog--are "merely" anti-state. This is ridiculous. As Roderick Long pointed out on this thread, "Pessimism?? Is this pessimism?" Of course, P-dog does not reply to Roderick (and strangely, he will not bash his friends or others with some weird immunity, even though they share the same views he schizophrenically attacks in others associted with this bete noir, the Mises Institute--you know, the big, hairy, evil group--ghoulish, he calls them elsewhere, who have "opened the gates of hell" (his words)--who ummm, promotes free-market, Austrian economics and, er, umm, libertarianism. Yeah, they are SCARY, SCARY. .... BOO!).

We are not "merely anti-state". We are of course in favor of rights and liberty. Has Palmer ever heard of, oh, I don't know, the fricking JOURNAL OF LIBERTARIAN STUDIES? Or Reason Papers, which Mises Institute hosts? Can P-dog with a straight face deny that the Mises Institute promotes the thought of Mises and Rothbard? Would either be called "mere" anti-statist? with no positive views about liberty, or rights? This is ridiculous.

As for being "for a positive alternative," now we get to the nub of the matter. I suggest Lew Rockwell's article Regime Libertarians. Just because not all libertarians are compromising, sell-out policy wonks who want temporary, incremental increases in liberty at the cost of liberty in other areas, or don't toe the line of a given beltway thinktank, does not mean we are not also "for" a "positive alternative." The insufferable arrogance emanating from Palmer's perch is truly a sight to behold.
Lots of people are in opposition to the state: they include a great many people with whom I would not want to be categorized, such as criminals, terrorists, advocates of other forms of coercion and tyranny, such as a Caliphate or feudalism.
Yeah, deep, man, deep. Wot a great insight.

You know, lots of hippies and scumbums are also in favor of legalized drugs and prostitution too. Let me guess--you are not "merely" in favor of drug legalization. You are "more" than that, right? And you would not want to be "reduced" to a mere defender of porn or drug rights. Hey, I have an idea--why don't you realize the universalizability principle actually applies here? Hmmm?

I'm not just "against the state," because I favor liberty, which is why I favor restrictions on the state. When people enjoy more liberty, I am pleased by that, at the same time that I am mindful that injustices still exist.
Being a "contrarian" is being a second-hander, letting others dictate to you what you will stand against, rather than choosing that *for* which you will stand.
Whatever. Cue violins. When the Randroid lingo comes out, my eyes glaze over.

Of course, those fellow libertarians whom you malign and hate at the Mises Institute are in favor of liberty and individual rights.

And another:

Mr. Gregory, if a state were torturing people to death in truly cruel and unsual ways, would you join hands with Mr. Kinsella and march against the federal courts taking steps to stop such behavior? I would hope that you would leave Mr. Kinsella to march on his own, as would all of the rest of the libertarians on the planet.

Mr. Palmer, can you not read? I have admitted many times over the purely instrumental value of the US Constitution. I would not hesitate to oppose it where I thought it unlibertarian. As a matter of fact, I think it is unlibertarian and I think the federal state it set up ought to be disbanded. You would not I suspect, because we need a benevolent nanny to ride herd over the nasty, naughty states, and the feds are your daddy, aren't they? WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

If the state were torturing people, this would not change the fact that the US Constitution does not authorize the feds to stop it. Would I in some cases "want" the feds to march on the states to stop this anyway? I don't know. What has that to do with whether the Constitution authorizes this action? To my mind, integrity calls for an honest interpretation of the Constitution. Where it is illiberal, we can acknowledge this, and then consciously choose to abandon the Constitution, or try to change it.

Reply -- hnn: Palmer on federalism

2005-07-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

reply to Palmer here reprinted, in case hnn deletes it:

***

Do the "rules" of this board prevent disingenuous replies or outright libel? I guess not.

P-dog says:

What I find remarkable is the eagerness to resist restrictions on state power emanating from the federal courts when they are (or could be but didn't, as in the Kelo case) issuing opinions that are well grounded in the text of the constitution.

But they are not well-grounded in the "text" of the Constitution. This is mere question-begging. Palmer here snidely implies that hmm, there must be some sneaky reason we are "eager" to "resist restrictions" on state power. P-boy here snidely implies that those who are in favor of federalism--you know, like all educated libertarians until the modern "improved" generation--are "eager" to want states to be able to hurt people. This vile slander is inappropriate in this forum.

If one thinks the "text" that reads "privileges or immunities of citizens" automatically and obviously means citizens' rights, as implicit in the.... Bill of Rights, despite the history of the 14th amendment, then he must have a crystal ball. I mean, they left the word "rights" out because ... ahhh ... .well, who knows, but they MUST have meant rights, anyway. And, umm, just because this language tracks language in a previous bill that clearly referred to a narrow set of rights, not a broad set, well, let's just ignore that. And look, just because they listed due process in the 14th amendment, even though they didn't need to if the privileges/immunities clause incorporated the one from the 5th amendment--let's just ignore that too.

Rejecting the 14th Amendment on the grounds that it isn't part of the Constitution is absurd; we currently do have a federal Constitution.

P-dog may be right; but none of us are basing our argument on this claim. Now the brilliant Gene Healy does make this quite respectable argument:

Given that the Fourteenth Amendment was never legitimately ratified,we’re freer to adopt a narrow construction of the amendment than we would otherwise be. By giving a narrow reading to the Fourteenth Amendment (which was not a product of constitutional consent), courts keep faith with the Tenth (which was). From this perspective, the post-Civil-War Court’s crabbed construction of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in Slaughterhouse might well be justified as a blow for originalism.

That is, we can't ignore the 14th, but recognizing its problematic origin, perhaps when the federalism principle of the 10th butts up against the alleged erosion thereof in the 14th, we give the nod to the 10th. Just a thought.

But our arguments don't rest on this. We assume the 14th is part of the Constitution. So why does Palmer use this straw man?

We should appeal to it when the appeal is well grounded in the text and likely to advance liberty.

Well now, finally an unambiguous normative assertion about what "we" "should" do. I welcome a rigorous defense of this, coupled with some explanation why it is obvious why anyone who disagrees with it is an apologist for slavery, bigot, racist, anti-semite--am I leaving any out?--the kind of outrageous, disgusting smears that Palmer regularly trots out on his smearblog as the kneejerk response to anyone who does not toe the Cato line. But eve if this mere assertion were true, it again rests on the notion of appeals "well grounded in the text." Of course, this is what is in question, so it is question begging, as well as disingenuous.

What exactly is P-dog saying? Is he saying everyone (or just libertarians?) should (?) "adopt" a given argument for construction of the Constitution, as long as someone can plausibly say "it is well grounded in the text", so long as in one concrete case it increases liberty? What exaclty is he saying? That it does not matter what the Constitution really means? That the original limits on the feds are elastic? Subject to their discretion? Or only ... if they are libertarian judges? What?

Similarly, the guarantees to citizens of the several states in Article IV of "all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States" is in the federal (and unamendd) Constitution, as is the guarantee of a "Republican Form of Government."

HO HO! So here we come to the fall-back. Notice Palmer first tries to imply that the 14th amendment's "privileges or immunities" clause somehow includes some broad set of rights, supposedly largely coextensive with those express or implied in the Bill of Rights (well, only, er, some of htem--not those in the 10th, or the 27th amendment, or the unratified 1st article of the 12 articles submitted... or not in the 3rd, or 2d, amendment, and not parts of the 5th, and, er, um, also not the due process clause of the 5th, because, you see, that's already in the 14th).

Then his fall-back: why, we never had federalism at all! You see, FROM THE BEGINNING, the feds had the power to review state laws for all the rights in the Bill of Rights, because of the original privileges or immunities clause (even though this is not in the power-graning section of the constitution) or the Republican form of government clause--but let's ignore the fact that, say, the original privileges or immunities clause was adopted in 1789, when there WAS NO BILL OF RIGHTS (that came in 1791), so how in the world could the earlier P-I clause include those rights, as is argued that the later one does... or does the earlier P-I clause incorporate, oh, I don't know, some other unspecified set of rights? So that the feds have strictly enumerated powers... except here--they had the power to enforce whatever rights they wanted to against the states, no definition or limits at all. Even though the States would never have consented to a federal Constitution that granted such power.

