Well. There’s a debate at Hit and Run, but I don’t know about a libertarian one. The debate at Mises at least has to do with the plausible (though mistaken) view that principles of restitution entitle Ralph Horowitz to recover his share of the land. The debate at Hit and Run looks more like Jesse Walker and a couple of others valiantly trying to fend off a bunch of Constitutionalists and liberal Mussolinists, whose “libertarianism” amounts to the principled defense of whatever property entitlements the government happens to be passing around to the propertied classes.

My favorite quote thus far comes from “Ayn Randian:” “But I am really just making the excellent point Woozle’s already made; you can do what you want with owned land, including not making use of it. The only reason anarchos invented this shady ‘mixing with labor’ was to thwart government title-granting abilities.” I just feel like twirling my mustache and cackling maniacally every time I read that.

Note also that most crusty cultural conservatives who object to hip-hop care very little about the endless use of misogynist and homophobic invective. Typical complaints have usually revolved around (1) the use of dirty words, (2) hostility towards established authority in general and the pigs in particular, and (3) musically illiterate complaints about how “easy” it is and how there’s no musical talent involved and the rest of the usual claptrap.

Incidentally, just to be clear, when you say this: “Why couldn’t Rothbard just say that he didn’t care for certain types of music rather than develop a wordy critique that opens him up to look foolish on the subject?” — are you complaining about Rothbard, in particular, holding forth on things about which he was ignorant, or are you mounting some kind of general complaint against people offering “wordy critiques” of general aesthetic trends or genres, instead of merely confining their complaints to “I don’t care for it”? Because the first point seems to me to be obviously right, and the second one dangerously tempting, but in fact quite wrong.