Comments Elsewhere

Kinsella: “I made a comment that it’s not libertarian to endorse the actions of a student in effect using a mechanism to punish a professor in this way.”

Since when did Hoppe acquire a natural right to keep his job whatever the administration thinks of his performance?

There are lots of reasons to think that endorsing the disciplinary actions threatened against Hoppe would be foolish. There are none to think that it would be “not libertarian.”

Macker:

I don’t see Muslim countries tolerating any sort of immigration by non-muslims or even equality for existing non-muslim citizens in their own countries.

Me:

This is false: there are in fact substantial populations of immigrant non-Muslims (especially from Europe, the United States, and South Asia) living in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (especially Dubai), Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Albania, etc., and there have been since these countries came into existence.

Macker:

You really need to learn the difference between citizen immigrants, guest workers, resident foreign nationals, and the like.

No, I don’t. I’m already well aware of the difference. And I’m already well aware that South Asian immigrants (for example) to Saudi Arabia are often treated very badly, and that the vagaries of their legal status (as, effectively, domestic service braceros) are often used in order to maintain control over them and treat them more badly than they would tolerate otherwise. So what? My statement said nothing about debates over the legal status of immigrants. It said something about whether or not “Muslim countries tolerating any sort of immigration by non-muslims”. If you want to talk about citizenship or the shitty way that immigrants are often treated, fine, but you should have made it clear that that was what you wanted to talk about to begin with.

Let’s take one specific example, Saudi Arabia. You claim they are just peachy when it comes to immigration.

No, I don’t.

As for your statement about there being lots of non-Muslims as citizens in Muslim countries.

I didn’t make one.

If I were going to say anything about non-Muslim citizens in Muslim countries, I’d point out that it’s very odd to try to make statements about a spectrum of different countries ranging from Indonesia, to Iran, to Iraq, to Turkey, to Saudi Arabia, to Bosnia-Hercegovina. And probably that most general claims you make about the treatment of non-Muslims in such a large swath of the world are very likely to be false.

Macker:

Why don’t you show a little moral fiber and use your real name.

(1) … because I have a website called Rad Geek People’s Daily (where, incidentally, anyone who wants to know my real name can find it easily in one click)

(2) … because there happens to be an raving imbecile (with similar beliefs to yours, incidentally) whose name is also “Charles Johnson”; the less confusion there is between us, the better

(3) … because it’s fun

I’m not sure what any of these has to do with a lack of “moral fiber.” Maybe you can enlighten me on the moral dimensions of using a nickname online.

New Kid: “Is it just me, or is pundit taking on a kind of negative connotation?”

If it is, then that’s all for the best, but the people who seem to be most under the sway of the “pundit” spell (such as, for example, the “pundits” themselves) still seem to be under the impression that it’s something good to be—if perhaps the occasion for a little phoney self-effacing humor.

So, just to make sure that lines of communication remain clear, I’ll stick to calling them “know-nothing blowhards” for the time being.

Macker:

One need only respect others rights insofar as it is reciprocal.

Me:

This is obviously false. If someone steals $20 you have the right to use force against her in self-defense in order to recover the $20 and any additional compensation for the time and money lost in recovering it. You do not have the right to steal from her willy-nilly, let alone to enslave her or burn her property or kill her. If you believe that any failure to respect rights allows you to treat the violator as an unperson, then you are not a libertarian; you are just unhinged.

Macker:

When I am talking about reciprocity I am not talking about it in an incident by incident sense. I am talking in a meta sense. I don’t have to respect the property rights of someone who holds the position that I have no property rights.

Of course, this position is even worse: you are no longer holding that people may forfeit their rights by violating yours (a position which is untenable but at least grounded in concrete actions), but rather holding that they may forfeit their rights by holding evil beliefs.

Do you earnestly believe that you have the right to assault the person or loot the property of, say, an avowedly anti-propertarian Communist? If not, why not—given that you claim to be under no obligation to recognize the rights of those who “hold the position” that you don’t have property rights? If so, why do you hold such a monstrous position?

