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Bill Marina (R.I.P.) on American Imperialism from the Beginning

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Gary North’s column on Bill Marina, who passed away yesterday, mentioned Marina’s 2007 LRC article The Anti-War March on Washington: The Real Issue Is Empire. Marina’s article contains some interesting comments on the imperialist motives of George Washington at the founding of the American nation-state, which are especially apropos in light of recent posts such as ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’, Revising the American Revolution, The Murdering, Thieving, Enslaving, Unlibertarian Continental Army, and Goodbye 1776, 1789, Tom. A few key excerpts, with bold emphasis, are pasted below:

“[T]he British Constitution is more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. . . . An empire is a despotism, and an emperor is a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. For, although the will of an absolute monarch is law, yet his edicts must be registered by parliaments. Even this formality is not necessary in an empire.” ~ John Adams, Novanglus Papers, 1775….

…
Empire has always meant, not only a collapse of the idea of Law, but an enormous centralization of power, not only in foreign and military affairs, but domestically as well, with huge unaccountable bureaucracies developed to administer the State.

An interesting question is when did America change from a Republic to an Empire? [continue reading…]

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Things Go Better With Koch … ?

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Classic post from Karen de Coster’s blog (see also David Gordon’s dissection of the Kochtopus):

Things Go Better With Koch … ?

Friday, July 11, 2008

The amazing Charles “anarchteacher” Burris whips out another analysis that’s worthy of entry into the Libertarian Blogging Hall of Fame.

It was highly amusing to read the New York Times story of billionaire David Koch’s $100 million dollar donation to the New York State Theater.

Mr. Koch, the story asserts, is the richest man in New York City, the financial capitol of America.

Next we will be reading of how this munificent multibillionaire has arranged with Parker Brothers to have his cheeky image placed on the cards of Monopoly, replacing the antiquated caricature of Wall Street mogul J. Pierpont Morgan.

Koch is chairman of the Reason Foundation, publisher of the ersatz-libertarian publication, REASON. In 1980, he was the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party (back when it was known as “the Party of Principle”).

The NYT account only further dramatizes how far the once “principled” Koch brothers, David and Charles, have tragically fallen in three decades.

Once financial angels of the Libertarian Movement and the nexus of entities referred to by critics as the Kochtopus, now grandiose benefactors of the Republican Party while bailing out the New York City Opera and Ballet.

Its the same old statist song and dance.

At the pinnacle of the Kochs’ libertarian network was to be the Cato Institute.

While the Institute was initially financed by the Kochs’ largess, it was named by economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard for the celebrated libertarian essays, Cato’s Letters, by eighteenth century British authors John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon which later help inspire the American Revolution.

All this is particularly bittersweet to me.

This week marks a special milestone in my life. Its the thirtieth anniversary of the Cato Institute’s first Summer Seminar on Political Economy held at Wake Forrest University in 1978.

It was the intellectual highpoint of my libertarian education.

The heavyweight faculty included Murray N. Rothbard, Arthur A. Ekirch, Walter E. Grinder, Leonard P. Liggio, and Roy A. Childs.

This was before the big Cato Institute split detailed recently by David Gordon in his excellent series of articles at LewRockwell.com.

The curriculum was hardcore Rothbardian — natural rights libertarianism from The Ethics of Liberty, Austrian economics, revisionist history, libertarian class analysis, etc.

The Cato organizers gave us all a ton of excellent books (including Rothbard’s Power and Market) and photocopy reprints of classic articles, including Rothbard’s libertarian strategy memorandum which served as the guideline behind the Institute’s creation.

Rothbard later admitted that these early Seminars were organized as “best and the brightest” talent searches for Cato.

Out of that week-long event emerged future Kochtopus minions such as Tom G. Palmer, Jule R. Herbert, Tyler Cowen, and Sheldon Richman.

The celebrated Dr. Tom G. is known all too well today for his shaded infamy and catty back bitting slurrs regarding the Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Gary North.