Nice. Convenient. Let's chuck all we know about history and context, and just read the bare words on paper, in the most favorable way as possible for (centralized) libertarianism... then just "assume" we can somehow, someday, find enough libertarian judges to interpret it the same way...

Oh, it's so beautiful, I want to cry.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are in the federal Constitution.

Interesting, that--curious, if the 14th Amendment's due process and/or privileges or immunities clause are so fricking broad, then presumably so is its equal protection clause. You know, that one that prevents states from treating classes of citizens differently, from discriminating? So just curious, mind you, but if that one is so broad--wouldn't you THINK it would have prevented States from discriminating against BLACKS and WOMEN in the FUNDAMNETAL FRICKING RIGHT TO VOTE? Well, I would. But lo and behold, we needed the 15th, and 19th, amendments, to give blacks and women the right to vote. Hmmm, interesting. I guess the "equal protection" clause of the 14th ain't as broad as it seems to a college libertarian on first reading, is it? Maybe, just maybe, the same is true of the privileges or immunities clause? Nahhh--can't be. Anyone who thinks so is a Christian or an anti-semite (or is there a difference?).

If a state were to deny a person the legal right to vote on the grounds of race, would Mr. Anthony favor the intervention of the federal courts or of the federal Congress?

You see, there is actually constitutional grounding for such an intervention. There happens to be a constitutional amendment to this effect--the 15th. We don't deny this. Strangely, as I noted above, the equal protection clause of the apparently very broadly construed 14th does not cover the right to vote; but no matter. Just b/c the 15th does grant a right to vote to blacks, does not mean that the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th includes the rights implied in the bill of rights. These are separate matters. Palmer need not caricature our view; we are actually very clear and upfront about it. We admit some constitutional limits on states, and deny others. For some reason, for those libertarian centralists who are apparently not bothered by the idea of a non-limited federla government, anyone who thinks federal supervisory power over states is limited must be a fascist secretly yearning for states to permit mobs to lynch blacks once more.

Palmer on the Civil War

2005-07-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

My reply to Palmer on hnn's Liberty & Power blog is reprinted on this post on the Palmer Periscope, in case the pinheads there delete it [coda: I was prescient; daddy is now down the memory hole!]

Palmer on Junge Freiheit

2005-07-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

See this post on Palmer Periscope.

Pesto and Chops

2005-07-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Why do some fine steakhouses hold themselves out as having great "steaks and chops"? What the eff is a chop? Do they mean fricking pork chops? Pork chops? Who goes to a nice restaurant for a goddamned pork chop? I don't think I have ever seen anyone do this. I have seen pork cops ordered at your regular shops, but a fine steakhouse? I mean yeah, a nice fish, or lobster--I sometimes see people order those instead of steak at a nice place. But pork chops? What the hell is going on here? If they don't mean pork chops, what the hell do they mean by "chops"?

And what the eff is pesto anyway? No one ever defines it. It's sort of like geffiltefish, as best I can tell.

Palmer Lies about Involuntary Unemployment--yet again! ha ha ha

2005-07-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

In this thread, Heinrich wrote:

Palmer continues repeating the assertion that the work published by the LvMI is "an embarassment". In particular, he thinks Hoppe's work is "an embarassment". At one point in the past, he argued that Prof. Hoppe's claim that "on a free market, all unemployment is voluntary" was an embarassment to Austrian economists. Stephan Kinsella responded by quoting a statement of Ludwig von Mises saying the same thing. Palmer then facetuously accused Kinsella of an "appeal to authority" (http://tinyurl.com/ba5e4) Also, in that regards, see *The Ludwig von Mises Legacy: A Reality Check* by J.H. Huebert (http://tinyurl.com/d6kjz).

Palmer replies:

And Mr. Heinrich, be careful of what you quote, since the quotation from my personal correspondence of a few years back with the odd Mr. Kinsella contains quite a few of those little dots [...]. The claim that in a free market all unemployment is voluntary is not a tenable thesis; insisting that it must be true because Mises said something that could be interpreted that way is mere evidence of cultishnes, and nothing more.

Now as even Heinrich's summary makes clear, and as Palmer well knows by now (as I have explained it to him numerous times), I did not insist that the comment about voluntarly unemployment is true because Mises said it, as anyone of even normal intelligence can understand (in fact, I do not believe I have ever stated that I do even fully agree with Hoppe and Mises here).

As I have explained repeatedly, I was simply showing Palmer's assertion was ridiculous--that Hoppe's comments were an embarrasment to Austrian economics. If they are perfectly consistent with the explicit views of the preeminent Austrian as expressed in his magnum opus, well, then Palmer's critique is inexplicable. The real truth is that when I pointed out this statement it embarrassed Palmer and it nailed his ass. Does anyone doubt that when he saw the Mises quote that was in line with what Hoppe said, Palmer thought, "Oh shit. I wish I would have not picked that example."--?

He was cornered and like a cornered animal, he stupidly fought harder. Since I had him dead to rights, he had no real defense but to lie and claim that I was acting cultlike in appealing to authority. I was not appealing to authority, and Palmer knows it. He used a ridiculous example that made him look like the ass he is when I pulled out the Mises quote, and he is desperate to cover it up.

As he wrote, "If you're right, then so what? Is that an argument? If you're right about this, then Mises was wrong. Is that so hard to accept?" I never said Mises or Hoppe were right. I was not appealing to authority at all, except to show that the view in question was also held by the most prominent Austrian, and therefore was, umm, Austrian, or hardly an embarrassment to Austrianism.

I can just imagine Palmer's reaction when he saw I had found a quote of Mises that says EXACTLY what Hoppe said, that Palmer had criticized in his pompous fashion. I bet his little eyes bugged out. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Palmer also calls me "odd." He just embarrasses himself by such comments. What he finds is odd is someone who is intelligent, articulate, successful, not a loser, not a religious nut, and who also has a sense of humor--and who does not take him seriously. He just can't fathom that, so oddly arrogant is he. I decided to tease him by making fun of his hypersensitive, ridiculous PC standards--he and his ilk call anyone who sneezes a bigot--by asking if he had ever used the word "bigger"; because if so, that is just one letter away from the n-word, so he is a semi-racist. Obviously the point is to make fun of his stupid accusations of bigotry etc. Yet he feigns innocence, ominously intoning that something must be seriously wrong with me to fixate on the word "bigger"--even doing me the favor of banning me from his smearblog for doing this.

What is truly odd is someone like Palmer--who is objectively odd, given the things I have heard about him and that he has manifested--thinking he is in a position to call me odd. I someone like Palmer did not think me odd, that's probably when I would start worrying.

Coda:

The sad, pathetic, monomaniacal Mr. Palmer has a final comment on the thread:

"That goes for simply accepting as truth everything said by Mr. Kinsella. My advice is that you be more careful about labelling someone a liar based on one person's heavily edited extracts from personal correspondence to which you have no access."

Hmmm, let's see. Now Palmer tries to deflect from the clear case that shows he's a buffoon by pointing to the fact that his comments were from a private email and that ellipses were used.

Palmer the shell of a human (as someone called him) published the following comments:

...Skousen made subtle reference to ... Hoppe's failure to understand fundamental Austrian economic principles, such as the role of time in economic adjustment. "As the editor of this volume, I have to admit that I do not agree with everything Professor Hoppe presents as Misesian economics, even in this significantly revised chapter. For example, I have serious doubts about his claim that market unemployment is 'always voluntary.' Certainly, permanent unemployment is always voluntary in the unhampered market, but a dynamic market is constantly generating temporary unemployment that requires time to correct." ... One could go on with examples of how Hoppe and the Mises Institute have proven embarrassing to the Austrian economists by whom they claim to be inspired .

