“And because the king was also chosen at random, through inheritance, and could only come from a small in-bred royal family, the general population never entertained the idea of entering government themselves. It was therefore always something outside of their experience, or possible future experience, so they always tried to restrain it. Quite successfully, for the most part.”

And you, CJ, then go on to say: “This is only one of many possible examples [of Hoppe's mistakes], but to posit that *the general population* restrained ‘quite successfully, for the most part’ royal families… is either very sloppy writing, or very sloppy thinking.”

I must point out that “it” in “they always tried to restrain it” refers to “the idea of entering government”, and does not, as you suggest, refer to the Royal Family per se. Thus, it reads: “they always tried to restrain the idea of entering government.” Your construal that it reads, “the general population restrained, quite successfully, for the most part, royal families”, is either very sloppy reading or very sloppy thinking.

“There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.”

He advocates the physical separation and expelling from society of many individuals that would fall under the various categories mentioned: democrats, hedonists, nature-environment worshippers, and homosexuals. I specifically am concerned about the last group mentioned, although I have concerns about freedom-loving individuals that fall within the other categories as well.

He is obviously not aware that homosexuality is, according to much scientific evidence, primarily determined by genetic factors? Thus, homosexuals do not choose their sexual orientation, as people choose homes, plumbers, which of the lesser evils they will support in the next election, etc. Homosexuals are members of families, although most do not bear children (and given that they represent less than 10% of the population, this should not spell disaster for the survival of the species). And yet Hoppe wants physically to remove them from society (an act of agression, against which Libertarians would argue) and thus he wants to penalize them for a fact of nature over which they have no control, except to abstain from sexual activity, which does not change the fact that they are homosexual.

This is inhumane. It is uncivilized. It is against all that Libertarianism stands for, the non-aggression axiom to wit. Unless Hoppe can reconcile this contradiction and inconsistency, he is not a libertarian at all and should not claim to be, let alone edit the major journal in the field.

The real problem is not democracy per se, but rather the notion that theft, social engineering, and other collectivist principles (which are by no means the preserve of democracies) are legitimate just because a majority of people vote for them. Elevating democracy to a moral virtue (rather than a pragmatic necessity) has effectively legitimised and institutionalised the repeated flagrant infringement of individual rights by the state.

The US Constitution was an attempt to deal with this, but any amendable or unenforced constitution will not be worth the paper it is written on. The only solution is for people to defend their absolute rights by armed force, regardless of the popular vote, and let disputes be settled by a system of common law which begins and ends with the notion of individual rights and the reasonable defence thereof. What could be more democratic than a disinterested jury of one’s peers? Notions of group entitlement or political authority would carry no weight whatsoever.

Democracy has done its job – it has massively reduced bloodshed, and maintained social order, two of the more important tasks of any state. It is people’s willingness to defend rights that has failed – and that is a matter of guts (sometimes literally so), not votes.

Sorry for calling you a commie! I was responding to your first two numbered paras in your last post but one. These are standard left defences in the IQ debate, not only in content but tone. Hence my hope – though you consider it trite – that your locquacity will find a better cause to defend.

You see, calling a Professor Emeritus like Arthur Jensen a junk scientist demonstrates absolutely nothing except that you need to get to grips with the subject. You say that IQ’s have increased, but this picture is far very from clear (go to http://www.jbhe.com/latest/37_b&w_sat.html). At the moment you don’t seem to have got beyond Pinkeriana, ie sociobiology made safe for liberals. Read on, especially the emerging genetic evidence for difference because that is the future of this debate.

With regard to your perfectly honourable desire for equal treatment for all, I would ask why you are wasting your time supporting the environmentalism of the left and of the culture war. Equal treatment does not flow from this. Egalitarianism does.

As a point of fact my own view on heritability and plasticity, encephalisation-sexualisation, disposition towards criminality etc is not fixed, Frank. So you are a bit previous with your judgement. I’m running hard to keep up with the evidence. I may wind up an IQ utopian quite close to Hoppe in some respects. I certainly believe we need a high IQ society because that tends to be advanced, prosperous and low-crime. There are genetic scientists who are disturbingly ebullient about their potential role in creating such a society. Perhaps my antecedents are just too working class but I feel we ought to try getting the best of the common man first.

