Re: Palmer on Hoppe

Re this post–Palmer and others have chimed in in the comments section of his own posting. Palmer’s continual fantasy-land smears of good people are truly embarrassing. For him.Incidentally, Palmer never answers the question of whether he is in favor of open borders or not. He writes, “The empirical evidence strongly indicates that immigrants to the U.S. are net taxpayers to the welfare state, not net recipients.”

This may be true; but this is given current immigration laws which do restrict immigration. If you open the borders up and we get 10, 20 million immigrants a year, are you so confident of that prediction? Oh, hell, let’s just try and see, what do we have to lose?

As to whether he favors open borders, he answers:

Overall, I favor freedom of movement unless good reason can be shown to restrict it. I see no good reason to restrict immigration in the manner that Hoppe advocates, and I believe that his arguments are risible. There are, it’s true, serious issues concerning both welfare benefits and the franchise. My response is not to cut back on freedom of movement, but to cut back on the welfare state; I would be willing to accept a first step toward that goal by specifying that immigrants are ineligible for state benefits. And I believe that the franchise should be limited to those who show an understanding of and make a credible oath to support the fundamental rights and liberties on which the country was founded. There is no obligation to arm people with the power of the vote, but there is an obligation not to stop people from freely offering their goods and services to willing purchasers.

Well, yes, we realize you are in favor of allowing immigration if there are no state benefits. But since that is not the real world, the question remains: are you in favor of open borders NOW? If not, then you favor restricting immigration, to some number below what it otherwise would be, and using some selection criteria to decide which applicants are accepted. In this, you are identical to Hoppe.

It’s interesting how the libertarians who vilify the anti-open-border libertarians rarely say they are for open borders. The anti-open-border libertarians point out that they are opposed to open borders in today’s world due to problems that would arise due to the welfare state, etc. Their opponents simply say “I’m in favor of abolishing the welfare state.” Well, yes, so are we. The question remains, given the welfare state, do you open the borders? Their answer is always, “we should abolish the welfare state.” They “fight the hypo,” as we call it in law school. I’ll join the game: sure, I’m for open borders–if and as soon as we dismantle the modern state.

I suspect that most of those who attack the explicitly-open-borders libertarians are also against open borders. I suspect Palmer himself is, but he does not want to admit it, because then he would be putting himself in the same camp as those he wants to vilify. Notice also how the anti-open-borders libertarians are also accused of racism, nativism, etc. You know, nowadays, with PC run rampant and when merely opposing affirmative action gets you called a racist, by and large when someone is accused of racism nowadays, my first assumption is that he is not, and that the accuser is bankrupt of any substantive criticism and is resorting to his little nuclear bomb that has worked so well in decades past, but which is losing its fizzle as all the PC types shoot their wads.

And notice also that most of the holier-than-thou, hand-wringing types who vaporize about us being nativists and racists usually support regimes like Israel which have explicitly racist and religious states and immigration policies. Curious.

Palmer also ridicules Hoppe’s argumentation ethics: “That’s the argument that he puts at the foundation of his silly ethical “system,” according to which if you open your mouth to disagree with him, you are in fact committing yourself to agree with him. Neither ethics nor law nor counter-terrorism can be handled adequately with such weak tools.”

Hmm, it’s interesting to note Palmer’s colleage Roger Pilon’s equally silly Gewirthian justification for rights–you know, the one that argues that we have to focus on “what it is we necessarily claim about ourselves, if only implicitly, when we act.” And that argues that an agent cannot help valuing the generic features of action, and even making a rights-claim to them; and that all agents also necessarily claim rights against coercion and harm; and since it would be inconsistent to maintain that one has rights for these reasons without also admitting that others have these rights too (since the reasoning concerning the nature of action applies equally to all purposive actors), such rights claims must be universalizable. Thus, an agent in any action makes a rights-claim to be free from coercion and harm, since such rights are necessary to provide for the generic features of action, which an agent also necessarily values, and the agent also necessarily grants these rights to others because of the universalizability requirement. And thus Pilon validates his “Principle of Generic Consistency”, which is: “Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as of yourself.” [Pilon, “Ordering Rights Consistently: Or What We Do and Do Not Have Rights To,” Georgia Law Review 13 (1979): 1171–96 and “A Theory of Rights: Toward Limited Government” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979)]

Poor Palmer, he has to work with Pilon, who puts out such silly arguments.