After Cato president and CEO Ed Crane stole Herbert’s wife Christina, “Jule the Tool” faded out of the picture into private legal practice in Alabama after a stint in the Reagan administration.

The precocious Tyler Cowen has gone on to be one of the most pliable instruments in the Kochtopus toolbox, especially when it comes to denigrating Austrian economics and the work of Ludwig Von Mises.

Sheldon Richman, it seems, has finally seen the light and is pursuing an independent destiny at the Foundation for Economic Education and the Future of Freedom Foundation, and has emerged as one of our finest libertarian writers.

How far the mighty Cato has fallen.

What was once the principled pinnacle of the Libertarian Movement has sunk below the Beltway waterline of the Potomac.

How pathetic and tragic.

What a waste of talent and treasure.

Lord Acton was right.

The Kochtopus lust for power did indeed corrupt.

From pinnacle to pimps in just three decades.

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Tucker Max Humor

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

One of the funniest things I’ve ever read

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on September 4, 2003 06:10 PM

But then, you won’t think so, if you dislike male chauvinist pig fratboy antics or don’t have a juvenile sense of humor: “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” Story. “How Tucker became an urban legend (This is the complete, true story behind the famous email. If you aren’t familiar with this story in some way, you might want to read the others first; this one is long and gets very involved, especially if you aren’t a lawyer or never got the renowned “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” email.)”

Also funny is Tucker Max’s just recently restored story of his dating Miss Vermont–it was taken down until her lawsuit against him was recently dropped.

The true story behind “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” email

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on June 20, 2003 10:32 AM

This story, by Tucker Max, about how he got fired when he was a summer associate at the California law firm Fenwick & West during the dot-com boom times, is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while — it reminds me of my summer in 1990 clerking for Vinson & Elkins … NOT! Note that though he puts quotes around the names of two of the Fenwick trademark partners he mentions, I’m not so sure they are pseudonyms….

Also hilarious is his SFGirl “iGuy” profile (example: his “Favorite Practical Joke” is: “I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I’ve found my dog. Then I tell them to kill him anyway because I already gave away all his stuff. Dog people sure don’t have a very good sense of humor.”).

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The Unidirectionality of Conversions

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

The Unidirectionality of Conversions

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on September 25, 2003 11:30 AM

Several times I have noticed something about “conversions”–political, religious, what have you. It seems to me–and I suspect other libertarians have had similar thoughts from time to time, though I don’t recall seeing this written about before–that it’s an indication of the objective superiority of a view if conversions are almost always to that position, and rarely away from it.

The most obvious case would be libertarianism and socialism. You almost never hear of someone, once they become a libertarian, all of a sudden becoming a socialist. Whereas, many people, if they are sincere, ethical, and searching for politically sound views, will become libertarians to one degree or the other. This seems to be true, to varying degrees, of conversions of muzzy-headed liberals to “conservatives”–as people get older or wiser, many become more conservative. Do you ever hear of conservatives becoming more liberal? Arianna Huffington is the exception that proves the rule. [continue reading…]

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What Kind of Libertarian Are You?

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

So asks this Reason post, discussing five types of libertarian identified by Tyler Cowen. The five types are:

Cato-influenced;
Rothbardian anarchism;
Mises Institute nationalism;
Jeff Friedman and Critical Review; and
Hayek libertarianism.

“Cato-influenced” is defined as “orthodox” libertarianism, “defined by the troika of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties. It is based on individual rights but does not insist on anarchism. A ruling principle is that libertarians should not endorse state interventions.” Of course, Mises Instituters tend to adhere to these principles (and to be Rothbardians, often anarchists; and not “nationalists”). As Wirkman Virkkala notes:

Cowen apparently desired to carry water in the culture war between George Mason economists and the scholars and enthusiasts associated with the Mises Institute. His characterization of a “Mises Institute Nationalism” borders on bizarre, though I see why he would make the attempt. The fact that so many of these folks are themselves anarchists means that whatever “nationalism” they promote must be a different sort. I took from this short description that Cowen doesn’t like Hans-Herman Hoppe. Yeah, thanks for sharing. This description of a strand of libertarianism is less coherent than the previous.

