[quote]Dabba wrote:
Well, I looked up the Polytechnic Institute (where he taught for twenty-two years) and it says that it is a private institution. Of course, if you’re talking about UNLV, where taught until his death, I concede. However, I must say that, I personally, am of the opinion that libertarians need not engage in purposeful avoidance of the state. It’s nearly impossible. I don’t advocate “renegade libertarianism” in which you try to avoid everything public at any cost. Maybe there is an element of hypocrisy here, but from a practical standpoint it makes sense.[/quote]
I can understand your point about “renegade libertarianism”, but that isn’t what’s at issue with Rothbard. It’s one thing to be a libertarian but still take a public bus - it is enirely another thing to be an uncompromising anarchist and a government employee.
That isn’t pragmatism; it’s hypocrisy. He demands that humans sever all ties to the public dole and go sell their labor on the market, and that this is the only “just” system…except that he is exempted from his own iron rule.
There is nothing “renegade” about choosing not to be a government employee in a dymanic, mature market that afforded any number of jobs if you are at all competent. And I can assure you that while “renegade libertarianism” may not advance the cause (even though Rothbard being a government employee does not fall under this category), being a hypocrite certainly does not advance the movement, and look no further than Al Gore and his sermonizing about how everyone else should live according to the rules of environmental correctness except himself.
Red herring. Taking a comfortable, padded job as a college professor at a public university isn’t using a “public service” as a matter of convenience due to a lack of viable choices. His action, however, was the very definition of unprincipled - choosing, that’s right, choosing among many choices, comfy sinecure funded by the taxpayer instead of practicing the very tenets he preached.
Really? “Unleashing cops” to crack skulls without due process of law is simply “bad strategy”? It can’t further libertarian ends because it acts in complete contradiction to libertarian ends. And, who cares what end it is designed to achieve? “Unleashing cops” in the way he describes is the very example of “brute force statism” - what else could it be?
I must admit, I find your defense of Rothbard, well, tortured.
I never said he advocated complete statism, but that isn’t the point. The point is that Rothbard preaches a dogmatic philosophy that even he is unwilling to live by, even when given the choice to.
Recall, Rothbard isn’t some garden-variety libertarian - a socially liberal, market-oriented type who simply wanted less government. He was an anarchist - and he had an uncompromising view of a One True Faith that tolerated no heresy.
That rigid philosophical commitment makes any action he takes in contravention to that commitment all the more hypocritical - because just as he had no room to compromise, the compromises he made must be held to the exacting standard he himself created.
My hatred of libertarianism has reached quantum proportions, it’s true - a political philosophy I once thought at least cousins with classical liberalism has, after peeling back the layers, been exposed as nothing but another strain of radical left-wing thinking that has is roots in Rousseau - however, you are simply incorrect that Rothbard had a “moment of weakness” when he wrote this article.
What he had was an agenda - he wanted to see his anti-government sentiment turned into practical politics. And in order to advance this ball, he began pandering to a low class of racists, nativists and brutes that would see his preachings against the “Underclass” and get behind the paleolibertarian platform.
He was appealing to the base instincts of this infernal group of people to start building a political coalition. That he did so is damning and sleazey enough, but his advocacy of “unleashing cops”, etc. was no accident.
Ron Paul, of course, did the same thing. The Unholy Trinity of Paul, Rothbard and Rockwell and their brand of libertarianism has a stench that has fouled up any chance of a libertarian ever getting close to a national office.
). Large corporations are especially evil no matter how many people they employ or how many free benefits that they give to those employees.