an extraordinary institution cannot arise “naturally”, as the outcome of voluntary contractual agreements among individual property owners

Just because the individual property in question was muskets doesn't make it any less "natural"

Not quite related:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

certifiedprepwn3d has just posted something new at The Chocolate Interrobang...

http://language-grammar.blogspot.com/2007/06/blog-post.html

...the newest location for those readers of GG & friends who wish to explore the tangential topics of grammar and usage and syntax, etc., without hijacking these comment threads.

This message was intended for those readers who have expressly asked to be kept informed of where the recent OT language/grammar discussion was going.

We now resume your irregularly posted comments...

After spending much time recently around horse shows where people tend to camp out in living quarters built into their horse trailers, I have seen many signs pointing these folks to the proper disposal facilities. The major disposal types are for blackwater and greywater. It doesn't take experience to guess which is which when disposing of sewage or washing water. I haven't visited the website to learn the inspiration for naming the mercenary company, because I don't want to ruin my mental picture of the company and its composition.

bucky1 wrote:

"My word, you write well when moved to speak your mind. Well done. :-)

KR: Thank you. I couldn't sleep last night until I had delivered myself of the post to which you refer.

"In the first century, there were pagan gnostics, jewish gnostics, christian gnostics, eastern paths, and others I can not even imagine of that taught that to know one's self was to know the ultimate consciousness (god in our lingo). "The kingdom is within you" I think you have become "enlightened." :-)

KR: Yes, I know. I have "far" to go, however, before I can lay claim to being an "Initiate. Yes, the Kingdom of Heaven *is* within us, as is the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Let me remind you, though, that the same awareness is required on your part to see into my mind, that is, into the thoughts to which my words point like shafts of light. You're no doubt familiar with the expression, "It takes one to know one." This is well-grounded, epistemologically.

My five gurus have been Norman O. Brown, William Blake, Paul Goodman, Jacques Ellul, and Rudolf Steiner, with Steiner assuming first place. I urge you, as a fellow individualist, to go to the Steiner Archives online and read "Individualism in Philosophy." It will set you free.

I need to get some sleep now, as I've stayed up all night and all day to read and write, but I'll read what you write and respond in kind when I think I can be supportive and augment your meaning.

Please do the same for me. As Brown wrote, "The proper response to poetry is not criticism, but poetry." And, All the Lord's people prophets. Prophets or poets."

KR: You and I are trying to help people see through their dependence on external power structures so they can be more free. Some will be more receptive than others, and we need to accept that. The joy for us in the effort, regardless of our reception.

"I asked a few times if anyone here ever just talked about a particular solution to a particular problem (an issue) rather than in broad generalizations. So far, no love."

KR: Did you think you meant to write "So far, no luck"? Love is far more powerful. If a response is meant to be, it will happen. Don't worry about it.

Ken

What you say. He will keep trotting out this "loopy" (Tom. G. Palmer's word, a respected libertarian from Cato) fascist Hoppe as some kind of authority when he has been repudiated and rejected by most conservative and right wing scholars for shoddy scholarship as well as flirting with neo-Nazis and fascists.

Riposte

For Mises' Sake

by Tom G. Palmer

Is the Ludwig von Mises Institute worthy of its namesake? The continuing saga . . .

(...)

I was moved to ridicule Rockwell's articles, letters, and essays by his truly ridiculous claims about the Emperor Franz Joseph's being a patron of classical liberalism and of the Austrian school of economics. Ennobling the father of a future Austrian economist and decorating that economist (along with thousands of other human cannon fodder) for battlefield bravery are, well, utterly risible when offered as evidence of a commitment to either classical liberalism or Austrian economics.

And why was I moved to spend twenty minutes writing about something that is merely absurd and risible? Perhaps it has something to do with a lecture I gave some years ago at Washington State University, after which I was introduced by the chairman of the department of economics to some graduate students whom he termed "our former Austrians." One might ask why the graduate students there called themselves "former Austrians." One name suffices to answer the question: Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Dr. Hoppe, leading light of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, had presented such a loopy, absurd and utterly unhinged picture of Austrian economics at a public lecture there, under the sponsorship of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, that those graduate students felt obliged to distinguish themselves publicly from such a strange and incomprehensible set of views. And I can certainly understand why they would feel compelled to do that. If Hoppe is the leading light of Austrian economics as the Mises Institute presents him, then Austrian economics should prepare for a long dark age. At George Mason University I saw Hoppe present a lecture in which he claimed that Ludwig von Mises had set the intellectual foundation for not only economics, but for ethics, geometry, and optics, as well. This bizarre claim turned a serious scholar and profound thinker into a comical cult figure, a sort of Euro Kim Il Sung.

Hoppe's scholarship is so pitiful that one of his own colleagues -- who is still involved in the Mises Institute -- once remarked to me that Hoppe's book on ethics was a truly remarkable achievement; it was the only book he had ever read in which every step of the argument was a logical fallacy. And Mark Skousen, in his introduction to Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics (New York; Praeger Publishers, 1992), felt obliged to single out and strongly disavow Hoppe's cranky economic views. Skousen made subtle reference to the unreadability of Hoppe's screed, which required extensive rewriting by Hoppe's friends at the Mises Institute, as well as to Hoppe's failure to understand fundamental Austrian economic principles, such as the role of time in economic adjustment. "As the editor of this volume, I have to admit that I do not agree with everything Professor Hoppe presents as Misesian economics, even in this significantly revised chapter. For example, I have serious doubts about his claim that market unemployment is 'always voluntary.' Certainly, permanent unemployment is always voluntary in the unhampered market, but a dynamic market is constantly generating temporary unemployment that requires time to correct." Skousen included the chapter by Hoppe only because he was threatened with legal action by Llewellyn Rockwell if he did not. One could go on with examples of how Hoppe and the Mises Institute have proven embarrassing to the Austrian economists by whom they claim to be inspired but what would be the point? Those who have had contact with him know that Hoppe is an intellectual bully and an academic disgrace.

I was cautioned by a friend not to criticize Hoppe, on the grounds that one should never wrestle with a pig. I have not followed that advice. That may turn out to be unwise especially considering Hoppe's record for heaping abuse on those with whom he disagrees. I recall with great distaste witnessing Hoppe quite savagely attack Professor Don Lavoie of George Mason University at a meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society; in Hoppe's sustained rant, he said "I don't know what the world looks like when you're on LSD, but it doesn't look that way to me," with the clear insinuation that Don was a drug fiend, and that his paper was the result of a drug trip. My own little note in Liberty was described as follows in the Mises Institute newsletter: "Few writers today can match the anti-Habsburg rantings of Lenin, Wilson, and Hitler, but just by renewing the ties between the Austrian School and the Habsburgs we drew a hysterical attack from a D.C. partisan." The implicit comparison with Lenin, Wilson, and Hitler was bad enough, but what is a "D.C. partisan"? Does that mean that I lunch regularly with Hillary Clinton, or that I spend my time at the World Bank, plotting the world's financial ruin? I can only guess at the vituperation and slander that Hoppe and Rockwell must be preparing for me, as well as for anyone else who might voice doubts about their bizarre cult.

Poor Ludwig von Mises. He was a great man and a profound thinker. To have the likes of Hoppe and Rockwell as disciples is a sad fate.

Liberty, January 1998, © Copyright 1997, Liberty Foundation