The author of this article is a friend of a friend on Facebook, him and I have butted heads on numerous occasions over pretty much everything that comes up. Besides his normal flurry of strawmen, every now and again something really interesting will come flowing out of his mouth. This was the cream of the crop (close runner up was his attempt to prove Mises was a fascist, along with the Austrian school).
He once told me that he was rothbardian in the 80’s, so he must be an expert on the topic…
He doesn’t see taxation as theft (the geolobertarian part comes out here), in fact, he has “proven” to me how that belief is poppycock. Want to guess how good
of an argument he presented there?
For fun, check out if some of those other articles. It’s worth a good laugh.
wheylous, I barely understand any of his arguments. Somehow a case of mistaken identity disproves the NAP in this case.
i think he’s argument is simply Rand’s objection to anarchy, that it would be rival gangs warring against each other (perhaps, to bolster his point, one could look at the condition of global anarchy and the battles between ‘gangs’ or ‘nation states’ as an example).
I don’t understand how the argument started. Did Mr. Smith really take Mr. Jones jacket? Is Mr. Jones making some sort of pretext to steal Mr. Smith’s jacket? In which case, why doesn’t he simply rob him of his jacket? Unlike the state, robbers do not typically moralize their robbery. Perhaps Mr. Jones is under the mistaken impression that Mr. Smith stole his jacket. But where could such an impression come from? This example seems wholely divorced from the real world. It’s not that there isn’t conflict, violence or robbery but when would it ever take the form of the hypothesized disproof of a libertarian society? Is this simply intended to exemplify all conflict? Why would two gangs (and why are these two men members of gangs anyway?) go to war - risking DEATH - over a simple jacket?
