The theme music here is the music for TV's Dragnet. "I’m not sure the Iraq War was a good idea."
This refers to a blog post by Jeff Tucker. It's amazing that that one would even venture to say publicly, "I’m not sure the Iraq War was a good idea." That kind of confused pragmatism tells a whole lot about its author. Perhaps he's just too intellectually impotent to make a real decison.
It started here with this post. Note the shot at Murray Rothbard. Everyone's first instinct, of course, is to ignore it, as usual, because these types aren't worthy of any attention on a typical day. However, let's have a little fun here. I have a fun little rundown for those not in the know about that which takes place in the blogosphere. These guys are known as the "Paleo-watchers," as they call themselves. If you look at the trackbacks at the bottom of the post, and look at the links, you’ll see what I mean. Prof. Bainbridge, on the other hand, is apparently another "neo-libertarian-leaning," (on the free market only) Republican, pro-War on Terror warmonger that thinks Rothbard is the great corruption of the Mises Institute. Funny, but I don't see the endorsement of either Mises or Rothbard on *any* blog post on the mises blog......oh, and we should all learn this blogger's great lesson in life: being anti-war is necessarily leftist. How cute.
See a related post by a Sean Hackbarth (his related comment is at the bottom of the post), who is one of the original Lew Rockwell Haters/Paleowatchers: From this post you get the idea that Mr. Rockwell needs to be schooled by Mr. Hackbarth if Lew wants to really learn about Rothbard. Uh huh.
In fact, scroll down this page; lots of posts devoted to simplistic, vapid, uninformed paleo-hating. Look at the knee-jerking over any and all war criticism. Every anti-paleo post goes "waa, waa!" over something in regards to Lew and his websites. Look at his post critical of Bill Anderson's WWII criticism; the guy is so misinformed and simplistic-thinking that it is frightening. He manages to sum up his anti-Bill Anderson protest in like, uh, one sentence. {{Applause}} In addition, considering his Alexa ranking, and that he posts like, uh, 10 times per year on paleo-watching, I think Lew need not run for the hills any time soon.
And if you follow Hackbarth's link, you'll see he links to another Paleo Hater: he's known as "Punch the Bag," and you'll see a lot of references to him on the LRC blog lately. He writes us all, essentially telling us that we Austro-libertarians/paleos are as ineffective as hair spray in a hurricane. Some seemed to have been taken aback by him, but hey, I never found him to be a vicious hatemailer at least. So that's ok; I enjoy watching the paleo-watching.
What's even more odd is that most of these guys refuse to use their names, which should, by all means, destroy any and all credibility. All we can do is smile and laugh at this. In the end, why would an entire blogosphere of paleo-watchers get so insanely upset over a term like “false phraseology?” Well, you see, I was attacking that which the State uses to justify its existence and its massive expansion: the "war on terror." And all they can say is "Duh, did she sleep through 9/11?" That is an intellectual-powerhouse-of-a-statement, let me tell you! I think maybe Mr. Bainbridge has slept through too many Robert Higgs articles. Well, all in all, statists don’t like us anti-State types smashing the justifications for their precious Leviathan of Convenience, including Mr. Instapundit.
Mr. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) is that part-time, pick-and-choose "libertarian" that all of the Beltway libertarians love to fawn all over, kiss up to, link to, and kiss you-know what. So he feels he's gotta join his blogrolling buddies and chide in: Say, what do you really know about Austrian economics in order to be able to condemn the Mises Institute, Mr. Reynolds? But this is all he says: "PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE IS STATING THE OBVIOUS: But he says it well." Hmmm, perhaps it's an empty shot Mr. Reynolds? Any further comments Mr. Reynolds? Any substance perhaps? Or perhaps you are out of your league on this Mr. Reynolds? Of course, he has no intelligent comment; just a snide "me too" Beltwayism-of-the-Day.
Oh goodness, it looks like I'll never get blogrolled by Mr. Instapundit now. Sob, sob. These guys are indeed pathetic as well as funny. An apodictic certainty. And here, the guy who makes this statement: "The lesson: read the Mises Blog if you like (I do), but go to the source if you wish to know about Austrian Economics and the libertarianism it's based upon. Don't let Rothbard and Rockwell lead you away from Mises and Hayek," admits here that he's never even read Rothbard. This is their MO: join the blogrolling crowd, and attack who/what the rest of them are attacking, without knowing what the heck you are talking about.
A final note: from a discussion I had many times in the past, with a few folks, let's look at the evolution of acceptance in terms of free market economists/Austrians. If you look hard enough, you will constantly see Rothbard chastized by those that purport to be libertarians. Surely, you can, will, or perhaps should disagree with him on a number of things - especially concerning his political or social philosophy if you are a libertine - but the root of the matter is the pure hatred that neo-libertarians have for Murray Rothbard.
'Twas a time when Mises was shunned and it was unacceptable to publicly acknowledge the man's greatness, his ability, and his stature as one of the greatest intellectuals ever - *period*. One could acknowledge and exalt Friedman and Hayek, of course, for that was acceptable, but it was a career-ender (or reputation-ender) to do the same with Mises. Mises was too "extreme," too "hardcore," too unyielding. Well, Rothbard solved that problem. Mr. Principled came along, and he was so hardcore and extremist that he made Mises acceptable. Times they were a'changin', and so Mises became chic, and even the Beltway libertarians/Friedmanites could no longer diss him. They had Rothbard to diss. They now exalt Mises, finally. Alas, we have Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the greatest living Austrians-theorists today; perhaps the greatest. And who do they diss now? You guessed it. As time unfolds, one can expect Rothbard to become more fashionable, and the neo-libertarians may even give him his due one day. He is one of the greatest, most prolific intellectuals that ever lived. Murray, your scholarship and your nearly fifty years of inexhaustible output will never be equaled.
Oh.....but I'm sure Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit has studied it all. {{heavy sarcasm}} Start here Glenn dear, and then, and then if you work really hard, you might be able to crack the pages of the greatest book ever written, or perhaps understand and care about stuff like this or this.
