I listened to the latest Block and Thornton ones.

Block was disappointing because he was saying some pro-death penalty things; based on the 'the family owns the perpetrator' thing, which he tried to assert his way to victory and also used a bad allegory for.

Then Thornton talking an hour about some minute tax and education details of the Alabama state and neigbouring states. And if I was hearing it correctly he even stated he was in favour of property taxes for education.

If Block is serious about this stuff I might want to debate him on it.

I haven't kept up with mises recently. Good to know that the quality is variable. I will lower expectations accordingly.

+death penalty and +taxation?

Whats going on over there?

at mises.org there's not much talk about Ron Paul, is there? they did have Paul over for the 25th aniversary event, but in the daily articles or in the podcasts or even the blog there doesnt seem to be that much mention of him. I kind of like the division between lewrockwell.com on the one hand where there is a lot of Ron Paul stuff (although it would be a significant improvement if they ran (more?) articles opposing Paul's campaign, to give a more balanced view) and mises.org on the other where the discussion remains about ideas and not so much activism.

of course I should add that I still support the Ron Paul campaign and am very happy that it is happening. I think LRC may have too many articles about the campaign, but I don't mind that very much ('cept for the one-sidedness). It's a unique and important event/process imho

I'm not sure about Reisman's stance on foreign policy. The Randians are hawks and he has been influenced by Rand quite deeply. It could be, but this is pure speculation, that Reisman just doesn't like Paul's foreign policy ideas and that that is a main reason for him not to be too excited about it. Paul's friendship with Rothbard and Reisman's conflictuous past with Rothbard may also be relevant. I don't think Reisman is that much of a paleolibertarian either, so that may play a role too. Again, this is pure speculation.

Conrad,

LvMI has recently published a number of RP's books. There has been a lot of blog activity announcing/cheering on these endeavors. There has been some coverage of RP as well as his campaign, though most of that is occuring at the LRC blog, which used to have some sensible writers and spoke only critically of conventional politics, when it did. Now it is like the RP campaign central and all these new writers who never have appeared on the blog before are suddenly posting a message every hour or so about RP and his campaign.

Lew Rockwell used to be quite a "revolutionary" and a radical in his writing and thinking. There was a time when part of his motto-trifecta, the "anti-state." bit, was respected and incorporated amongst the writers he produced.

It's just so very odd to see a site that is "anti-state" so excitedly and energetically covering the presidential campaign of a statist politician (and I don't use that term to instigate a debate, but merely to connote that RP IS a member of the HoR and therefore IS part of the State, however much he may try to minimize it).

As for Reisman, he does come across as irrationally Randian (he'd probably HATE reading that!) at times in some of his writings and his book, Capitalism. However, I think he's distanced himself somewhat from "official" Randism. I am not sure what his take is on foreign policy, as he doesn't really mention it much, though I do believe that he has written about the Iraq War critically as an incredible waste and drain on the economy.

He and Rothbard used to be friends and fellow students of Rand (according to the preface of Capitalism), but there was some kind of disagreement, yes. Later, Rothbard's embrace of groups which were Communist in nature but which were repelling US invasions, etc., seemed to aggravate Reisman as well. Reisman is deeply "American" and views himself as such, he believes in the necessity of a constitutional government for defense of private property and in that sense I'd say he probably is a paleolibertarian, even though he has never really ran in their circles much.

madvillain,


Who are you/do we know you?

Perhaps a post in the introduction section?