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The Libertarian Blog of Stephan Kinsella
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May 21, 2004
Foundation for Economic Excitement:
In a recent LRC blog post, Day of the Long Knives, I discussed some of FEE's colorful past. Below is a less-sanitized version of that post.
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I confess I never cared much for Leonard Read's books--what a friend calls "grandfather libertarianism." My eyes glaze over at meaningless, pop or cutesy titles like To Free or to Freeze, The Freedom Freeway, Talking to Myself, and How Do We Know?. I never could finish them; the little hardbacks, not much longer than pamphlets, cost only a dollar or so, and have sat on my shelf for over a decade now, collecting dust. (The same goes for Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine, and Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom, which I could just not get through. Patterson's too-dated over-reliance on proto-New Age metaphors of "circuits" and "energy" drove me, as an electrical engineering student, batty.)
Not that I frown on those who come to libertarianism through Read or others; the more, the merrier. In any event, though Read may be boring, the same can hardly be said of FEE in recent years. Most recently, there was whole Mark Skousen presidency debacle.
There was also an interesting episode in the late '90s. At the time Hans Sennholz was President. The November 1996 issue of The Freeman (now Ideas on Liberty) contained a Book Review by Hans-Hermann Hoppe of The Failure of America's Foreign Wars (edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger).
In the review, Hoppe pointed out that Hitler was relatively benign before World War Two compared to Stalin; Stalin had killed 20 million of his own people before the war, whereas Hitler did not start killing many people until after the war started. This true statement, unsurprisingly, angered certain people, including Israel Kirzner, then on the FEE Board of Trustees.
Next came Robert W. McGee's article Arab Terrorism: Causes and Cure, in the December 1996 issue of The Freeman, about the systematic violation of Palestinian human rights by the Israelis. McGee merely pointed out that Palestinians have been having their land stolen and have been subjected to numerous other human rights abuses since the 1940s, with the help of American taxpayers. As McGee wrote:The Palestinians' property right, one of the most basic of all human rights, was systematically disparaged. The disparagement continues to this day, as evidenced by the West Bank settlement policies of the present Israeli government. Russian Jews and others are being given Palestinian land to live on, and the Palestinian owners are being driven from their land without compensation. ... The land grab is only one of many human rights abuses that the Palestinians have endured. ... [N]o government should ever condone or financially support a regime that systematically disparages them. Once U.S. support stops, Arab terrorists (some of whom may legitimately be called freedom fighters) will be far less likely to attack U.S. property and citizens. ... Muslims, Jews, and Christians can live in peace, but only when human rights, including property rights, are respected. Kirzner, angered over the two articles, resigned from the Board of Trustees. Hans Sennholz, then the president of FEE, fired Larry White, the editor of the November issue in which Hoppe's book review appeared; Robert Batemarco, the book review editor; and Robert Higgs, the editor of the December issue, in which McGee's article apeared.
So at this point it appeared that Hoppe, McGee, White, Higgs, and Batemarco were persona non grata with FEE, and Kirzner had quit. It's said that several FEE supporters were outraged by Sennholz's craven, politically-correct actions. Some theorize that Sennholz felt compelled to act this way partly to atone for his serving as a Luftwaffe pilot for Hitler during World War Two.
One ironic aspect of this is that White, who has disagreed with Hoppe over free banking issues, was fired for publishing Hoppe's book review.
And I haven't even gotten to the part about the father-in-law having an affair with his daughter-in-law, who ends up committing suicide. Wait, woops, I think that's Hillsdale (link2) I'm thinking of. Nevermind. 
MAKE THE PIE HIGHER:
Recent post on LRC Blog about Bushisms.
Another recent post, Property in the Law, quotes some interesting civil-law language on the nature of property rights from Professor Yiannopoulos's treatise.
Another post discusses C.S. Lewis' comments on women fighting in battle.
May 18, 2004
To Footnote or Not To Footnote:
Although I personally like footnotes and find them indispensible in academic writing (and much better than endnotes, which I despise), I've always liked the following comments by Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style (page 93). Garner notes that although footnotes can usefully refer you to other references, "you can hardly ignore, at the foot of every page, the notes that 'run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.' These days, the notes are more likely Great Danes than chihuahuas." [Quoting S.M. Crothers, "That History Should Be Readable," in The Gentle Reader 172 (1903; repr. 1972).
May 10, 2004
More on Huebert and DeCoster:
Huebert and Karen both chimed in again on this topoic. Karen writes, "I love sports, and more than just tennis, as another libertarian chides in on this. (By the way, tennis is the only sport where the women are far better to watch than the men. The volleying and net play is much better, and the woman's game is more competitive and spirited.)"
I would say this: well, women's volleyball is better than men's. As for tennis, men's used to be better; but as they and rackets got more and more powerful, the men's game became more and more boring. Now the women are like the men (think: Borg, Lendl, McEnroe, Connors) used to be. I am also partial to LSU college football, I have to admit. 