Further, Palmer tries to imply that Hoppe’s justification of why we do have rights is too “weak” a “tool” to adequately “handle” ethics or law or “counter-terrorism. But then, Mr. Palmer, who ever said proving something is right or wrong is a way to “handle” the problem of crime? Is knowledge of right and wrong useful to the criminal, or to the civilized man? Hmmm?

It is not that I huff about Palmer’s “characterization of Hoppe as “inimitably kooky,” “zany,” and “Nevada’s own mad professor.”” It is rather that it is amazing that Palmer, an intellectual who has to have some integrity in what he believes and states, says something so outrageously wrong as to be embarrassing to him, because it reveals weird motives or views that are not completely in tune with reality. In fact, Hoppe is a sweet, nice person, very sincere, and hyperintelligent and educated. He is gentle and kind, diligent and professional. I don’t huff about Palmer’s outrageous characterizations; it’s just that he comes off as an unbalanced kook when he says these things. I just worry about you, man.

Palmer is also upset at Hoppe for for allegedly implying that “my old friend Don Lavoie” was on drugs. Palmer must be referring Hoppe’s comments at the 1994 Mont Pelerin Society; see footnote 5 to Comment on Don Lavoie. It seems kind of funny to me, but then, I’m from Louisiana (no offense, Don Boudreaux). It is not clear to me from this text that Hoppe is implying that Lavoie was an LSD user. Does Palmer know more about this than the casual reader, that allows him to read between the lines? I don’t know whether Lavoie did drugs or not. If he did, then an insinuation that he did (which I don’t admit that Hoppe’s comment was) should not be perceived as such an insult. If he did not, I wonder why Palmer didn’t just deny that Lavoie was a drug user? Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Palmer’s maniacal claim that there is a “cult” of Rothbard or Mises at the Mises Institute is simply nutty. Maybe Dan Rather can produce a memo proving this, though.

I won’t respond to Palmer’s base, unjustified accusation that Hoppe is a racist (his Guatemalan comments are simply a fabrication). But I will note that Palmer seems to think it is self-evidently wrong (or unlibertarian?) for immigration policy to discriminate in favor of, say, North Europeans. Why is it America is the only country that is supposed to not give a damn about losing its culture and national characteristics? Israel discriminates explicitly on the basis of religion and race; this is just fine with the same liberals who sputter and moan about the word “God” being benignly printed on the dollar bill. Mexico is Mexican. India is Indian. China is Chinese. Switzerland is Swiss. France is French. Spain is Spanish. Kenya is Kenyan. Only America is supposed to have no right to even prefer its own culture and makeup. If we become a new Mexico, or Kenya, or India, that’s perfectly fine. The same people who shed a tear at the extinction of a tri-colored wombat don’t care if America is lost.

I’ts also too bad that Steve Horwitz has joined the lying, or is it merely ignorant, crazies. He endorses the commens of some anonymous cowards who says the Mises Institute attacks libertarian groups not located in Auburn. They do? Like The Independent Institute? Like FEE? Bob Higgs of the Independent Institute has lectured often in Auburn, giving among other addresses a week-long seminar, available on audio and video tape (note to all Cato scholars: no more citing Higgs!). Richard Ebeling was a featured speaker at a recent MI event (note to Cato scholars: no more Ebeling footnotes! Verboten!) Do Palmer and his equally hysterical supporters have no shame?

Palmer tries to be cute and correct me on the definition of ad hominem, and implies other things about my character. It is tedious when people want to make a discussion personal. Does Palmer really mean to imply he is smarter, or more ethical, than me? Really? I of course do not mean to say anything at all personal about Palmer, but I will say I would not fear the outcome of such a contest. Yes, even though I’m just from Louisiana.

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9:55 pm on September 25, 2004