What is Palmer saying here? He trots out Hoppe's view about unemployment being voluntary on an unhampered market, an then says he says, "One could go on with examples of how Hoppe and the Mises Institute have proven embarrassing to the Austrian economists by whom they claim to be inspired". One "could go on" with examples implies there are other examples--in addition to the one just given--that show Hoppe is embarrasing to Mises (the economist by whom he claims to be inspired). So Palmer is clearly stating, in published writing (not in private email), that Hoppe's view about voluntary unemployment is an ebmarrassment to Mises.

Now, it so happens Mises said exactly the same thing. There can be zero doubt that Palmer was unaware of Mises's views here, or he would not have chosen such an embarrassing example that makes him look like a moron with an vendetta.

Silly Tom Palmer ridicules some of us for believing in --gasp--limited federal government and enumerated federal powers. He repeatedly jumps to the libelous conclusion that anyone who says that, say, the Civil War was unjustified under the Constitution, or that states have a constitutional right to secede, are neo-confederate apologists for slavery pining for the antebellum south. And yet, some of Cato's own people, notably the brilliant Gene Healy, hold the same view, and you don't hear Palmer slandering him. Hmm, could it be--double standard, Mr. Palmer? Coward. Worm.

And he snidely attacks Hoppe's "argumentation ethics" defense of rights, arrogantly dismissing it with a flourishing wave of the hadn--"For the new prophet arrives, who teaches the truer version of that truth, while others have fallen away: say, Hans-Herman Hoppe, who has "proven" that merely to open your mouth to contradict him is to affirm what he believes, and therefore to contradict yourself. Presto! A new prophet." And yet, Cato's Roger Pilon, has promoted a similar defense of rights based on Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency (as I have explained here); yet you don't hear Palmer snidely attacking Pilon's (great) work. Again: a sniveling, ignorant, dishonest coward with an axe to grind. Palmer has revealed himself time and again to be an utterly disgusting human being. For him to call me "odd," I take as a compliment.

Finally, numbnuts Palmer says:

There is no comment section at lewrockwell.com or at antiwar.com, where people might defend themselves from the outrageous claims or distortions served up by Rockwell, Raimondo, and their merry band of kooks and crackpots.

First, Rockwell and Mises Institute have nothing to do with antiwar.com. Second, Palmer conveniently omits to note that the Mises blog does have comments.

Palmer apparently has no qualms about revealing that he has zero integrity and that he is an unfair, nasty person. What is interesting is that he adopts this arrogant pose, as if he is somebody important. That is what is truly amusing. Not content to be a plodder, he must make a name for himself by becoming the smearblogger nonpareil!

Too much sense

2005-07-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of expressions I like. First, "come to find out," as in: "Wayull, Ahh thought she wuz single--but come to find out, she wuz married."

Second, "that would make too much sense," as in: "Why don't they put up signs in the airport parking garage showing which way to walk to get to the elevators? Why? Because that would MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE!"

Voila

2005-07-08T22:09:00.000-07:00

I confess to feeling utter disdain when the French use "voila" so casually. I mean I think of "voila" as some dramatic move, like when a magician unveils a tiger behind his cape. So it seems bizarre and pompous to me when a waiter hands me a cup of coffee or the check, with a flourish and "voila!" like Ricardo fricking Montalban and his rich Corinthian leather.

Earthquake in Mejico

2005-07-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

Joke someone told me recently:

Did you hear about the earthquake today in Mexico? Yeah, it killed like 250,000 people. Canada has announced a multi-million dollar aid package, and George Bush has declared he is prepared to send them 250,000 replacement Mexicans.

Truck Nutz

2005-07-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

I am tempted to buy a set of these: a pair of testicles for your truck, hanging down from the receiver hitch.

Have mercy on my soul

2005-07-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize for being from Louisiana and not liking crawfish or Tabasco, for being hispanic and not having rhythm and thinking that Alberto Gonzales should be cleaning my house or better yet, making me a chalupa. I apologize for using Linux yet pinching my geek friends' brains for being closet socialists. Also, while I am not a graphic designer or homosexual, I like Apple computers. Finally, for today at least, I apologize for having a pistol with a 17-round mag, and that sadly, I don't (yet) put it under my pillow when I sleep.

BK's Dumb Theory

2005-07-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

Fellow Apologist Burger King Marcus writes:

I have a new hobby: rather than writing my own pieces for LewRockwell.com (which requires, after all, sifting through email feedback that's 1/3 hateful race theory and 1/3 gibbering leftist idiocy), I'm going to try to get myself mentioned in everyone else's stuff.

Sorry, BK, but I really doubt your strategy is gonna pay off.

Waitasec....

Kelo and Takings

2005-06-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

I have a long article on this controversial topic (for libertarians) here: A Libertarian Defense of ‘Kelo’ and Limited Federal Power. In Tom Palmer's honor, I should have entitled it "A Libertarian Defense of ‘Kelo’ and Limited Federal Power, or, Why I Am A Racist and Apologist for Slavery."

The Shadow Justice

2005-06-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yo yo, I am thinking about starting a blog to give my opinion on how recent Supreme Court cases should have been decided (and the opinions of other libertarians who want to join in). I was talking about it with the Gilster and we think some good possible names are:

The Shadow Justice
Libertarian Justice
Dissent in the Ranks
The Court Intellectual
The Supreme Revisionist
A Case of the Red-Ass (nevermind; that's a Louisiana Coonass-ism)
Justice Unplugged
Libertarian Supremacy
The Daily Constitutional
The Constitutional Nag

Any thoughts on a good name for da blog?

Kinsella on Kelo and on Palmer on Kelo

2005-06-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've had many posts already on the Kelo case: On the Mises blog (Woops, They Did It Again (Bad Supreme Court! Bad! Bad!)) and the Liberty and Power blog (First Raich, now This (Kelo)). I argue that the Justices' reasoning is confused, but the right decision was reached: to let the Connecticut taking practice stand. Because the 5th Amendment was never meant to apply to the states.

And in this post on the Palmer Periscope (Palmer on States and the Feds--Kelo), I critique Tom Palmer's comments on this case and related matters.

Insulting an Objectivist

2005-06-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well over at SoloHQ I started this thread--Wendy McElroy on Nate, Babs, and Ayn. Predictably, the seriosos went batshit about the nicknames. So I posted this reply, not sure if it will be posted there:

This post may be redundant--not sure if my previous reply worked. Ms. Branden--I meant no offense. I was just pasting the short title used on LewRockwell.com today for McElroy's article. No offense intended, and I'd be happy to call you Ms. Branden or Barbara instead.

BTW my name is Stephan (sounds like Stefan), not Stephen (sounds like Steven). No one ever mispronounces Stephanie. The mind boggles.

To Brant: "Those prissy sissy's at ARI can't take these principal actors' word for what happened--they had to literally bring in a prosecutor--because they refuse to grant either Nathaniel or Barbara recognition or any kind of sanction for their own lives and the contributions they made to the spread of Objectivism and the well being of Ayn Rand."

I am sorry, but I can't follow this... whenever I see the word "sanction" in an Objectivist site my eyes just involuntarily glaze over, as they also do at terms like "whim-worshipper" or "psycho-epistemology." :)

My later reply:

Hi Michael! :)

Just a couple of questions. The premise of Valliant's book is that both of the Branden's autobiographical biographies are nothing but lies. So he drums up exactly the same kind of lies he accuses them of (attributing ill motives to every act, insinuating that Nathaniel was a rapist, etc.). If you do not believe me or think I am overly-biased, look at the "objective" review you just posted the link to from LewRockwell.com.

I would not have purchased it, but someone sent it to me. I read the first couple chapters. I found it to be a hit piece. But I have not read the latter journal stuff. But when Valliant started, in the Preface, his excruciating defense of Peikoff's denunciation of B. Branden's account without having read it, and his defense of the need for non-Peikoffians to have this defense, it becames obvious it was more of the orthodoxy stuff. At least that part. Then I recall later on, there was some passage allegedly showing B. Branden's inconsistency when she at one point said Rand was not maternal at all, then later said Rand would help and guide her. Like that was an aha! moment. As if people could not themselves act inconsistently.

