StephanKinsella.com

[From my Webnote series]

From a 2005 post on LRC:

Reading Alan Watson’s Roman Law and Comparative Law, I came across this passage, describing the status of slaves in ancient Rome:

A slave could own no property, but from early times it was customary to give the slave a peculium, a fund that he could administer as if it belonged to him. Technically, this sum belonged to the master, but to some extent it was treated as a separate estate with which the master did not interfere except for good reason. [p.40]

It occurred to me that our property and income today is basically merely a peculium (not to be confused with pecunium)–since the state presumes the right to take as much of it as they want, leaving a discretionary amount to us serfs, at their pleasure. Further proof that taxation enslaves.
[continue reading…]

courtesy of Time Magazine. The web-based video games at orisinal are really cool.

What can one say to this? Except, so typically Objectivist.

The Magnificent Seven Billion
by Ross Elliot
Oh, and how they floated there. Two hundred & twenty miles above the Earth in their spaceship.

We. Our guys. Us.

Shuttle Discovery performs a majestic back flip at 18,000 miles per hour and comes in to dock alongside the space station with nary a jolt. An orbital tango. Twinkling stars and twinkling toes. Fred Astaire in a spacesuit. Perfect.

The hatch opens and through they float. The Magnificent Seven. John Sturges, eat your heart out.

Can you imagine, a scant hundred years ago, in 1905, our ancestors even conjuring up such a scenario? No. Yet there it is. There we are.

The heroism, the adherence to objectivity, the breathtaking concentration of wealth and the focusing thereof: these things make it possible. They make it real.

Seven million pounds of thrust hurls them upward faster than a speeding bullet. Their journey is fraught with peril. It must be, for Man dares to break free of his home. We, who were once helpless babes, decipher and render nature’s power to our own ends, and with supreme confidence in our own destiny, thrust starward.

And, while men on Earth play with their own DNA, Man above toys with the heavens. We burn the candle at both ends and oh! how brightly it burns.

There need never be an end to this. The market, the satisfaction of needs and wants, the mind-blowing accumulation and exploitation of capital, the dreaming, the searching and the attainment.

Everything is possible.

Man is capable and Man is good.

Just get out of his way.

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

See post on Palmer Periscope.

See this post, and comment on it there, if you feel like it. Defend the Mises Insitute from scurrilous charges!

see Palmer Periscope post here.

• Who Wants To Live Forever?
• The “Problem” of Initial Acquisition
• Objectivism and Determinism
• Machan’s Musings – Kelo v. New London Versus the Free Society

No sirree, the hnn Liberty & Power blog sure won’t.

I got this email today from HNN:

—–Original Message—–
From: Jonathan Dresner [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 5:24 PM
To: Stephan Kinsella; Stephan Kinsella
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: HNN Comments Policy

Mr. Kinsella,

Your repeated violations of HNN standards of civility (http://hnn.us/articles/1885.html), compounded with the disrespect again displayed by your display name choices, has finally resulted in your exclusion from these discussions. Your accounts are blocked.

Jonathan Dresner
HNN Assistant Editor

Not only did they block me from posting, they also erased all my previous HNN comments from all threads. Wow. How …. Orwellian. I wonder if it’s run by Randians? Hmm. Now, as these are the same techno-illiterates who recently wiped out two entire comment threads when trying merely to block further commenting, it is possible they in blocking my account they did not mean to erase all my previous comments, but that is what they have done.

I was not surprised to be banned. I’m a little disappointed they deleted my previous posts, as there was some good stuff in there. Oh well. And it was predictable they would ban me, not the instigagor, Tom Palmer. Libertarians have been strangely silent on the maniacal Mr. Palmer’s repeated character smears of certain other libertarians–reminiscent of the time those people in New York walked by as that woman was beaten to death–so I am not surprised they take Palmer’s calumny and smear campaign in stride, while banning me for not lying down and taking it. I think they are too cowardly to attack a prominent Cato-ite. Hmm, could it be that a desire for internships (for the younger) or invitations to conferences and Cato publications of their writing, etc. (for the older) makes them a mite shy at criticizing Palmer, whom they must think silently to themselves, is off his rocker? Anyway, thank God I’m not part of movement libertarianism, and am free to say what I think.

But HNN does not need a justification. It is their private property. They may do with it as they wish.

Post on Palmer Periscope.

