I got this letter from someone who knows that I’m a big fan of Han Hoppe’s in general, and, in particular, of his argumentation ethics (for my pubs on this see below). Here is the letter:
“I was thinking about Hans Hoppe during the election. The Kavanaugh battle convinced me that the only two parties in the U.S. with a legitimate claim to my vote are the Republicans and the Libertarians. Why have I so completely written off the Democrats? The answer, I realized, lies in Hoppe’s contribution. The Democrats, as far as I can see, have abandoned the ethics of argumentation. They are no longer interested in trying to persuade those who disagree with them. Instead, they simply insult or shout down those who do not hold the correct views, the correct views being pre-determined by some exclusive process carried out in private by an elite; there is no requirement for public debate or public consensus building as part of the process of determining correct views. In short, the Democrats have abandoned the ethics of argumentation. And that’s driven my decision to permanently write off the Democrats.”
Block, Walter E. 2011. “Rejoinder to Murphy and Callahan on Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics” Journal of Libertarian Studies; Vol. 22, pp. 631–639;
http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_31.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2004. “Are Alienability and the Apriori of Argument Logically Incompatible?” Dialogue, Vol. 1, No. 1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1889440
10:25 am on November 2, 2018