So do you think that the best way for ARI (meaning the heir who authorized this travesty of scholarship) to fight what it deems to be a pack of lies with another pack of lies (or extremely overly-biased insinuations at the very least), but sprucing it up with Ayn Rand's unpublished works?

Dunno, I have not gotten yet round to forming an opinion on this weighty matter.

The present signs point to someone laying a gigantic egg in public here - in Ayn Rand's name. I hold that it is Valliant's approach that is burying this newly released unpublished work of Ayn Rand. There are oodles of people who want to read her unpublished words without having to wade through Valliant's ranting and partisan fighting. So, in doubt, they simply buy other books by other authors.

Do you have another explanation?

Er... no, not at hand. An explanation for exactly ... what, sorry?

(There. No "sanction," no "whim-worshipper" and no "psycho-epistemology.")

Just a little capitalistic common sense.

And who said Objectivists have no sense of humor.

... but... I fail to see what your reply has to do with, umm, capitalism...

catchy tune

2005-06-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

I apologize for recommending this annoyingly catchy tune: go to this site, and click "Introduction." It's infectuous.

Gopher balls

2005-06-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

When I was little, my grandma used to tell me she was gonna "get my gopher balls". Scared the crap out of me. But it was kinda funny. Now here she is with my baby. But I won't let her get his gopher balls.

I "care" for you. BULLSHIT!

2005-06-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

That irks me, in movies, when people say, "Because, because--I care for you." I have never known anyone in real life to say "I care for you." They say, I like you, or I love you.

"I care for you" is the modern agnostic analog to people saying "gezundheit" instead of "God Bless you" (as they do in movies--in real life, I've only seen it a few times, adopted by liberals as an affectation), or "would you move in with me" instead of "will you marry me".

I have also never known anyone in my life who treats the "let's move in together" question as some weighty move that should be celebrated, almost like a mini-marriage. The Hollywood movies MAKE ME SICK.

Libertarianism: The Movie

2005-06-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

First task: casting. This ought to be interesting.

Ayn Rand: Helen Mirren, of course.
Murray Rothbard: Jason Alexander (the guy who played George on Seinfeld)
Stephan Kinsella: Michael J. Fox (pre-palpitations)
Hans Hoppe: maybe that guy who played in The English Patient, Ralph Fiennes?
Walter Block: Ned Beatty?
Tom Palmer: Jeremy Irons. Nathan Lane? Paul Giamatti?
Jeff Tucker: Chris Elliot (the guy from the David Letterman show)
Joe Salerno: Joe Pesci?
Tibor Machan: Michael Caine
Lew Rockwell: James Garner. John Rhys-Davies. Frank Gaffney.
David Gordon: John Lequizamo.
Guido Huelsmann: Ashton Kutcher. Rutger Hauer.
Karen DeCoster: Wynona Ryder. Brittany Murphy. Laura Dern.

and so on. Join in. I'll add to the cast as I receive suggestions (either post a comment, or email me at nskinsella -at- gmail dot com.

belated book review -- Narveson's _Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice_

2005-06-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

Years ago, Jan Narveson published Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice. I read it hot off the press, having been quite impressed with his earlier book The Libertarian Idea. So, I endeavored to write a review on both books as a system of thought. It was never quite good enough for publication in, say, the JLS. Sorry, Jan.

But it's good enough for a blog! (really interesting footnotes removed)

Resurrecting Respect and Liberty

A Review of The Libertarian Idea by Jan Narveson (Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, 1988; reprinted 2001 with new preface) and Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice by Jan Narveson (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Maryland, 2002)

By Gil Guillory

Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice is a collection of 16 essays, six of which are published for the first time. These essays were selected as an arc of scholarship over the author’s publishing lifetime, 1965 to present, with most of them being composed in the 1990’s. This is a libertarian cookbook of sorts, with chapters on practical matters (“The Drug Laws”, “Have We a Right to Nondiscrimination?”, “Deserving Profits”) and the abstract (“Marxism: Hollow at the Core”, “Utilitarianism and Formalism”, “Moral Realism, Emotivism, and Natural Law”) arranged in roughly chronological order of authorship. It is a good resource for any teacher or professor who wishes to assign a supplementary reading, because each essay stands on its own and makes its case without undue appeal to external literature.

Respecting makes a good companion to Narveson’s other volume reviewed here, The Libertarian Idea. First published in 1988, Idea attempts to defend libertarianism from the ground up. I cannot possibly do justice to all of the important topics that Narveson raises in both books (over 650 pages of text), so I have contented myself with a review of some of the persistent themes and recurring foundational arguments running through both of these books.

Against Intuitionism

Narveson makes it clear that he wants no part of intuitionism. The problem, as he puts it in “On Recent Arguments for Egalitarianism”, has to do with rationally defending morals:

…we are talking about arguments for equality, as distinct from sheer assertions of it. Appeals to “intuition” – that the commitment to equality is “moral bedrock,” as I have heard it said – must, on the face of it, count in the latter category…my “moral bedrock” might be something quite incompatible with the proponent’s: say, that equality is a snare and a delusion. Strange bedfellows! So where would we go from there? If it’s anywhere, it’s going to have to be either back to arguments, or to non-rational or irrational activity, such as politics…

But, doesn’t moral argumentation rest in the end, as Hume had it, on an ought, on some bedrock moral consideration? “Some of us deny it,” answers Narveson,

On the right view of the foundations of morality, there are no moral bedrocks. Everything is arguable, and arguable by reference to considerations that have to be meaningful to those concerned, antecedently to the moral theory put forward – namely, their various values and preferences, whatever they may be, plus a variety of empirically manageable factual claims.

It is the grounding of morality in fact that makes moral values fundamentally different than mere preferences. But what are these facts?

The Hobbesian Liberal

One of Narveson’s favorite facts is Hobbes’s disturbing (but true) claim that almost every person, no matter how weak, has enough strength to kill the strongest among us, and also the power to make others’ lives quite miserable. He goes on to show that the Prisoner’s Dilemma is “the paradigmatic situation to which morals addresses itself”. This is not a controversial claim among libertarians, but a deficiency of Idea is that it does not argue for this claim with enough vigor. Narveson admits as much in the new preface.

With the relevant facts (including valuing one’s life, and one’s life “projects”) distilled into the Prisoner’s Dilemma, he shows that rational actors will choose to cooperate instead of defect, and encourage others to cooperate. This is the “contractarian case” for morals. Since the very term “contractarian” is a bit confusing to some, a clarification is needed:

The general idea of [contractarianism] is that the principles of morality are (or should be) those principles for directing everyone’s conduct which it is reasonable for everyone to accept. They are the rules that everyone has good reason for wanting everyone to act on, and thus to internalize in himself or herself, and thus to reinforce in the case of everyone.

… Contractarianism can be made to seem arbitrary and silly: consider, for instance, the suggestion that long, long ago our remote ancestors made this deal, see, and from that day to this everyone has had to go along with it! …

The problem is that morality is obviously not the result of a literal contract: and, indeed, it cannot be… Clearly, the sense in which morality is founded upon or due to or represents an “agreement” is going to have to be less straightforward than that.

Narveson explains further:

[Contractarian morals are] the output of a course of deliberation…[chosen to have] the best chance of realizing values actually held by the agent. Those values, of course, need not be and in the first instance cannot be “moral” values. Morality is an output, and what makes it rational is the same as what makes any action or decision rational: it best fills the bill specified by one’s general set of values, whatever they are.

This subjectivism of values is important to Narveson, and he regards it as a defining element of the liberal tradition:

…the liberal must justify principles, policies, and institutions, to any person affected by them, by showing that person they are for his or her good as seen by that person… Each person is regarded as being the ultimate authority on what is good for himself.