The list is odd, indeed. Mises Institute people are not nationalists and generally are Rothbardians, so really 3 should collapse into 2. Hayek was not really a libertarian. ¹ And it’s not clear that Jeffrey Friedman is either; he’s some kind of “postlibertarian.” ²

As for Cato: Look, I’m glad Cato is generally on our side. But the implication that Cato is “orthodox” libertarian, compared to the Mises Institute’s “nationalism” is guffaw-inducing. Of course, no group’s members have perfectly uniform views, but consider the following cases that seem to stray from the troika of basic libertarian principles of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties, where various Catoites: [continue reading…]

Walter Block, Hayek’s Road to Serfdom . [↩]
See Postlibertarianism is not libertarianism: Rejoinder to Nove; After libertarianism: Rejoinder to Narveson, McCloskey, Flew, and Machan; and What’s Wrong With Libertarianism. [↩]

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Cato on Russia v. Georgia v. S. Ossetia

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Cato on Russia v. Georgia v. S. Ossetia

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on August 27, 2008 08:50 PM

Re What About the Ossetians?: Cato’s piece on the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia crisis is a bit odd. First, as Sheldon Richman notes, “the Georgian military response to … the secessionist ambitions of the majority in South Ossetia … was the immediate cause of the current war”; but the Cato piece blames Russia (”The war was a spectacular provocation that had been long prepared and successfully executed by the Russian ’siloviki’”), without so much as mentioning Georgia’s own complicity, or Georgia’s status as neocon stooge.

Further, as Richman notes, “Defenders of liberty … should … champion the cause of the brutalized Ossetians, who … demand independence from Georgia. … When President Bush says the ‘territorial integrity of Georgia’ must be respected and GOP presidential candidate John McCain declares, ‘Today we’re all Georgians,’ they are putting politics above justice.” He’s right: any libertarian ought to favor decentralization, secession, and independence. Yet, the Cato piece seems to bemoan the possibility that the breakaway regions may actually succeed in gaining independence–it’s a “loss” (”Under the new situation, the idea of legitimizing the de facto loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia may gain traction in Georgian society.”)

Interestingly, the Cato piece is linked to approvingly on the smearblog of Cato’s vice president for international junketeering, hissy fitting, and slandering. And in the comments section, one of his fellow slimers apes the neocon line in opposing Ossetian independence in the name of the international law doctrine of “territorial integrity“. But the libertarian aspect of this doctrine is its prohibition of invasions of one nation by another. To the extent the principle is opposed to secession, it is unlibertarian. Update: The aforementioned VP of Junketeering (VPJ) has pitched a hissy fit about this post. My post was not inaccurate or false; by contrast, his is, as usual, riddled with outright lies and falsehoods, and bizarre complaints. Let’s see: He whines that I called the linked piece on Cato’s site the Cato piece… which it was. No falsehood there on my part.

The VPJ complains about my noting that the Cato piece seems to oppose the “loss” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia–well, I quoted the sentence at issue and linked to it, and only said it “seemed” this way to me, so readers can make up their own mind. No falsehood.

Said junketeer says the Cato piece does not call for a military response; and I never said it did.

In fact it was his fellow smearblogging slimer who called for Russia to be “confronted” and opposed Ossetian independence in the name of “territorial integrity”. Regarding that issue, I clearly stated that this doctrine is good insofar as it opposes nations invading others. I also said “To the extent the principle is opposed to secession, it is unlibertarian.” It was the VPJ’s fellow slimer who called on this principle to oppose Ossetian independence–and the VPJ has the temerity to imply that I am opposed to the doctrine of “territorial integrity”–even though I am not–and that I “support the Russian occupation and expulsion of the entire Georgian population from the Soviet-era territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast”–which I do not. Further Junketeer falsehoods. I support the doctrine of territorial integrity as a means of stopping states from invading other states; I merely oppose its use as a way to legitimize central state use of force to stop secession (no offense, Abraham Lincoln Cultists).