Macker:

Why should I?

Because rights are natural and inalienable. People have them even if they explicitly deny that they have them. They are not contingent on acting in the right way. (Someone who violates my rights does not thereby become an unperson. They just have no right—and never did have any right—to use force to stop me from recovering compensation.) Far less are they contingent on having the right beliefs.

In fact, I have no problem whatsoever with locking said person up for the rest of their life.

I’m not interested in what you do or don’t have a problem with. I’m interested in what sort of argument you could possibly give to justify locking people up for ideological “crimes”.

I also don’t see how you could think I would be stealing from such a person. How you can possibly steal anything from someone who does not believe that property exists.

Because property rights are a matter of objective fact. They are not erased when someone stops believing in them.

Q: Why did R. J. Rummel explains switch from a libertarian to a “freedomist”?

A: Because a tin ear for morality often goes along with a tin ear for beauty. I am sure “freedomism” will do well in the annual Stalin Prizes, but then, so did Cement.

bigot, n.: One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I guess I am a bigot, then. You see, I am strongly partial to my political group …

Of course, I already pointed out above that the definition has something importantly in common with ordinary usage but that it fails to grasp one important aspect: that “bigot” is a vice term, and only applies to those whose intolerance and partiality is irrational. To which Kinsella objects:

As for your irrational qualifier, that’s meaningless. Firstly, all action is necessarily rational (at least in the praxeological sense).

I’m well aware of that; but I wasn’t using the word “irrational” to contrast with rationality in the praxeological sense. You might have gleaned it from context; you also might have gleaned it from the fact that I wasn’t, using the word to describe actions at all but rather preferences (which are neither rational nor irrational in the praxeological sense, but can be either rational or irrational in the ordinary language sense of “reasonable” or “defensible”).

So, again: do you have a problem with the definition of a bigot as someone who is irrationally (unreasonably, unjustifiably) partial to their own group and intolerant towards those who differ? If so, what?

As for your own definition:

I would propose an alternate definition for bigot: One who hates other groups of people, who are not initiators of aggression, and actually initiates aggression against them.

This is a stupid definition of “bigot”. The world is full of bigots who have never attacked a soul; I take it that most people who attend Klan rallies, say, have never actually assaulted a Black person or a Catholic. (The days carnival-atmosphere village lynchings are mercifully over; actual violence is now almost exclusively committed by a small hard core.) But if your definition of a “bigot” excludes enthusiastic supporters of the Klan you are not actually defining “bigot” as the word is used by English speakers, but rather something else. And when I called Hoppe a bigot, I was speaking English.

You are taking Hoppe out of the context of the chapter that such was in, which was a chapter addressed to conervatives and to the socially conservative lifestyle. If a conservative culture is to be maintained, then, no, one cannot be tolerant of homosexuals.

This is disingenuous. Hoppe explicitly states in the passage:

They — the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.

A first reading clearly seems to indicate that Hoppe thinks intolerance towards homosexuals—up to and including exile and confiscation of property, if this can be done under the terms of the covenant—is necessary to maintain a libertarian order. Hoppe wants to maintain a libertarian order. Therefore, it seems to follow that Hoppe advocates intolerance towards homosexuals.

Maybe Hoppe only means that they must not be tolerated and must be physically removed if one is to maintain a libertarian order in a “traditionalist” kin-based covenant community, but not necessarily in other communities. If that’s what he means, it’s more than he says. It’s not a bizarro reading, but it’s also not one that will help you out much anyway. Hoppe’s made it very clear here and elsewhere that “traditionalist” kin-based communities are the kind of community he strongly identifies with, and that (in particular) he considers necessary to maintain a libertarian order in the society broadly.

I can see no contextual reason to read Hoppe’s condemnation of tolerance towards homosexual as anything other than (1) in propia voce and (2) applicable to all would-be libertarian communities. If you have any evidence for a different reading, please offer it—in which case we will just move on to some other examples. (Ol’ Hans has supplied us with many.)

Otherwise, let’s just agree that Hoppe advocates intolerance toward homosexuals and move on to the next question.