Here we see a convergence of many libertarian views. Narveson has written that he was a utilitarian that changed his views by recognizing a few facts that counter classical utilitarianism: utility is not measurable, it is not interpersonally comparable, there is no reason why A would regard B’s utility equal to his or her own, and few people hold as a goal the maximal sum of utility (cardinal or not) for all. Most of these caveats were noted by the libertarian Ludwig von Mises, even though he was a self-proclaimed utilitarian. Henry Hazlitt, an associate of Mises’s, defended this special brand of utilitarianism. But these problems for utilitarianism as a theory of justice persist, rendering it an intellectual dead end in the minds of many.

Just where does Narveson fit, then? A brief taxonomy will answer the question. Prior to the 20th century there were two major libertarian-leaning theories of rights. First was the venerable natural-rights tradition, which cast as normative the natural tendencies of human life. Second was the radical Lockean theory, which proclaimed self-ownership as the moral bedrock and explicated a labor-mixing theory of property acquisition.

Libertarian rights theorists (especially in the latter half) of the 20th century have grappled with the foundational question of how an objective code of justice could exist given the seemingly contradictory fact of subjective preferences and then proceeded to discover such an objective code through the application of reason. This 20th century approach has rightly been called the Rationalist school of rights theory and regards objective justice to be a spontaneous order -- an insight that the pre-20th century theories seem to lack. It is to this Rationalist school that Narveson belongs. The Rationalist libertarian rights theorist constructs a system of non-contingent absolute rights on objective, but contingent, facts. Even though the program appears almost impossible, a number of these approaches have come to the fore.

The Objectivist approach grounds rights in the choice to live. Other approaches appeal to the logical character of the mind, showing that only a system of libertarian rights is self-consistent; and, alternatively, that disobeying libertarian rights implies no argumentative defense against punishment or perhaps even against other depredations. And Narveson’s contractarianism grounds rights in the choice of social cooperation.

Each of these rationalist theorists have important, complementary points. It must be appreciated that Narveson's main line of inquiry is why an actor should be moral, and only secondarily, what that morality is. Narveson has abstracted from Mises. Mises, unlike any other economist, saw the importance and pervasive applicability of Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage, which he broadened to call the Ricardian Law of Association. Narveson focuses on the Prisoner's Dilemma, which is a game-theoretic abstraction of the Ricardian Law of Association and other cooperation-dependent social phenomena.

A brief account of Narveson’s theory is difficult to summarize. Partly due to Narveson’s meandering and non-committal academic style, and partly due to the fact that his chief argument seems to change from essay to essay. But, the core of the contractarian case seems to be the answer to why people choose (and should choose) to cooperate.

[the contractarian’s answer to the game theorist’s claim regarding the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma] has seemed to many to smack of moralism. And it is undoubtedly more complicated than the game theorist’s response. Instead of adopting a simple, unconditional “nasty” strategy, the rational individual…sees the need in such situations to operate on a more complex strategy. Now, the complexity of this strategy is seen to be especially deep when we ask how we could know that the other person has the similar disposition—and above all when we reflect that that disposition is a disposition to cooperate if I am disposed to cooperate, so that part of my solving my problem about him is that he has to have solved the same problem about me.

The importance of the disposition of other actors has resonance with other modern theorists. Narveson’s contribution could be admirably aided by Hoppe’s insights to explain, for instance, why we should be consistent in our choosing to cooperate. Narveson’s theory maps well over the Objectivist argument. It also seems to have some similarity to Roderick Long’s “Kantianized Aristotleanism”, which grounds rights in the “logically-constructed”, as opposed to the biologically-given, nature or good. Narveson’s contractarianism has done well, in this author’s estimation, in being able to explain important questions such as why an individual often regards the norms of justice to be more important than (to the point even of transcendence over) his subjective preferences. And this is exactly how morals should function: as constraints on the individual actor.

The Contrite Anarchist

Idea received a cool reception in some libertarian circles its first time out of the chute due to Narveson’s discussion of the Ontario Hospital Insurance Program (OHIP), which ends with very unlibertarian conclusions. Perhaps Narveson’s libertarian credentials were questioned. And, if contractarianism can uphold the justice of a program of socialized medicine, the libertarian might not be interested in it. One could conceivably file such a book, along with other supposedly libertarian works, in the classical liberal category instead. Two points must be made on his behalf.

First, Narveson launches his discussion of OHIP in the chapter which attempts to rebut the “insurance” argument for government. He largely dismisses this argument, but then goes on to cite a hypothetical case under the heading "Overwhelming Majorities and Administrative Overhead". He argues that if health insurance is something virtually everyone wants, and if the costs of government-supplied health insurance is lower than free-market insurance, and if the few who do not want it can opt out, then what does the libertarian really have to say against this form of public insurance? Well, to answer Narveson, the libertarian has nothing whatsoever to say against voluntary insurance. The libertarian does wonder how such low costs are the province only of government.

Second, Narveson has obviously given this whole matter a second thought:

…there is one matter on which I have been decidedly contrite ever since the initial printing [of The Libertarian Idea]: my ringing defense of the possible acceptability of Canada's socialized medical system…[it is] quite clear by now that socialized medicine remains, in a word, inexcusable…

But if Narveson’s libertarian credentials were ever questioned, all doubts are certainly erased by his essay “The Anarchist's Case”, which, though pessimistic on the prospects for the stateless order, has some strong conclusions (for an academic philosopher):

Clearly, the libertarian view entails the market anarchist’s…Government may, in short, rest essentially on what amounts to fraud…Political power is inherently likely--“certain” is close enough to the truth--to cause more evil than good, and the good that it occasionally does can be better brought about [by voluntary means] rather than to bring about the side payments of politics…

Respect and Liberty as Libertarian

A refreshing element of Narveson’s work is his rehabilitation of the term “respect” for the libertarian tradition. Long the province of the egalitarian left, Narveson shows that respecting persons in theory and practice is what liberal individualism is all about:

The libertarian view may, I believe, be defended broadly as follows. These other people, being people as well as he, assess their actions in terms of their various values. The accepting and pursuing of one’s assorted values being the stuff of our lives, we cannot but be interested in not having them thwarted, trampled on, and so forth, by others. But also we must reserve the right, as it were, to values-changes without notice. These two, I think, are the sources of our interest, as individuals, in a right to liberty, that is, in not being prevented by others from doing the things we are bent on doing. We are all the same in this respect. And this does not presuppose any fundamental respect for others, any sharing of their values, or even any prior inhibitions about treating them in whatever way suits us in terms of our own values. It doesn’t presuppose it--but, argues the Libertarian [sic], to adopt an attitude of respect for the liberty of others in exchange for their respect for one’s own is one’s best bet among moral theories.

Narveson also gives much weight to the “General Principle of Liberty” and claims that libertarianism is “the doctrine that the only relevant consideration in political matters is individual liberty”. He regards property as derivative of the principle of liberty, but also equivalent to the liberty principle. And thus, libertarianism is all about liberty. This may seem to be a small matter, and perhaps it is, in the cold light of reason. Nonetheless, there is a rhetorical strength in having evidencing reasons that defend the notion that to embrace liberty is to embrace property; for, though there are admitted opponents of property, I have never heard of an opponent of liberty. And so, the persuasion of others, beginning always with common ground, is almost always easiest to achieve starting from liberty and proceeding to the property-rights implications.

An Anti-Intuitionist Critique: Children and Rights

Narveson's critique of intuitionism is sound. He brings it up so often in his works that it is constantly on the reader’s mind. And so, it is only appropriate to explore the possible sins of the preacher. Narveson takes as his starting point the “practical agent” (more about this below) and concludes by embracing both the homesteading principle and the principle of self-ownership.