As for the Russian actions here–I of course completely oppose Russian occupation–as should be clear from the Richman lines I quoted approvingly above. Another lie from the VPJ is that we LRCers “idolize” Putin. And yet a further falsehood from the Prince of Junketeering, Lying & Smearing is the insinuation that those of us who opposed Abraham Lincoln’s murderous, illegal, unlibertarian war do so because we are neoconfederate racists who are glad to see blacks kept in chains. Absurd. It is states that have harmed minorities the most; we anarchists cannot have this pinned on us. The pro-state beltwaytarians are the ones who ought to look in the mirror for supporting the state that enslaves and robs and kills. (In any case, Southern secession actually made slavery less secure by annulling the Fugitive Slave Act. To say the opposite implies that the slaves were somehow kidnapped and then “rescued” by the Republican Party. This is the total sum of Harry Jaffa’s theory of the “Civil War” and is of course pure BS.)

VPJ is quite right that one problem of secession is that the seceding group might themselves abuse the rights of minorities or subgroups within the seceding region. But this is a problem of having states. That is one reason I, as an anarcho-libertarian, oppose all states and favor any group seceding from another, down to the individual. If VPJ were an anarchist, he could take this position too. In fact, the VPJ says we LRCers would not favor the Georgian-populated areas of South Ossetia seceding (no scare quotes needed) from South Ossetia. I would! And if a town in this area wants to secede, fine! And if a family living in that town wants to secede–yes!

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Bell on Sandefur

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Old LRC post:

Bell on Sandefur

Posted by Stephan Kinsella on October 17, 2006 11:03 PM

Law professor Tom Bell critiques Tim “a billion lives for a single slave’s!” Sandefur’s latest Lincoln idolatry screed. My comments to Bell’s post are below, in case they get … misplaced:

Professor Bell,

Your comments are reasonable. Lucky Sandefur’s reply was so measured–I was waiting for him to call you a neoconfederate or apologist for slavery.

I too had a few civil email discussions with Sandefur in the past, and some substantive disagreements (e.g. here, here and here) but eventually he adopted the Catoite line of attacking those who disagree with his Jaffaite Lincoln idolatry as “neo-confederates” and the like (see here; some replies here and here). I guess Sandefur is too timid [read: cowardly] to call you a neoconfederate slavery-lover for your views, though he must be biting his tongue.

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A Poetic Defense of Leona Helmsley

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Apropos my recent poetry-related post (see also my post about Ayn Rand’s favorite poem)— just stumbled across what may be my only published poetry. It’s a letter to the editor published in LSU’s Daily Reveille, when I was in college, probably in September of 1985. It was a response to a poem attacking Leona Helmsley. The original is here: Poem Rebuttal, letter to the editor, LSU Daily Reveille, September (?), 1985 (?) (defense of Leona Helmsley).

Text below. The references are to Zsa Zsa Gabor and Leona Helmsley, both sentenced to jailtime, Zsa Zsa for slapping a cop and Helmsley for tax evasion.

Poem Rebuttal

Kristin L. Heflin’s poem in the 9-19 Reveille included the following lines:

Zsa Zsa slapped a cop,
And she’s supposed to go to jail.
She’ll endure many hardships-
Things like shopping through the mail.

Leona is a jail-bird too;
She jipped the I.R.S.
I’ve heard she tried to locate
A designer prison dress.

She’ll share a cell, the sheets aren’t silk,
And to her great dismay
She’s found out that the prison food
Cannot be classed “gourmet.”

Very nice. So nice, in fact, that she inspired me to write a poem. I call it “Dear Ms. Heflin.”

When you attack these ladies,
Your talents you misuse.
You’re knocking them not for vices,
But instead for their virtues!