Coda to the below: Palmer posts a followup:

A remarkable dodge and an attempt to appear squeaky clean and “respect the rules of the forum.” I have now noticed that a number of the more revolting postings have been removed from Mr. Kinsella’s site. Some still persist as Google caches. I am willing to share some examples of Mr. Kinsella’s idea of enlightened discourse with anyone who has a strong stomach and who wishes to email me. (Mr. Kinsella’s accomplice in setting up the blog where they have devoted so much attention to what their imaginations picture as my private life is Mr. Raimondo’s colleague at antiwar.com, who goes by the handle of “tex.” A nice circle of malice.) Were I a believer in legal responses to such malicious claims, I would have contacted a lawyer. As it is, I hope that pure embarrassment will have some effect on Mr. Kinsella, although I suspect not. Mr. Raimondo’s anonymous colleague “tex” is unlikely to be dissuaded.

Palmer refers to Palmer Periscope as Kinsella’s site–but it is not my site.

And sure, there are revolting posts–in the comment section, by third parties. Sure, some are deleted–I just said I from time to time ask the moderator (Tex) to delete them. Wooo, conspiracy. Wow, I want to have sexually disgusting, offensive, inappropriate comment spam removed from the site where I post. Wow, you got me dead to rights, P-dog.

Palmer also refers to Tex as “my accomplice”. I had nothing to do with the setting up of Palmer Periscope. Someone told me about it after it was already done. Palmer probably does not realize that not only do I not know Tex, I hardly know Raimondo. I met Raimondo one time about 10 years ago, and he probably has forgotten, and I have exchanged perhaps 3 emails with him in my life. If I had set up Palmer Periscope, I would have no compunction in admitting it. Can anyone believe I am shy?

If anyone has a claim for libel, it is the victims of Palmer’s relentless, reckless smearblog.

I also posted:

Tom, in the spirit of civility of this forum, I want to say I love you as a fellow human, despite your many sins. Come home, my son.

On the hnn Liberty & Power thread about civility, Palmer posted a “last word” kind of comment directed, in part, at me (reprinted below).

Quite interesting! But Palmer’s story is as usual laced with untruths.

First: I did not create nor do I run the Palmer Periscope. Nor do I know who did, other than that it is some guy nicknamed “Tex.” It was begun without my knowledge. After Palmer banned me from his site, I contacted PP and asked them to let me post, as it was a natural place to reply to Palmer given that he had (as is his right) banned me from his site. Since then, it has been a useful place to keep the record straight on Palmer’s unceasing flood of dishonest personal attacks. I am not responsible for the site or for what commenters put there.

I did create The Daily Apology website, in part to ridicule the PC-ness of Palmer and his ilk. I don’t know why people keep assuming I run Palmer Periscope, except that I am the only active poster in a while. But I do not.

The sexual comments on that site are in posts by others. Not by me. I honeslty don’t know what the bizarre lunatic who emailed me (and apparently Palmer) is talking about, or who he is. My eyes glaze over at the ravings of lunatics (no offense, Palmer).

He [Kinsella] also submits letters on various web sites under the names of other, living persons … professing very disturbing sexual fantasies about me.

This is simply untrue. In fact I have occasionally asked the moderator to delete comment spam such as Palmer alludes to.

And also: you can scour my writings about Palmer, but I have never resorted to sexual innuendo or comments about Palmer. Despite what he may say or think, I wouldn’t do that for a couple of reasons: (a) it would not be fair; and (b) I am not bigoted against gays in the slightest, as anyone who knows me knows. Notice below Palmer accuses me of sexual innuendo, then gives an example allegedly from my writing that he admits does not have this sexual innuendo. Telling. And in fact, this is not even my writing–it is from a comment by someone else.

Both Mr. Kinsella and Mr. Raimondo have, in response resorted to what normal people would find disgusting sexual innuendo, anatomically explicit remarks, and worse. Here is a printable example from Mr. Kinsella, which contains none of the disgusting sexual references…

Interesting that the example he gives contains no such sexual innuendo. It is because I have not done this, and he obviously cannot find proof of it. He can’t even give an example of something I wrote. Why not? I’m not shy, or lacking for words. Come on, pick from something I wrote, Tom.

Palmer says I put the N-word on his site. This is a lie. I have never posted the actual “N-word” on his site. I did use the euphemism “N-word”. On this thread, I wrote:

Mr. Palmer, speaking of bigotry–I’m just curious. Have you ever used the N-word? Oh hell, I’ll be generous. Since you turned 25. Have you ever use the N-word?

