Letters to the Editor
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@IntrovertGirl
... I haven't read the book and don't plan to, but I did read that article, and, like Kitt, find the ideas absurd. Sorry. Hoppe's fear of the potential for income redistribution ignores the fact that, for most of history, it went the other way: the resources of the poor got taken out from under them and turned into trash for the rich. Still true, but democracy gives us an avenue for reversing that without violent revolution. ...
Tis best that you do not read it of course. (note: I'll drop trying to tell you what permanently poor means as no one would listen anyway)
No one is arguing that the rich have not plundered the poor in history --- see the Irish as slaves in their own land. But, pray tell, how did the rich do it? Did they outnumber the poor? Or did they use the powerful hand of government to beat down the poor?
Democracies record has been no better; see the 20th century. See the USA murder 600,000 Filipinos in a double cross of horrific proportions. 30s Germany was a democracy. So was Italy.
Hoppe does not need to disabuse you of your fear of dictators or kings --- we already fear them. He is trying to tell you that democracies are hell also. Don't believe me? Ask the folks displaced in New Orleans how well the democracy has helped them.
The problem is that many here are looking to be offended --- ask and you will receive. But, it is simple fact that democracies fail the test of both experience and theory. (Hoppe does the theory)
However, try a little softer Hoppe as he discuses Rothbardian ethics. If you disagree with that, I fear that you will not care for libertarianism at all. It does answer a question you had to a large degree.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe7.html
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Someone has a serious persecution complex here
whether actual or feigned, and I think we all know who that is in this thread. Whenever someone disagrees with him, he acts as if it's a personal attack on his person and motives, when it's just a disagreement about facts, logic and politics (except when it's in response to his making things personal, which understandably elicits personal responses). Why does everyone continue to feed it, seeing as how he thrives on it--as do all people with delusions of paranoia?
Although, I suspect that much if not most of it is feigned, a convenient (in his mind) way to redirect from the actual points being debated. I.e. instead of trying to defend weak if not indefensible points, just attack the other person, and better yet, make it seem like they were attacking (as opposed to disagreeing with) you, to make your "counter" attacks seem more justified, when in fact they are the origin of such attacks.
I invite everyone to go back and read the threads here and see how he's the actual originator of the very personal attacks that he accuses others of originating. Whether he truly believes that he was the first to be attacked or is just pretending that he was in order to look justified in his attacks on others, I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that it's a lot of the latter. It's like he is or works for a personal injury lawyer and has that whole feigned injury thing down cold.
Anyway, I tend to absent myself from "debates" and "discussion" that devolve into ad hom backs and forths, except to comment on how stupid and pointless they are.
Although, I'll make this one exception and point out, in reference to his little bit of revisionist history, that during Watergate, impeachment was not "on the table" until it was actually on the table, which was at the conclusion of an extensive hearing and investigation phase, not prior to or even during it. Read Elizabeth Holzman's excellent short book on impeachment and see for yourself. She was a congresswoman who served on the house committee that ultimately drew up articles of impeachment, but only AFTER it held extensive hearings AND a sufficient number of Repubs made the decision to support impeachment.
In fact the Watergate impeachment process proceeded EXACTLY the way that many of us here think that any BushCo impeachment process should proceed, not the way that you think it should proceed, in cart before the horse fashion. If we follow the Watergate model--congressional hearings and investigations, subpoenas, compelled testimony, shoes dropping, consensus and public outrage growing, independant prosecuters, etc.--then we stand the best chance of actually impeaching, or putting Repubs in a politically impossible position so that we win either way. But not if we fail to follow that model and put that cart before that horse.
But what do I know? I'm just part of the mean-spirited ad hoc cabal here that's decided to persecute this poor misunderstood fellow who just wants to make a bunch of self-contradictory, illogical and factually-challenged "points" and then accuse anyone who disagrees with him of attacking him and just being mean. Yeah, I stand accused. Guilty as charged, of course.
Grow up, get some help, learn to respect differing opinions and people who disagree with you, and argue with actual facts and logic, not made-up ones let alone bile and ad hom attacks, and then maybe people won't "gang up" on you in the future.
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@Kitt
... I don't agree with that simplistic and insulting quote no matter if it is supposed to pertain to Appalachia, South Africa, India, Iraq or most anywhere else I can think of. Appalachia, for example, was ruled with an iron fist by the coal companies. Hard working sonsabithces got squat for their efforts in comparison to the rich, who hired thugs at any uprisings or attempts at unionizing. ...
First things first. I have no rich friends, and I know of no rich Anarco-Capitalists; certainly not a teacher like Hoppe. I hope you understand his argument, but if you do not -- hey, I can handle it.
However, you need to read up on the poor of Appalachia. We were not all coal miners, we were not all barefooted, and we damn sure disliked a "federal man."
The coal companies were evil --- and the government backed them the whole way. Have you heard the rumor that a certain Democratic President once used U.S. troops and seized railroads and coal mines?
http://www.lutins.org/labor.html
Notice all the help corporations get from our wonderful democratic government in that long list of labor woes. Then tell me that it was "just" the greedy corporations. We live in a fascist state, it just is not like Italy was, or like Germany was, --- but still fascist.
There were never many 'permanently poor' in Appalachia. Poor? Hell yes. Several generations? Sure. Permanently poor? Hell no. Of course, Dolly Parton always told that her family never knew they were poor until some damn federal man came and told them. :-)