Hoppe

Quote of the Day, September 29, 2012

"For a rule to aspire to the rank of a law--a just rule--it is necessary that such a rule apply equally and universally to everyone." ~Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The Genius of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

I am currently reading The Great Fiction, by Hans-Herman Hoppe.  At the end of the first chapter I came across this gem of a thought experiment.  In my mind it is one of the most devastating and bullet proof arguments against the necessity or even the utility of the state.  Hoppe suggests that whenever one is debating a statist one present it.  I intend to do just that.  

I suggest that you always and persistently confront [statists] with the following riddle. Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

This is intellectual Kung Fu at it's finest.

LOL

More Portents for Katie Rose

More news from Katie Rose on the alfalfa front.

more on alfalfa and grass hay

by Katie Rose

After putting the goats out to pasture I drove down the hill to the local hay dealer. I just have a gut feeling I am going to want one more ton. Folks had told me he still had hay.

What he does is grow about 2000 acres of alfalfa and then buys copious amounts from other farmers - some here, some in Montana, and some around Yakima/ Ellensburg. I usually avoid him as I'm not certain that his bale weights are accurate.

I drove in and it was eerily empty. He had no alfalfa at all. None. Then I asked him about grass hay, and he told me he had "just a little bit." He went on to tell me that he had just called his regular suppliers in Montana, asking for a few semi truckloads. He was told that the ranchers had sold all their hay "for quite a bit more" than he was used to paying. He could locate no hay, and the 2000 acres he grew has been sold to local folks like me.

Then he looked at me with this shocked, befuddled look and said, "Folks who haven't gotten their hay aren't going to get any. Come Spring..." he just shook his head, whistled and walked away.

I ran out of hay last spring, and came running to him. I wonder how many of his regular customers are planning on him having hay for them when they run out?

I have been fretting and fretting about stacking alfalfa instead of PM's this Fall. Now I am extremely grateful I chose alfalfa.

The hay really is all gone.

Minarchy vs. Anarchy

My problem with this video is the idolization of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. People don't seem to realize that if we were to go back to the kind of limited government they think they want it would just start all over again. The following snippet from a debate between Stefan Molyneux and Michael Badnarik on the relative merits of Anarchy vs. Minarchy summarizes the issue well

This graphic, also from Molyneux, expresses the idea succinctly.

Modern Middle East History in Ten Minutes

History of Middle Eastern Conquest

Good Interview

I've probably posted something like this before

But it bears repeating. Often.


When we are children we all are taught what I consider to be a pretty good set of rules:

1)Don't hit or hurt people. Violence doesn't solve anything.
2)Don't lie.
3)Don't take other people's stuff.

For the most part kids get it.

The problem is for the next twelve years or so we are taught all the exceptions:

1)Unless you are a soldier or a cop.
2)Unless is for national security, to prevent a panic or to protect someone's feelings.
3)Unless you call it taxes, asset forfeiture or eminent domain.

One set of rules for the common folk, another set for our leaders.

If morality doesn't apply to everyone it is not morality, it is ideology and propaganda.

Is it any wonder most people can be lead around by their noses?  They have no firm principle to stand on.