I’ll bet you’ve at least used the word “bigger”. Many times. And that’s very very close to the N-word. Right up to the line of hard-core racism. Sure, almost everyone says “bigger” sometimes. But just because everone does it does not mean it’s justified.

Shame on you. Whether the N-word, or its close-cousin, “bigger”–shame, shame, shame.

Now, the obvious point of this was to illustrate how ridiculous his own hair-trigger PC standards for racism and bigotry are. I was mocking him by showing that if one used similarly ridiculous loose reasoning and associations, one could even argue that the use of the word “bigger” is “almost racism” since the word “bigger” is only one letter away from the N-word. Palmer, in dimwit-Serioso fashion, who has no sense of humor and is so arrogant he simply cannot imagine someone mocking him, ominously intones: “I can’t quite figure out what he’s getting at and the only likely possibilities strike me as quite ugly.”

Oh, relax, T-boy. And by the way, thanks for banning me, and kicking me over to the Palmer Periscope.

The post Palmer alludes to about his character (his not liking or respecting women) was not by me. Someone anonymous posted it. I don’t know who the poster is or who was being quoted.

Palmer accuses me of malice. It is untrue. I have become increasingly outraged at Palmer’s steady stream of malicious, malevolent lies about the character of people I know to be decent and good libertarians, namely people such as Lew Ro
ckwell, Hans Hopppe, Tom DiLorenzo, Tom Woods… He has gone on the attack and plays the victim when someone stands up to him. My actions are defensive. He attacks people; I defend them from his unfair attacks. It is malicious to attack people unfairly, not to defend against these attacks.

A final note. Palmer writes: “I am willing to have a discussion (elsewhere, to be sure) of their [Raimondo’s and Kinsella’s] commitment to the principles of liberty, which I do seriously doubt…” Gee, Thanks, Mr. Palmer, but I am not exactly looking for your seal of approval.

Here is Palmer’s post:

NOTE: I posted this above, but it ended up in the midst of a long thread. It seemed appropriate that it be a stand-alone entry. I apologize for it appearing twice.

—————————————————-
Well, I hate to do so, especially since Mr. Kuznicki closed his comments for a reason. But as I have been accused of “unfair attacks” by Mr. Kinsella (see #64673 above), let me mention that Mr. Kinsella has devoted a great deal of time to creating an entire website, a great deal of which is dedicated to very strange sexual fantasies regarding myself, including a great deal of free use of such terms as “man meat,” “throbbing pole,” and worse. He also submits letters on various web sites under the names of other, living persons (one of whom wrote to me today and I suggested that he contact a lawyer to ask about issues of malicious misrepresentation) professing very disturbing sexual fantasies about me. The behavior is not only distasteful, but evidence of deeper problems. (I might also mention Mr. Kinsella’s posting of the “N” word all over my web site before I banned his IP.) Similarly, Mr. Raimondo, who has also professed such sweet innocence, regularly relies on references to anal sex in referring to me in print on a variety of web sites, a practice he has also used with regard to Andrew Sullivan.

I have, it is certainly true, questioned the commitment of the above-mentioned persons to the principles of libertarianism for reasons that I have detailed elsewhere. I find affiliations with spokesmen for anti-Semitic and racist causes far more than distasteful, but a serious black mark on the good name of libertarianism. Both Mr. Kinsella and Mr. Raimondo have, in response resorted to what normal people would find disgusting sexual innuendo, anatomically explicit remarks, and worse. Here is a printable example from Mr. Kinsella, which contains none of the disgusting sexual references but gives one a sense of what Mr. Kinsella considers appropriate:

*****

A friend who knows about this Palmer person told me the following, which makes sense. Palmer makes personal attacks on others, while his own character is what is at issue:

Tom is the type of gay man who deeply and actively hates women. He has so little respect for women that he does not even wait for women to turn their backs before sinking in the rusted knife. He thinks women are so stupid that they will not notice or, perhaps, their noticing is beneath his notice. There is nothing decent within that shell of a human being.

This person wanted to remain anonymous, but is a trustworthy source.

*****

People who know Mr. Raimondo and Mr. Kinsella, both of whom have have painted themselves as maligned and badly treated persons, are aware of the depths of their malice. I am willing to have a discussion (elsewhere, to be sure) of their commitment to the principles of liberty, which I do seriously doubt, and of the damage I believe they do by allying themselves with undeniably anti-libertarian persons and causes. I am not, however, willing to descend to the depths that they have plumbed.