In the discussion about proportionality, you state (for example on page 102 regarding property crimes), that if, for example, the money stolen from someone is more valuable to him than to the criminal, then the punishment could be, in addition to returning the money (in this case $10,000) and making the criminal pay another $10,000, paying additional compensation for the difference in value. [continue reading…]
For those who lived through this period, this book is a painful but gripping read. First serialized online, it has garnered praise from the world over for its steady tone, granular detail, narrative precision, and moral passion.
The times felt like a blur because normal life was so upended in unthinkable ways. This book operates as a tool of focus as if on a camera lens, turning fuzzy images into clear pictures. Therein lies the pain. [continue reading…]
Earlier this year I went to a fantastic conference at LSU Law on the bicentennial of the 1825 Louisiana Civil Code. 1 I found almost every panel and speaker interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of them, the esteemed international law specialist Vivian Curran, in the closing panel, had some interesting remarks about translation.
Q: In the panel here, law professor Viviane Curran makes the following comments. This is from the Youtube transcript so there may be spelling errors. She refers to some someone named “Lakoff”, who is apparently a linguist or a psychologist or both, and whose argument is that thinking is translation, that thinking itself is translation. Can you think of who she means? What is name of the author and what books would have this theory? [continue reading…]
I just came across the obituary (2) for John Murray Clearwater (Feb. 8, 1966 to March 2, 2022). Text below. I was unaware he had passed.
I knew John when he and I were students at King’s College London 1991–92; we both lived in King’s College Hall in Camberwell. At the time, he went by the name John Strangelove and was a bit mysterious. As I recall, he was antiwar and something of a leftist, and so we would argue about politics a bit. I remember my friend Paul Comeaux and I teasing him at one point that Canada’s military had more generals than tanks. At one point, for some reason, he shaved off one side of his mustache and the other side of his beard. He only told me later, after my repeated inquiries, that his real name was Clearwater, not Strangelove. [continue reading…]
“Although it is usual to speak of money as a measure of value and prices, the notion is entirely fallacious. So long as the subjective theory of value is accepted, this question of measurement cannot arise.” Ludwig von Mises, “On the Measurement of Value,” in The Theory of Money and Credit (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), I.2.1 [continue reading…]
Rosalyn Higgins, “Dissenting Opinion of Judge Higgins, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996 (I), p. 583,” in Higgins, Themes and Theories, ch. 9.8, p. 1129
The libertarian position, encapsulated in the principle that “what is not prohibited is permitted,” aligns with the Lotus principle and the concept of a closing rule in international law, suggesting that in the absence of an explicit legal prohibition, an act—such as the threat or use of nuclear weapons—should be considered permissible. However, this perspective is insufficient to resolve the issue in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, as argued in the provided abstract and reflected in the Wikipedia entry on the case. The ICJ’s non liquet—its inability to definitively rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in extreme self-defense scenarios—reveals the limitations of the libertarian approach, as international law may be indifferent to certain conduct, leaving genuine gaps that neither permit nor prohibit. Below, I reframe the previous summary to incorporate why the libertarian position is inadequate, while tying in the roles of Rosalyn Higgins and the Lauterpacht-Stone debate.
The ICJ’s 1996 Advisory Opinion, as detailed in the Wikipedia entry, concluded with a non liquet in paragraph 105(2)E, stating that the Court could not definitively determine the legality of nuclear weapons in extreme self-defense due to ambiguities in international law and insufficient facts. The libertarian position, which mirrors the closing rule’s assumption that silence equals permission, would interpret this as implicit legality, yet the abstract argues this is flawed. International law’s decentralized nature allows for indifference, where no clear rule exists, as seen in the nuclear weapons case where competing principles (e.g., humanitarian law vs. self-defense) created ambiguity. The libertarian view oversimplifies this complexity, failing to account for situations where the law neither permits nor prohibits, as Stone argued in his debate with Lauterpacht, who favored a complete legal system. Rosalyn Higgins, an ICJ judge (per her Wikipedia biography), likely addressed this in her dissenting opinion, using her expertise to critique the non liquet or propose a more nuanced application of legal norms, highlighting the inadequacy of a binary libertarian framework in resolving such intricate issues.
In On the Obligation to Negotiate, Compromise, and Arbitrate, I note that the primary purpose of property rules is to make it possible for fellow humans to avoid conflict, so that they can live amongst each other, trade, specialize, cooperate, and so on. Thus, it makes sense to say that people have an obligation to respect others’ rights, and laws implementing or based on these rights, if and insofar as one values the norms or grundnorms that underlie these laws and rules. In other words, when we are considering property rights and laws, and the administration of justice, again we must be informed by the very purpose of property rights: to reduce conflict in order to make peace, trade, and cooperation possible. [continue reading…]
“Episode Four: Surf’s Up: Roman Law and Beach Houses” (Ricochet, Apple), The Libertarian, with Richard Epstein (Aug. 21, 2025)
I’ve always admired libertarian legal scholar Richard Epstein‘s work, even if I disagree with much in his approach—primarily his minarchism (I’m an anarchist libertarian; he seems to be some kind of minarchist), 1 his intellectual property views (I’m anti-, he’s pro-), 2 and his utilitarian approach (I’m Austrian and have a principled approach; he is Chicago and utilitarian). 3[continue reading…]
See my “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” in LFFS; Richard A. Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995); Principles for a Free Society (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1998); Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). [↩]
I was talking with some friends lately about this Slate article “Burning Love“, subtitled “When I found out my wife was cheating, a certain backyard plant helped me take revenge.” I was mocking how limp-wristed satchel-wearing lefties take revenge; plus it seemed to me like a crime. But I also criticized this couple for being married students. As I wrote my friends, “I mean why are they married while students, pretending to be adults in the first place?” [continue reading…]
I’ve always been against defamation law (libel, slander, etc.). I assumed it was the plumbline libertarian position, even though many libertarians and most Objectivists seem to favor reputation rights. As I wrote in “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property”: 1[continue reading…]
Bitcoin Hits $150,000 – December 15, 2026“@PeterSchiff: Bitcoin at $150k? Just another speculative spike. This Ponzi is running on fumes—treasury companies and speculators are the only buyers. Gold’s still the real store of value,…
I asked Grok4 (SuperGrok) and ChatGPT to provide executive summaries of Hoppe’s thought. Results below; I have not reviewed these.
My prompt:
Take these documents by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and provide an organized executive summary of Hoppe’s social thought: his economics and economic theory, his views on rights and libertarianism, democracy, immigration, and other issues. Organize it systematically, and include detailed links, references, footnotes/endnotes, and so on. Entitle this Hoppe’s Social Theory: An Executive Summary. Make this as detailed and comprehensive as possible and as long as necessary.
I just came across the 
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