There’s probably not much deviding you and I, in reality. It is my belief and understanding that in another year or two there will be still less.

I take it from your rather trite and facile response that you are uninterested in the broader irrelevance of your little hobby horse of race/genetics/IQ. In the unlikely event of your hypothesis being proved correct, there is still no logical corollary that society should be re-engineered with this “knowledge”.

I’m afraid that you exhibit the lack of comprehension you attribute to me when you assert my support for liberal-marxist propaganda.

I am in favour of simple equal treatment, i.e. everybody is treated as an individual and nobody receives any special treatment, positive or negative. That is the position most consistent with libertarianism.

I would describe the marxist position as proposing special treatment (positive and negative) for everybody in the interests of society as a whole. Your position is identical to this, the only difference is that where marxists desire society to be more equal, you appear to desire a society with higher overall IQ.

G. Cooper:

You appear not to understand that the repressive government apparatus you wish to employ against those with whom you disagree may some day be used against people like you.

Take extremist islam: I am opposed to islamofascism and I actually share your belief that there is too much complacency about this.

Where we differ is that I would always make a distinction, certainly where government force is used, between terrorist-sympathisers and terrorist-facilitators. (You can take it that any action against actual terrorist is justified). It may be desirable that terrorist-sympathisers are discouraged from their beliefs but the type of government apparatus which would be required to enforce this would represent a freedom “cost” out of proportion to the miniscule “benefit” (that is assuming such action would be successful and not, as would be more likely, counter-productive). The proper way to defend society is action against those who carry out terrorism or facilitate it and not restrictions on ordinary freedoms such as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, association.

I’m sorry but you really have not grasped the meaning of the IQ debate. It has nothing whatever to do with aggressive racism. It is to do with the incompatibility of egalitarianism and evolutionary science.

I won’t recommend Pinc and Upstream. The best possible cure for you will be to visit Gene Expression, written by brown guys, read by everybody who’s interested in the unfolding drama of our knowledge of ourselves.

Then you can put your undoubtedly genetic Irish locquacity and charm to much better use than supporting liberal-marxist propaganda.

Happy reading.

It seems to me Hoppe is guilty of “white washing” history — when he is not ignoring it totally.

“And because the king was also chosen at random, through inheritance, and could only come from a small in-bred royal family, the general population never entertained the idea of entering government themselves. It was therefore always something outside of their experience, or possible future experience, so they always tried to restrain it. Quite successfully, for the most part.”

This is only one of many possible examples, but to posit that *the general population* restrained “quite successfully, for the most part” royal families… is either very sloppy writing, or very sloppy thinking.

Based solely on the quoted text (haven’t read his book), his opinions re: historical reality simply do not stand up to analysis.

If higher overall IQs are to be desired, and you view IQ as heritable, then the immigration, with consequent “race-mixing,” of Asians should be advocated by those who claim to be concerned about the problem, eh wot? (G)

“The difference between you and me is that I am opposed to grand social engineering…”

No, the difference between us is that you are hoping your theoretical model of what might happen in this country as a result of mass immigration is what will happen, while I am writing about what is actually taking place.

“To focus on extremist muslims who fantasise about the UK under Sharia but retain support for the coercive apparatus (to do all the things you want it to do, tight immigration controls, policing deviant social and cultural behaviour….”

You are making assumptions. The first on that list is quite sufficient and nowhere have advocated either of the others. I can hardly be expected to jusrtify a position which you are inventing to suit your own arguments.

As to how representative those calling for the installation of Sharia law in the UK may be, the few opinion polls I have seen suggest to me that a troublingly high percentage of the UK’s moslem population would qualify as pretty militant (I’m thinking of those who ‘justify’ 9/11 and more or less openly support bin Laden). And are they, by and large, the recently migrated Imams? No – by and large they are young moslems, often born here, who have been exposed to Western values and education since birth.

You might well claim they have been insufficiently exposed to them but that is simply illustrating what I said about the difference between theorising and what is actually happening.

If qualifying as a ‘libertarian’ means one has to believe that a society is not at liberty to take steps to protect itself against subversion, invasion or unwanted cultural change, then I am quite happy to say I am no libertarian at all. Mercifully, of course, it is simply one kind of libertarian that believes such a thing.