But contractarianism seems to address the question of cooperation in the abstract, between actors with subjective and changeable (and therefore potentially conflicting) values and in the presence of scarcity of resources. The answer that contractarianism suggests is for men to cooperate under the homesteading rule. What it does not seem to address is the question of self-ownership. Considered by many to be the foundational libertarian political axiom, self-ownership seems not to be comprehended by Narveson’s account of morals.

It must be clearly understood by the reader that what is at issue here is not specific claims to self-ownership by adults (which is not disputed), but the claim that every person upon conception is a self-owner. Such an absolute claim would be inconsistent with the reality of child-rearing, in which the liberty of the child is restricted by the parent. Rothbard attempted to explain the apparent inconsistency with guardianship rights, but this answer is muddled. Sarah Lawrence has taken the opposite tack, founding a movement, Taking Children Seriously, dedicated to absolute liberty for children. This is also, I think, the wrong approach.

In his chapters on the rights of children, Narveson gives great weight to the guardianship claims of parents (and rightly so):

The question then becomes this: when and why should the sentiments of other people regarding a given child be able to override the sentiments of the child’s own parents? A plausible answer, prima facie, is never.

From the standpoint of received modern opinion, he does not venture far from this prima facie conclusion. He goes on to conclude that abortion is not unjust and that infanticide (the “let-die” form, not the “kill” form) is within the realm of justice, given certain circumstances. These conclusions echo Rothbard’s (in his The Ethics of Liberty), but given absolute self-ownership at conception, it has been successfully argued that not all forms of abortion could be just. Narveson argues that it is unjust to kill one’s infant, but it is just to kill one’s unborn. This distinction may be plausible, but it relies on intuition.

By the logic of contractarianism, the claim of a child to his liberty (self-ownership or body-ownership) is not stronger than the claim of the biological parents of that child at any time. As I understand the contractarian case, the child is wholly owned by the parents. Surely, the child’s will is not and cannot be owned. But the child’s body can be. Perhaps I have overly-abstracted the contractarian case. Narveson has warned of such thoughts:

Of course we want to know what it is for a human to be free; but humans are complicated entities, and there are many different features of them that might figure in our account of liberty. Some will want to say it is the “whole person”, others the strictly rational aspect of the person, others the “will”, perhaps in some highly rarefied conception of it [boldface added], and so on…

He goes on to explain that the proper subject of human liberty is “the practical agent”, presumably an adult. But, in doing so, the problem remains. Why and how would a child come to have rights? If the starting point is the practical agent, and our contractarian conclusions result in the finders-keepers rule, whence self-ownership? It seems that Narveson conjures self-ownership from the air, when he writes: “And in the case of children, there is the complication that ere long they have minds of their own, and by virtue of that will come to have the sort of independent rights that persons have.”

Certainly, he does not mean that anything with a will (animals?) automatically must be afforded rights. So, we have a puzzle: self-ownership, long a fixture of libertarian rights theory, is either (a) defendable under contractarianism (doubtful), (b) defendable under a separate line of moral inquiry (this reviewer has not been persuaded), or (c) not defendable under any line of moral inquiry. It seems that the notion that virtually every adult is a self-owner is fully consistent with the homesteading rule, but the notion of self-ownership for children is in conflict with the homesteading rule. Self-ownership, like intellectual property, is a second homesteading rule. To what extent it is defendable is left to the reader.

If axiomatic self-ownership is not valid, a radical contractarian approach suggests itself. Using only the notion of homesteading, one must conclude that parents own their children outright. The scholar may then explore the natural course of growing up, suggesting that parents gradually grant their children more and more freedom. Such a research program would examine in what regard community and familial bonds would persuade parents to adopt liberal attitudes toward their children, thereby checking the egregious excesses of despotic ownership. Even if the homesteading-only approach is ultimately a dead end, the work would certainly be helpful in understanding the social forces that keep depredations at bay; and, will most likely add to the libertarian literature on civil society.

It seems that the contractarian must pursue this program, and eschew self-ownership as hopelessly intuitionist. Rationalist rights theories can only be strengthened by further exploration of this persistent problem of the rights of children.

Conclusion

Narveson makes a compelling case for contractarianism, which complements and enriches other libertarian accounts of moral theory. If you don't read the book, I hope this blog entry has served to give an outline version of Narveson's thought for the reader.

If you are a fan of Narveson's work, as am I, you might consider sending him an email to tell him that we are awaiting his next book, with working title Hobbesian Ethics.

Here's a shout-out of RESPEK to my homeboy!

The Khawajinator

2005-06-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

Hmm, Irfan Khawaja won't reply to my latest comment on his little blog thingy. I wonder why (2, 3).

Reflicted

2005-06-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

When I was a youngling in rural Louisiana, we would often use the pejorative, colloquial term "reflicted," as in, "Oh, shut up, you're so reflicted!" It was a synonym, roughly, for "retarded" or stupid.

Other colloquialisms from my home state:

silver dime, meaning, a dime (one time when I was a checkout boy at a supermarket, this black guy, when I was giving him change, kept asking me to give him "silver dime," and, as I used to collect silver dimes, started fishing through the cash drawer, looking on the edge of the dimes, searching for a pure silver one. Finally he pointed at a regular dime, and I realized, he meant a dime by "silver dime". What a non-silver dime is, to him, I have no idea.)
This calls to mind the time the black lady handed me a nickel and two dimes and asked me for a "solid quarter." After looking at her with the deer-in-the-headlights look for a second, I realized she meant just a quarter. I think two dimes and a nickel must be a "non-solid" quarter.
The blacks would also ask me to slice them up half a pound of "pepper sausage," by which they meant salami. I got to be good at interpreting their colloquial expressions, like the way they pronounced shrimp ("swimpses").

I hereby apologize for relaying this story and for remembering the racial aspect.

In Louisiana they say this, when they see that one of their friends is pregnant: "Who's dat baby for?" Which means, "who is the father of your child?" The answer would be of the form, "It for John."
They also say someone "caught a heart attack"
grocery shopping is "makin' groceries". The Schwegmann chain capitalized on this with a campaign "Makin' Groceries--Schwegmann Style"
They end sentences with the personal pronoun for emphasis, like so: "I need to get me some boiled peanuts, me."
"If" is used for emphasis. As so: A says, "Man, is dat chick HOT or what?" B would respond, "If!" meaning "Yes!" My theory is that this was someone's adaptation of the Spanish usage of the word "si" for both yes and if (there is some Spanish influence there).
"Skiing" means water skiing. If you want to refer to the other kind, you have to say "snow-skiing".
I once saw a flier for a "PENTECOSTAL REVIAL." The typo made me feel much more secure in my lack of thumperness.

Swanson Libertarian Blog Emergency!!

2005-05-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Read here and follow the advice to hook a brother up. Poor student Timmy needs a bit of financial help to keep his blog alive. I already gave him my two cents, so I think I'm covered.

Gil's 12 books

2005-05-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Pretend not to notice that there are two entries for number 2.

I apologize for giving in to the blog meme making the rounds, which suggests that I should list the twelve most influential books in my life. Wow -- what a tall order! I will try.

Unlike some men without hobbies, I have several major interests in my life, and I shall endeavor to cover a few of them. But left out are: gardening, winemaking, languages (especially Esperanto), rhetoric/persuasion, logic, grammar, and everything to do with my children (theories of homeschooling, phonics, math for kids, history for kids, and so on). I have tried to make this chronological.

I have provided some commentary, but I will leave others with none.

1. Commodore 64 User Manual. I was born at the right time. For my 13th birthday (1983), I got a Commodore 64. In those days, computers were simple enough that you could program them right out of the box by reading the user manual, and a text-only game was really exciting to show friends and relatives -- even amazing. This manual taught me BASIC. I am convinced that all those late nights and long weekends of programming and swapping programs with my friends developed my ability to think logically. It is in this way that I am somewhat persuaded that instruction in computer languages can supplant to some degree the instruction of natural languages. When before one learned the logic of the grammar of another natural language, now one can learn the syntax of a computer language and struggle with telling the computer exactly what you want it to do. This book put me on the long road to Numerical Recipes in C, which I enjoyed reading in graduate school in much the same way as my first computer manual.

