Hoppe on "Libertarian Society"

An, uh, interesting excerpt from Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed:

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. 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."

For inquiring about some of the implications in that paragraph, John T. Kennedy, of the No Treason blog, became the first non-spammer to be kicked off the Mises.org (sic) blog. You can read that exchange here.

Now, what is one to make of the Hoppe quote above? Should we, like the more rabidly dogmatic Rothbardian "paleo-libertarians," put it down to simply unclear writing that has been taken out of context anyway? Or should we, like John T. Kennedy and some of the other "atheist individualist left-libertarians," count it as incontrovertible proof that Hoppe is a Nazi in disguise? (The "Nazi" accusation is more an insinuation than an actual bald assertion, to be sure. In fact it's often hard to figure out just what it is, exactly, that those no-treason and left-libertarian guys are saying.)

Now, I'm no fan of Hoppe. I think he's an embarassment to the Austrian school of economics (his "Argumentation Ethics"--which would undoubtedly get him laughed out of any college sophmore's philosophy class--are a perfect example of the depth--or lack thereof--of his thinking). But I'm not entirely sure yet whether we should really throw Hoppe out with the bathwater.

I want to take a little time and really dissect what Hoppe said, in as unemotional a way as possible, since that didn't happen on the "Mises Institute" blog. So, let's begin...

In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism.

What Hoppe seems, at root, to be saying here is that it would make no sense to join in a covenant with a person or persons who question the legitimacy or the very idea of covenants. I'm with him so far, but he loses me here: "...no one is permitted to advocate...democracy and communism." Can someone please explain how that follows logically? And what exactly is meant by "[not] permitted"? Hoppe, at least in this quote, doesn't provide much of a clue, though what he implies doesn't seem too pleasant:

There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. 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.

What I find most damning to the Rothbardian position that Hoppe is simply describing the optimal arrangement for the functioning of stable and thriving voluntary private communities is the phrase "libertarian social order." I could understand a community getting together and mutually agreeing to kick out anyone who didn't tow the Rothbardian line, but isn't that a far cry from "[t]hey will have to be physically...expelled from society"?

You've Got Mail--From the Pope

German Catholics who can't attend a talk from the Pope can get it text messaged to themselves.

The CatsupCrapper

MIT remains on the forefront of robotics and AI with the CatsupCrapper.
Thanks to Jerry Goodenough via the SKEPTIC mailing list for the link.

Richard Bejtlich reviews Extreme Exploits

Richard Bejtlich of Tao Security (a prolific Amazon.com reviewer) has posted a four-star review of Extreme Exploits, a book I did the technical editing on.

"Teach the Controversy"

The Intelligent Design movement recently hired a PR firm to promote its views. A critic using the name "vax" commented on this at William Dembski's (the "Isaac Newton" of ID) blog:

Why would ID need to be ‘promoted’? If it is science (as claimed) then the arguments and facts and should speak for themselves.

If it’s just a public relations exercise combining religion, politics and deceptive scientific-sounding jargon, however…

This led to a response from "Dan":

It is obvious why it needs to be promoted…because it is being shut out by radical left wing atheists that control the science ciriculum at the University level who control the peer reviewed journals. Also, ID is young and it has the right to have time to germinate or die-with a fair hearing.

To which "vax" replied:

Sounds a bit paranoid to me - not all scientists are “radical left wing atheists”! In fact there are scientists across the globe of every political hue and holding every creed who understand that all living beings on this planet share common ancestry. How do they know? Because the hypothesis has stood up to intense scrutiny over the past 150 years. ID is not science because there is no hypothesis; nothing that could be falsified.

“ID is young and it has the right to have time to germinate or die-with a fair hearing.”

Yes, that’s true, but ID proponents don’t want a fair hearing. They want to bypass the hypothesis, the data collection, the analysis, the peer reviewing etc, and have their ideas placed straight into school science classes! To be taken seriously by the scientific community (radically left wing or otherwise) perhaps the discovery institute would be better off using their money to fund actual research rather than for hiring a top public relations firm (Creative Response Concepts).

The result of this exchange? William Dembski bans "vax":

Vax, you are repeating the party line. I have no patience for it here. You are out of here. –WmAD

More commentary may be found at The Panda's Thumb blog.

Christian apologetics

Christian apologetics is the process of defending the faith by constructing rational arguments to particular predefined doctrinal conclusions, and presenting those arguments as a defense of the faith. The presentation of the arguments may either be in the form of monologue (such as through printed publication in a forum where no responses are possible) or in a dialogue, where the only acceptable outcomes are a revision of the steps of the arguments, but not the ultimate conclusions.

Sometimes, those involved in the process do not even bother to make sure their apologetic arguments are consistent with each other--they engage in a shotgun approach of throwing out whatever arguments they can come up with to reach the desired conclusion.

Examples of this may be found at Tom Wanchick's "Christian Fighter" blog. In a discussion of an essay by agnostic Paul Draper, Wanchick notes that "Draper goes through the arguments for theism and naturalism and finds the cases for both worldviews equally compelling. Neither has a clear advantage." But then, Wanchick notes:

But Draper makes an interesting statement at the end of his contribution. He notes that this situation with the ambiguous evidence appears almost intentional, as if humans have been given enough evidence to find God, but not enough to give them utter certainty regarding His reality.

In other words, the fact of the ambiguity is itself evidence for theism. But Wanchick goes on to say:

I disagree with Draper in that I think the evidence for theism is far greater than any purported evidence for naturalism. Thus, theism is the clearcut winner. But even granting his point, the Christian position comes out on the winning end.

Wanchick's has thus argued that (a) there is an ambiguity, which is evidence for theism, and (b) there is no ambiguity, theism is the clearcut winner. He clearly favors (b), which is inconsistent with (a), but he seemingly still wants to advocate (a), since it leads to a conclusion he favors, as he writes that "the apparent ambiguity seems intentional," implying that he thinks the ambiguity exists. (Thanks to Einzige for pointing out this last point--Wanchick really does seem to advocate both contradictory positions.)