I also believe that it is the actual actions that Hoppe is saying cannot be tolerated, not the desires.

That’s fine; I mischaracterized Hoppe on this point. “Homosexuality” is usually something that people use to refer to facts about a person’s characteristic sexual desires, but Hoppe is talking about “lifestyles” above. So that’s what he thinks we should be intolerant towards: the “lifestyle” of sleeping with members of the same sex. Fine.

So the question is: is Hoppe’s avowed intolerance towards people who actively sleep with people of the same sex reasonable or unreasonable?

Stephan, do you think that it’s reasonable to be intolerant towards someone solely because she or he sleeps with people of the same sex?

Here’s how Brian Macker learned to stop worrying and love La Migra:

One need only respect others rights insofar as it is reciprocal.

This is obviously false. If someone steals $20 you have the right to use force against her in self-defense in order to recover the $20 and any additional compensation for the time and money lost in recovering it. You do not have the right to steal from her willy-nilly, let alone to enslave her or burn her property or kill her. If you believe that any failure to respect rights allows you to treat the violator as an unperson, then you are not a libertarian; you are just unhinged.

I don’t see Muslim countries tolerating any sort of immigration by non-muslims or even equality for existing non-muslim citizens in their own countries.

This is false: there are in fact substantial populations of immigrant non-Muslims (especially from Europe, the United States, and South Asia) living in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (especially Dubai), Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Albania, etc., and there have been since these countries came into existence. But even if it were true, it would be doubly irrelevant. First, because assaults on your person don’t license reciprocal assaults; they only license the amount of defensive force necessary to recover compensation. Second, because the people you are proposing to exclude do not determine or enforce the immigration policies of “Muslim countries” in the first place, and so aren’t responsible for any of the rights violations that you complain about. (I take it that you’re not only talking about using force to block Saudi princes and the like from entering the country; you’re talking about using force to block ordinary Muslims as a group. If you’re not, then I apologize for misunderstanding you, but you really out to be clearer about your targets.)

Kinsella:

For the record, the following quote is mine:

I will gladly go to the mat defending Hoppe’s freedom to be a bigot without retribution from University administrators.

John Lopez quoted it in passing to comment upon it. I don’t know whether you know that or not, but since you attribute his quote and don’t attribute mine, someone reading your comment might not realize you’re actually responding to two different people.

That said, I turn to your reply:

He’s not a bigot, you human scum pipsqueak.

As well as your reply to Ghertner’s similar sentiments above:

Look here you cocky son of a bitch. Disagreeing with Hoppe is one thing. But you are accusing him of being a bigot. This is a horrible, evil, thing. Hoppe is not a bigot, you stupid, brainwashed, punk of a student.

Here’s a common definition of “bigot”:

bigot, n.: One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

I don’t think that’s quite right, actually; “bigot” is a vice term, but not all groupings are such that partiality towards one’s own group or intolerance towards those who differ is a bad thing. (It’s not “bigotry” for someone who doesn’t molest children to be intolerant of those who do.) So let’s add the qualifier: a bigot is one whose partiality towards members of one’s own group and intolerance of those who differ is irrational.

Here’s Hoppe (with emphasis added):

… Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They — the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.

Hoppe is, I take it, a heterosexual and not a homosexual. He is, therefore, demanding that—in order to maintain “a libertarian order” there be no tolerance towards those who have a different sexuality than his own, that they must be shunned, and—if they live in Hoppeville—they should be exiled and their property confiscated.

That Hoppe is vocally intolerant of homosexuals is an open-and-shut case. The only question that remains is whether his avowed intolerance amounts to bigotry. Whether or not it does depends on whether or not it’s reasonable to be intolerant towards someone solely because she or he desires to sleep with people of the same sex.

If you have some other meaning for the word in mind when you deny that Hoppe is a “bigot,” now’s the time to mention it. If so, then you ought to let us know what it is, because I take it that those of us calling Hoppe a bigot mean by it something like what I just spelled out.