Besides my computer, my first intellectual interest in life was spiritual. I read about all sorts of stuff: Tarot cards and Zen Buddhism, I read the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita -- all wasted, I guess, on an adolescent mind. When I was younger (11 and 12) I attended the Lotus Center and studied meditation. However, what blew me away when I was 16 years old was L. Ron Hubbard. I eventually read all of his 22 basic books on Dianetics and Scientology and took several courses. I am no longer a scientologist in the active sense, but I hold in high regard many of the methods of personal improvement scientologists and dianeticists use. Most important for me were:

2. Fundamentals of Thought by L. Ron Hubbard. I thought of using this slot for Science of Survival, but FoT is where I picked up the idea that my potential for understanding and application of ideas is unlimited. While I may be of finite "intelligence" (what Murray and Hernstein refer to in The Bell Curve as 'g'), any normal person, with the right dedication, can wrap their brain around any idea formed by another man, and learn to apply it. This is an interesting and important point, not central to the book in question, but it was a watershed for me: it is an open invitation to reach for the stars. Zig Ziglar no longer seems so wacky. I really can do whatever I put my mind to.

2. An Introduction to Scientology Ethics by L. Ron Hubbard. A book that I recommend even today. I don't quite know how to describe it. It's not about ethics like Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is. It's a book about how to create and maintain integrity in your ethical relations with individuals and groups with which you are affiliated. I've never seen another book that even comes close to this topic.

3. The Student Hat. This is a Scientology course on how to learn and how to study. I finally took the course while a sophomore in college, summer of 1991. There are many derivative books on this now. The thrust of the course is to become familiar with and to learn to avoid and overcome the 3 barriers to study: misunderstood words, too steep a gradient, and lack of mass. This has helped me to be an excellent student in all of my endeavors.

It took quite a bit of effort for me to decide between majoring in Theater or Chemical Engineering. I went with chemical engineering. It was there that I found:

4. Thermodynamics. By now, I have many books on thermodynamics, and the particular author of the first book which I read is immaterial. The ideas in this course were mind-blowing. Finally understanding how energy and heat interplay, how steam cycles and refrigeration cycles work, and how to calculate their performance was empowering and exhiliarating.

During a summer internship at Shell Oil in Houston, I also took:

5. Method One Word Clearing. Also taken summer of 1991. This is a Scientology course in which one learns to use an E-meter, and then applies it in a specific endeavor: find all of the misunderstood words you've ever come across, and "clear" them -- that is, find and understand their definitions. It is amazing how completely this revolutionized my ability to understand new fields of study. Killer

More college. More engineering.

6. Physical chemistry. Again, a subject, not a specific book.

7. Div Grad Curl and all That.

My last semester of college, I took my required Econ 101 class. It was so confusingly topsy-turvy, that I immediately latched onto this book when I found it in the bookstore in grad school:

8. Economics on Trial by Mark Skousen

Years later, as a member of the Libertarian Party, I decided to run for Congress. Figuring I ought to know what I'm talking about, I looked around for an all-out course on libertarianism. This is what I found:

9. Cato Institute Home Study Course. Again, not really a book. It's a bunch of books, and a bunch of lectures. This was an incredibly good course. Someday, I hope that the Cato Institute will post these lectures in MP3 format on their website, like the Mises Institute does.

That course, which took a year to complete, persuaded me to seek out:

10. Human Action by Ludwig von Mises and Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard. It was Human Action I was after, but after getting about 200 pages in, I got bogged down. Even though I'd read several books on economics, I got MES and read it cover to cover and then returned to HA. That made HA much more understandable.

11. The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard. I had been thinking about anarchism ever since starting the Cato Home Study Course, but it was while reading this book that I became convinced.

12. The Enterprise of Law by Bruce Benson. And this book broadened and enriched my concept of private production of defense. It was this book that started me thinking that I should start my own security company, which I continue to work on.

Ha ha! Baker's dozen:

13. The Structure of Liberty by Randy Barnett. An important and interesting book that talks about issues anyone attempting to devise institutions for liberty should read. I don't buy it as a defense of libertarianism (I'm a natural lawyer of the Rothbardian type), and I have a big problem with his parable at the end. Nonetheless, the issues and their treatment are sizzling!

Drizzle

2005-05-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

I like the words meticulous (as in, that's a meticulously crafted argument, as an anonymous reviewer said about the early draft of my article Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights, later published in Reason Papers in Fall 1992); glimmer (as in the great title to the stupid Steven Seagal movie The Glimmer Man); and especially drizzle (as on a menu when they say something is "drizzled" with chocolate or some sauce). In fact I think if I open a restaurant I will call it Drizzle.

I apologize for this post not having any apology in it. Waitasec. Now it does. I retract my apology. ... But.... if I retract it... then I have to apologize again. Damnit, now I'm in a fricking self-referential fugue state. For which I apologize.

Articulate

2005-05-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

I apologize for even noticing that sometimes white people use "articulate" in a perhaps unwittingly condescending manner when they attempt to pay a compliment to a black person. For example the person will be speaking highly of a given black person, and then will mention, "and he's very articulate, too."

Feed Pigs Swill

2005-05-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologise for not heeding the wise words of such dignitaries as Aristotle, Gellius, Shakespeare, the bible, etc., etc., as I occasionally argue with those who are not worth the trouble. One time I was asked, "Maybe our differences are caused by us having different aims? I want what is best for society in general. Do you argue just out of your own self-interest?" So, of course, to this I had to respond and tell the truth, that I was only in it for the money and respect that the holder of such a popular philosophy as libertarianism expects to recieve.

On another occasion when I was trying to explain that I was a big fan of the Austrian school of economics, I was instantly interrupted "You know, Hitler was from Austria?" I then tried to explain that the Austrian school are as anti-fascist as can be. I said I was not a fascist, but an anarchist. Needless to say, that didn't help either. In the back of my head I realise that eventually we must succeed in educating these folk for their to be a truly free and humane economy. And, by the way, these two examples of insolence were not from strangers, but people who I have known for years.

Apologist for David Stove

2005-05-10T22:19:00.000-07:00

I apologise for recommending the work of David Stove. I apologise for enjoying it, and thinking Stove to be the greatest essayist ever. He was not all that keen on being politically correct. He wrote against Darwinism, sociobiology, egalitarianism, relativism and other silly ideas. Here is an excerpt from his essay "The Intellectual Capacity of Women":

I believe that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men. By "on the whole," I do not mean just "on the average"; though I do mean that much. My belief is, if you take any degree of intellectual capacity which is above average for the human race, as a whole, then a possessor of that degree of intellectual capacity is a good deal more likely to be man than a woman. ... In the past almost everyone, whether man or woman, learned or unlearned, believed the intellectual capacity of women to be inferior to that of men. ...

An opposite belief has become widely current in the last few years, in societies like our own: the belief that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole equal to that of men. If I could, I would discuss here the reasons for the sudden adoption by many people of this opinion. But I cannot, because I have not been able to find any reasons for it, as distinct from causes of it. The equality-theory (as I will call it) is not embraced on the grounds of any startling facts which have only lately come to light. It is not embraced on the grounds of some old familiar facts which have been misunderstood until lately. It is not embraced, as far as I can see, on any grounds at all, but from mere prejudice and passion. If you ask people, "What evidence is there for the equality-theory?", you do not get an answer (though you are likely to get other things).

[Stove poses this excellent] question to the equality-theorists: What would convince them of the falsity of their belief? What would they even regard as being some evidence against it?