May 9, 2004
Huebert & De Coster on Friends and Sports:
I might as well get into this back-and-forth between Huebert and De Coster. I tend to agree w/ Huebert about the execrableness of Friends and those who watch professional sports (tennis excepted). Except Jennifer Aniston's repeated appearances in tight shirts w/ no bra.
The Fourth Estate and other annoying things:
When people refer to the media as "the fourth estate". That irks me. It's almost as bad as "salad days" or "bumper crop".
Also, people who name their kids wrong-sex (Gail, Leslie, Evelyn), or titular names, like "Judge" or "Gouvernor".
IP and Religion:
Karen De Coster critiques the IP and gay marriage theory of Kelly Hollowell here. I wrote Dr. Hollowell the following email in response to her piece.
"Dr. Hollowell,
As a fellow patent attorney, and also as a libertarian and personally conservative person--I wanted to just say that your argument re gay marriage seems weak to me. First, it is based on a given unconstitutional statute legislated by an assembly of men, the Congress. I.e., it's just an argument from authority, and a bad one [bad authority, I meant] at that; combined w/ an argument by analogy.
Careful thought shows this is really a debate about semantics. If the state exists, of course it should enforce contractual agreements. If 2 or 3 or more people who cohabit want to form some kind of social unit for various purposes, so be it. The law should not ask what sexual activities people are engaging in. If 2 spinster sisters live together and want to unite their estates, why not, if they find it useful. It's just a civil or contractual union. A way of pooling their assets, and of delegating authority to each other to make decisions for one another in cases of incapacitance/death. So then the question is what do "we" "call it". I would not call it marriage, if 2 homosexual men lived together and contractually united their estates etc. Some others might. I am free not to; others are free to call it what they will.
So should the law--state law--"recognize" gay marriage? The question is just confused. It should enforce agreements. Sure. Those include the agreements ancillary or incident to traditional (heterosexual) marriage, and other agreements. So if there is a state law (e.g., a state) that allows this... I guess the only question is what should the *label* or header of the statute be? What *word* should be used to describe the voluntary unions that state courts will enforce? Is it really a big fight that the word "marriage" not be "officially" used by the states? Bah. Ridiculous. I agree, they should not; but is this really what the fight is about?
To my mind this is all just a symptom of decaying morals. Yes, they are decaying; yes, regular mariage is in trouble. Not because gays might, or could, marry; but because of the decline in morals which makes that possible. Banning a symptom of a decline in morals won't change the cause.
My view is that the main problem with recognizing gay marriage (aside from what this trend says about the shift in underlying morals) is that it gives ammo to the leftist-gay groups to demand affirmative action/equal protection etc. As long as it is illegal, it's hard for them to persuade courts or legislators to insist they have to be treated as a suspect class etc. And I do believe that is their goal. But why not be honest in our counter: that there is nothing wrong w/ the law enforceing agreements, even ones that some would privately label "gay marriage"; but that we oppose it b/c it's the nose under the camel's tent, and besides, gays can easily achieve most civil benefits of marriage now by careful use of wills, living wills, trusts, powers of attorney, etc.
Sincerely, Stephan Kinsella"
May 8, 2004
Just "Click On" I'm-an-idiot.com:
You sometimes hear a radio commercial where the guy says, "to order, just call 1-800-555-5555 or click on www.gizmo.com". You don't click-on a website, you moron, you browse or visit it. You can only click on a hyperlink.
This also calls to mind innumerable colleagues and friends who double-click on hyperlinks. That drives me bonkers. You would think, after doing it a few hundred times and seeing the link start to be activated on the first click, you would gradually figure out that only single clicks are needed for hyperlinks, unlike double clicks to open files. But nooooooo. People are so stupid.
May 6, 2004
What It Means to be an Anarcho-Capitalist:
Vigorous discussion on the anti-state.com forum about this topic and my article of the same title.
May 5, 2004
Conflicting Maxims:
On the one hand, it's easier to destroy than to create (think of the handful of savages that tore down the World Trade Center on 9/11, which took thousands of civilized people and billions of dollars to build); yet on the other hand, it's easier to defend than attack (think of the rule of thumb in Risk, where you have to have a larger army than the defenders to win a battle).
May 4, 2004
Re-la-tors:
It's bad enough when laymen do it, but in a radio commercial today, a realtor kept describing himself as a "ree-luh-der". You moron, it's ree-uhl-ter; you know, like REAL estate, REALTY... you don't pronounce those ree-la or ree-lah-tee do you? People are such idiots. These are the same morons who insist on calling me Steven or Stephen or Steve.
Political Strategery:
In a past post, I mused that it might be a good idea to give a $10 donation to the next Democrat Presidential candidate, to cause them to spend multiples of that with follow up mailings trying to milk you for more. Give them $10 and it costs them $30.
Here's another political strategeregem. Say Kerry proposes tax increases estimated at $1 trillion. Then Bush, in debates, could keep accusing Kerry of proposing a $1.4 trillion, or $2 trillion, tax increase--i.e., exaggerate it. Kerry can't let the false accusation stand. "No George, that's wrong, it's only $1 trillion." Bush could say, "Oh, my mistake. Only $1 trillion. Thanks for correcting me."
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