Zsa Zsa slapped a cop.
Yes, that much is true.
But for that cop’s obscenity,
I’ll bet—so would you.

And Leona “jipped” the I.R.S.?!
But whose money is it, hey?
Since I.R.S. jipped her first
Turnabout is fair play.

Zsa Zsa’s fame, success and riches
Must really make you mad;
Leona’s great achievements
I guess you think are bad.

A barometer of our age, Ms. Heflin—
Oh, yes, you tell us plenty.
Such resentment against achievement!
This is the age of envy.

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RepRep: “China on your Desktop”

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

RepRap–the Replication Rapid Prototyper–may be on the way. It’s a “3D printer” which can be used to fabricate useful plastic items which would otherwise have to be mass produced–and even replicate itself. So if you make one using the open-source plans, you can print another for a friend. And so on. As Google’s Chris DiBona says, “Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop.” It’s been talked about for a long time but looks like it’s nearing reality.

Update: Reader Tommy Montgomery writes: “Computer technologies have created virtual miracles in our time! The RepRap is amazing but rather primitive compared to commercial versions that are on the market for a reasonable price that a real shop can afford. Jay Leno demonstrates a 3d scanner and a working part made from the scan with a 3d printer in his own shop on his Youtube channel.”

(Thanks to David Blackstone; LRC Cross-post)

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Obama Apologizes to Loyalists

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

Apropos Revising the American Revolution and ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’: from The Spoof, a funny piece with some inadvertent (?) insight (check out the bolded parts in the excerpt below):

As fireworks were lighting the sky, President Obama apologized for the war crimes and other offenses against Loyalists

Obama Apologizes to Loyalists

Washington, DC – President Barack Obama on Independence Day said he would on behalf of the United States apologize for the treatment the Loyalists got during and after the American War for Independence.

The President will host a dinner at the White House for selected descendants of those loyal to George III and the British Empire. It is expected that a lot of Loyalist descendants, mostly from Eastern Canada, will want to come to this dinner.

At the dinner, the President will give an official apology speech.

After issuing the statement, the President was asked whether the Loyalists were right in their fears of republicanism and too much democracy resulting in mob rule. Well, yes, they were right, he admitted. This is one of the main reasons we are apologizing, the President added. “Anyone can see that the American experiment has resulted in big government.”

… Will this have any consequences for the policies in American government? Of course not, the chief executive says. “The illusions and lack of distinction between the ruled and the rulers are what give us power. Now, we wouldn’t want to take that away, would we?” …

(Thanks to J.K. Baltzersen; LRC Cross-post)

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Wirkman Virkkala, the “Locofoco Agnarchist,” on the confused Tyler Cowen

by Stephan Kinsella on July 8, 2009

He writes here of Cowen’s recent mutterings:

Cowen apparently desired to carry water in the culture war between George Mason economists and the scholars and enthusiasts associated with the Mises Institute. His characterization of a “Mises Institute Nationalism” borders on bizarre, though I see why he would make the attempt. The fact that so many of these folks are themselves anarchists means that whatever “nationalism” they promote must be a different sort. I took from this short description that Cowen doesn’t like Hans-Herman Hoppe. Yeah, thanks for sharing. This description of a strand of libertarianism is less coherent than the previous.

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Grass stamped flat soon becomes a path

by Stephan Kinsella on July 7, 2009

The temptation to despair is high for realistic libertarians. It seems ever more difficult to achieve the society we strive for. But here are some inspiring words from Blaga Dimitrova, a Bulgarian poet:

I’m not afraid
they’ll stamp me flat.
Grass stamped flat
soon becomes a path.

—Blaga Dimitrova, “Grass,” quoted in Harold B. Segel, The Columbia Guide to the Literatures of Eastern Europe Since 1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003 [1974]), p. 146.

I was made aware of these beautiful lines in “Why We Have Rights,” by Christian Michel, a chapter in the book I co-edited with Guido Hülsmann in 2009, Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

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