If, on the other hand, you take “bigot” to mean roughly what I just said it means, the only question that remains is:

Stephan, do you think that it’s reasonable to be intolerant towards someone solely because of she or he desires to sleep with people of the same sex?

Heinrich, again:

Yes, we could expel all of the human trash — bums, welfare-recipients, criminals, communists, and fascists (e.g., KKK-nutjobs) — and that would be good.

No, you can’t. Even if someone bought into your argument that roads, parks, etc. are collectively owned by tax-payers, your conclusion does not follow. Whether or not you can rightfully restrict their use of “public” property according to some weighted voting scheme, they don’t live on “public property.” They live on their own land or land that they have contracted to rent. You have no grounds on which to expel them; you can at most return them to their own homes if they step onto your alleged “public” property.

You haven’t said, incidentally, whether or not I can create my private helicopter shuttle service in Hoppe’s United States.

The people expelled would be net tax-consumers (in no case would it be appropriate to deport a net tax-payer), and this would increase.

(1) You’re bluffing here. Do you have any empirical evidence whatsoever that bums, welfare-recipients, communists, fascists, and KKK-nutjobs are as classes net tax-consumers in the Rothbardian sense?

(You might think that welfare-recipients are the easy case. Not so: most welfare recipients do receive more money from the government than they pay in formal taxes, but so what? Welfare recipients are disproportionately more likely to face systematic rights-violations at the hands of drug cops, hanging judges, wardens, petty bureaucrats, and the rest of the State apparatus of control. It’s not at all clear that if you consider all the illegitimate harms that the very poor typically suffer at the hands of the state, the pittance they receive from the government overcomes the losses inflicted.)

(2) Let’s say for the moment that you had succeeded in listing off classes of net tax-recipients here. Would that make any moral case for physically expelling them from the community? If so, why

It’s important to remember that receiving tax funds is not a crime under natural law; it’s taking the tax monies from their owners that is. Of course, people who are benefitting from expropriation and have some control over whether the money is taken and transferred have a moral obligation to exercise that control in such a way as to cut against the taking of tax funds. But it’s not clear that all or even most net tax-recipients do have any meaningful control over whether or not the money is taken. So it’s unclear that any particular blame falls on their shoulders.

As for those who are in positions such that blame falls on their shoulders: do you earnestly think that physical expulsion is a proportional response to the crime? Do you normally advocate exile and confiscation of property for thieves?

Hoppe suggests that the best thing to do is try to approximate how net tax-payers would act if they actually controlled “public property”.

Too bad for Hoppe, since socialist calculation is impossible.

I suggest a way to perhaps better do this, by a weighted vote.

Socialist calculation is still impossible. Changing the scheme from central planning to One Big Corporate Cartel doesn’t help.

Lopez:

If advocating immigration restriction makes you a “collectivist”, then how on earth is it not “self-evidently un-libertarian”?

… because it’s only self-evident if the collectivist premises behind the anti-immigration policy are in clear sight; and there are matters of degree as to how transparent the collectivist move in a given argument for an immigration control policy is.

I take it that Roderick regards Hoppe’s position to require a violation of individualist principles; that’s why he strongly disagrees with it. But the question is whether the violation is an obvious one or a subtle one. Mike Tuggle, who Roderick is jousting with in the article you cite, wears his collectivist premises on his sleeve and makes it fairly easy; Hans Hermann Hoppe, who claims to be a rights-absolutist and has spilled a lot of ink trying to defend enforcing immigration restrictions on rights-absolutist libertarian grounds, makes it somewhat harder. I think Hoppe’s arguments on the matter are a bunch of nonsense, but they are there; so showing how Hoppe’s position violates libertarian principles does require engaging with an argument of Hoppe’s and showing where it is fallacious. (I think that’s a task that y’all have done well enough here on several occasions and that Roderick and Walter Block have done well enough elsewhere.)

The difference here corresponds to the difference between arguing over whether or not libertarian principles are correct (as Roderick is in his argument with Mike Tuggle) and whether those principles, once agreed on, are being correctly applied (as Roderick is in his debates with Hans Hermann Hoppe).