Any serious answers to these questions would be instructive, but I do not really expect to receive any such answer. The evidence for the inferior intellectual capacity of women is so obvious and overwhelming, that anyone who can lightly set it aside must be defective in their attitude to evidence; and our contemporary equality-theorists are in fact (as I have hinted several times), religious rather than rational in their attitude to evidence. As providing some further indication of this, the following thought-experiment may be of use. Suppose that the historical evidence had been the exact reverse of what it has usually been: that is, suppose that the intellectual performance of men had been uniformly inferior, under the widest variety of circumstances, to that of women. Rational people would in that case be as confident of the superior intellectual capacity of women as they now are of the reverse. But would those people who are at present equality-theorists be as confident then as they are now of the equal intellectual capacity of the two sexes? To ask this question is to answer it. The fact is, our egalitarians treat evidence on a basis of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose; indeed, to say so is "putting it mild," at that.

Wikinerds

2005-05-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Re my previous post: Well, they were successful in having my Wiki entry deleted. I think we should do what Pete Canning suggested, do a Wikinerd entry. I apologize for violating Wiki rules by editing a page that should not be edited with "WIKINERD!"

plagiarism and bigotry

2005-05-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize for pretending that Vache Folle's words on bigotry are my own:

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Bigotry

Wikipedia defines bigotry here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot

In a nutshell, bigotry is defined as an unreasonable intolerance of opinions other than one's own.

This seems fair enough, but I sometimes observe the epithet of bigot used in cases where the accused is not necessarily intolerant. For example, one may be called an anti-religious bigot if one opposes religious teaching in government schools notwithstanding that one is himself an adherent of the religion in question. One may be called a homophobic bigot for opposing hate crime legislation involving crimes against homosexuals notwithstanding one's indifference to the sexual orientation of others. One may be called a racist bigot for criticizing rap lyrics and hip hop fashion. One may be called an antisemitic bigot for criticizing Israeli policy.

Some of my conspecifics appear to regard any position as intolerant which does not, in fact, embrace and celebrate the opposing position. It is not enough to accept homosexuality and advocate a society in which folks are free to be as homosexual as they care to be; rather, one has to be willing to declare that homosexuality is a positive good and that it is out of bounds to think otherwise. It is not enough to accept that others have differing religious views and to respect their right to hold and espouse them; rather, one must be willing to declare that one's own religious views are questionable and that all religious views are equally valid. It is not enough to accept differences in "culture" and to defend the right of others to engage in conduct and speech which one finds offensive; rather, one must be willing to declare one's admiration and love for cultural differences of every variety.

To me, tolerance and respect for diversity entail a willingness to live and let live, not an uncritical acceptance and affection for every other opinion or lifestyle. I can be a confessing Christian and tolerate the right of my neighbor to practice Islam without believing that Islam is as correct as Christianity. I can loathe rap music and oversized pants while recognizing that others are free to enjoy these things, and this does not make me intolerant. I can understand why some folks have bishops and a Pope without admitting that such institutions are a good idea. What is "tolerant" about accepting things that you like or agree with? Tolerance is living with things you don't necessarily admire.

On the other hand, some of my wingnut conspecifics insist that tolerance consists in adopting their position whole hog.

Either way, the epithet of bigot becomes a meaningless conversation stopper and is, in my experience, mainly deployed in lieu of reasoning. There should perhaps be something like Godwin's Law governing charges of bigotry in argumentation. Whoever makes the charge is deemed to have lost the argument unless it can be demonstrated that a) intolerance of a point of view has been exhibited, b) that intolerance is unreasonable, c) that the intolerance persists even in the face of valid refutation of the reasons, and d) the bigotry is not self evident.

posted by Vache Folle | 8:13 AM

I would also like to apologize for using the No Copy image from www.plagiarism.com without permission.

Another AP Government Apology

2005-04-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for, to the shock of all but two of my classmates, saying I do not support government aid to widows with children, even in the situation existing in 1935. I'm sorry for believing that theft is wrong no matter to whom one gives the stolen money.

Mises Institute apology

2005-04-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

I must apologize for being a fan of the Mises Institute. Why? Well, it seems that some people, who are clearly distracted by various strawmen, equate the Mises Institute with being pro-slavery, pro-Baathist, and in collusion with leftists who have a warped definition of capitalism. In their eyes, I must be one sick puppy, so as long as they see things this way I feel as though I should apologize to at least make them feel more at ease as they continue to praise the leash that binds them.

The two books that I ordered from the Mises Institute book store during their sale arrived today. With both Making Economic Sense and Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy now sitting on my desk, I have plenty of Rothbard's wisdom to keep me occupied for the next few weeks. Of course, the latter book, when you think about it's title, must mean that Austrian economists and their admirers are just delusional leftists in disguise. Sorry for confusing people by advancing ideas that conflict with conventional statist logic.

stuff I don't get

2005-04-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

Gene Healy passes on to me the Caesar's Bath meme.

I apologize for not understanding the fuss over:

1. Watching Professional Sports

I can understand watching your kid play in little league, or playing a pick-up game of basketball. I can even (sort of) understand watching your Alma Mater's team. But rooting for a professional team of overpaid (so I say) kids throw around a ball? Seems like a boring waste of time.

2. The Aesthetic Values of Cars

My wife and my best friend from college like cars. That is, they get excited by the look of a car. I get excited about the fact that my Honda Odyssey has a fold-down back seat that lets me fit a whole sheet of plywood from Home Depot.

3. The Allure of Gambling

My best friend from college likes to gamble like some people like to golf. At least golfing includes walking around in beautiful landscape.

4. Smoking

Why would you at one and the same time claim that chiefly the lower classes smoke and smoke cigars regularly? Leave it to Normie, the lowest-class high class guy I know.

5. Blogging

Don't you people have better things to do with your time than blather on about inconsequential crap? Oh, nevermind.

Polities

2005-04-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I apologize for having a deep, abiding, and irrational hatred of anyone who uses the words "polity" or "ontological," or variants thereof. Or "gnosticism." I just want to kick their teeth in.

grab a partner, dosey doh!

2005-04-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

When I told a certain paleolibertarian blogger that my former partner and I had looked into online backup services when we were considering competing with them, he said, "partner? what are you a faggot???"

So I apologize for thinking the unmodified noun 'partner' ought to refer to someone you are in business with -- or at least someone with whom you are collaborating on a project -- and not be assumed to designate romantic partner or domestic partner.

I apologize that when people say "partner" to indicate a girlfriend or boyfriend, I want them to say girlfriend or boyfriend or at least be specific enough to say "romantic partner" -- as stiff as that sounds, it's not much stiffer than "partner" unmodified.

I apologize for supporting gay marriage just so that gay people will say husband or wife and not partner. (I encourage them to do so now, if it's applicable, and to stop feeling like they need the State to grant them permission!)

I apologize for noticing that the straight people who use the term partner to designate what was once euphamized as "significant other" are usually academics or leftists in the "public" (i.e., government) or not-for-profit sectors. I think this particular bit of language banditry is the result, among other things, of being so anti-business as to not know anyone actually in business and not caring about communicating successfully with such people.

I apologize for being so insensitive on this issue, for not caring about all the complexities behind choosing contemporary non-sexist and non-heteronormative language. I apologize for being so sexist and heteronormative for believing that clarity of communication was easier before everyone undertook the value-neutralizing language-update game.

And finally, I want to apologize that this issue actually pisses me off when a healthier and more mature individual might just find it amusing and learn to adjust.

Speeders

2005-04-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

I apologize for being quite annoyed by these irritating yuppies -- usually a white male professional in his 30s or 40s -- who continually brag about how fast they drive. If you ask them, "How long does it take to get there?" they will say, "oh, two hours," but then they add, with a proud sparkle in their eye, "--the way I drive, anyway!" What are these morons implying? That they have the magical ability to avoid traffic congestion, construction, traffic lights? That they just merrily drive 20 mph over the speed limit and never get caught? That they don't mind getting a traffic ticket? My suspicion is that most of these lunkheads are either lying, stupid, or exaggerating. And if they are telling the truth, that means they are signficantly speeding and thus posing a hazard to the rest of us.

Favorite Presidents

2005-04-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

I apologize for telling my Ap Government teacher that my favorite president is William Henry Harrison, because he died before he could do any damage to the country.