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.
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 [see Raico Cleans Tom Palmer’s Clock and re: Raico Cleans Tom Palmer’s Clock], 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. If 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 hand–“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!
