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The Libertarian Blog of Stephan Kinsella
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August 26, 2002
Hoppean Classics:
If you are not familiar with the works of Hans-Hermann Hoppe--well, you should be, as he is the leading social theorist, economist, and libertarian philosopher of our time (IMHO). Check out these classics: his tour de force Book Review of Man, Economy, and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Murray N. Rothbard, published back in 1989, when he was just bursting onto the Austrian-libertarian scene; his Introduction to his latest blockbuster work, Democracy: The God That Failed; his summary of Rothbardian Ethics; a ringing defense of the justice and feasibility of anarchy, The Private Production of Defense; and brilliant sociological-historical-economic analysis, Banking, Nation States and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order.
Also not to be missed are Hoppe's radical, realist, neo-Kantian/Misesian epistemological views, e.g. in Economic Science and the Austrian Method; In Defense of Extreme Rationalism; and On Certainty and Uncertainty, Or: How Rational Can Our Expectations Be?. And last, but certainly not least, his groundbreaking apriori, praxeological defense of libertarian rights, in his "argumentation ethics". 
August 22, 2002
Alan Greenspan: Ayn Rand can suck my ****:
Crude, but funny Movementarian spoof article, along the lines of The Onion articles.
August 21, 2002
Coultergeist:
A great interview with Ann Coulter, author of the No. 1 best-selling nonfiction book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, by George Gurley. (Yeah, I read the book; a guilty pleasure, sort of like buttered popcorn at midnight.)
August 20, 2002
A way to strike back?:
How do we (legally) damage our enemies, such as democrats and other socialists? One thing that occurs to me is: give a $10 donation to the next Democrat Presidential candidate. I guarantee they will spend multiples of that with follow up mailings trying to milk you for more. Give them $10 and it costs them $30--a net loss for them (and a net gain for liberty) of about $20.
But I had another idea yesterday. I have not researched the tax law on this, so may be off in my presumptions, but it is my understanding that income tax is owed if an American citizen is given something of value. If I give you a million bucks, you owe taxes (about $400k) to Uncle Sam. If you don't file or pay, you are guilty of tax evasion. But if I give you, say, my Monet painting worth a million bucks, you still owe about $400k in taxes to Uncle Sam, even though you don't have the money. Even if you don't yourself subjectively value the Monet that much. This is government logic: it is void of economic sense (re subjective values) and fairness.
So here's my idea. A millionaire libertarian individual sends a letter to a socialist politician, offering to give $1 million if the politician will only come spend the weekend, alone, with the millionaire on his yacht, so that the millionaire can explain to the politician why he thinks the government should be abolished. The offer should be made "irrevocable" for, say, a month. Now, the politician will surely decline the offer. However, that is not the point. The point is he was given something (an irrevocable offer) that had a monetary value. After all, receiving an irrevocable offer to be paid a million bucks for doing a relatively simple task, has a "fair market value," just like the Monet has a fair market value. I would pay $100,000, for example, to be given such an offer, because then I would accept the offer and make a million bucks, off a $100,000 investment. So being offered money is itself being given something of value. By the logic of the income tax, the politician is now obligated to report the fair market value of the offer, and to pay income tax on it. If he does this (which is implausible), he has less money available and thus is damaged (which is good). If he does not, then the libertarian can call a press conference and point out that the politician is evading the very income tax laws he supports.
I think one flaw in my theory is that it might be difficult to make an offer irrevocable if there is no consideration given by the politician. i am not sure. But even a revocable offer is worth something.
Any millionaire libertarian volunteers?
August 19, 2002
Libertarians and Tax Cuts:
William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute, appeared Sunday morning, along with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, on a segment of ABC's "This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts". If I did not hear him incorrectly, he came out against lowering the capital gains tax. I don't have the transcript, but I think his reason was something about such a tax cut not being the most effective way to get the economy going, that it would not have the greatest "stimulus," something like that. I was aghast. I hope I misunderstood him. If anyone knows different, or has a transcript, email me and I'll post a correction or follow-up.
August 16, 2002
Hillbilly Butter-hog:
Phil Hendrie had a character on a recent show who referred to Anna-Nicole Smith as a "hillbilly butter-hog". You know, that's pretty funny.
August 13, 2002
Stromberg on Liberventionism:
Another insightful, perceptive column from the libertarian treasure Joe Stromberg, taking warmongering libertarians to task: Liberventionism III: The Flight from History.
August 12, 2002
My invention is a red hammer:
Recent US patent: Color coded tools (PTO version). This is a patent on a tool, e.g. a wrench or hammer, "having an outer surface wherein a portion of the outer surface is colored and wherein the colored portion of the outer surface is impregnated into the tool". Utter genius. Call the Nobel committee. More ridiculous/obscure patents.
August 8, 2002
Another Libertarian Joins the Blogosphere:
Karen De Coster has launched the latest Austrian-libertarian website, KarenDeCoster.com. Also check out the fairly new HansHoppe.com, built and maintained by moi.
August 6, 2002
Should I shoot my TV:
If I see, one more time, that wretched FoxNews channel commercial for Christy Lane, I might. This is the commercial introduced by some Vietnam vet who says that he was in the war, but there was "another soldier" over there with him--"Christy Lane," some gospel singer, who looks like a cross between Alice, the maid from the Brady Bunch, and "kiss my grits" Flo from the sitcom Alice. When the commercial shows her lip-synching to her cheesy version of ABBA's "I believe in angels," my trigger finger itches.
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