I discovered Ludwig von Mises in the summer of 2000 after bumping into an old classmate at a junior college I was then attending. The gentleman was pouring through a hefty tome, diligently rereading it for the forth time. As an outspoken civil libertarian and fiscal conservative, he mentioned that I would enjoy the book immensely as it would provide a theoretical backbone to my educational experience at the University level. That book of course, was Human Action and despite its publication some 60-years ago, I continually find useful nuggets to digest, none of which show any sign of aging.
As a member of the Always-On Generation (i.e., my peers are always connected to the Internet in some form or fashion), I did some research online and discovered that although he died more than 30 years ago, his vision and ideas still live on in the hearts and minds of his students. One organization in particular that stuck out among others was the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Upon reading several daily articles and noting that they had a seminar for college students coming up, I requested a packet of information to understand more of the motives and goals that the Institute had.
Although I never attended that summer session (note: I later learned that Mike Ewens did) I continued to follow the happenings at the Institute with much interest. The daily articles acted as a viral hook as both their brevity and poignancy crystallized much of my own research and expanded it into areas that kept me awake at night.
2000 of course was an election-racket year and earlier in the spring I spent time working for the election committee during the primary and run-offs (the same gentleman that introduced me to Mises was an election judge, I worked as his assistant). Having grown tired of a lack principled candidates (at the time I considered Alan “Lincoln-is-my-daddy” Keyes to be a diamond in the rough…) I sought out and found both the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party.
At the time, the CP seemed to have many of the same domestic and foreign policy goals as the LP, with the biggest division stemming from the fact that the CP was down with g-o-d: they were kicking their campaign in a Jesus approved fashion, or something to that effect. Their organization was relatively small and their Dallas office was non-existent. So, I convinced a friend of mine (an old Ag) to visit a meeting of the Libertarian Party of Dallas. That was perhaps the most depressing sight I had seen since watching a bunch of kids wipe out into a wall while skateboarding in junior high. The only thing these LP guys (along with the token militant female activist that spurned sexual reproduction) seemed to want to do was smoke pot, legalize it, talk about it on the radio and register people to vote for legalizing marijuana. They were like, Ludwig von who? Non-aggression what? Inflation is caused by Alan Greenback?
That fall I worked as a paper-pusher at the general election and never joined a Party. I did however, come across numerous other organizations, such as Cato, IHS, the now defunct Free-Market.net and several other non-profits that promoted free-trade and various libertarian-esque policies. However, none of them had what I saw as a pure unflinching, unapologetic and uncompromising view towards the State and towards personal liberty.
Another professor at the junior college mentioned another organization that dealt with libertarian thought and “Austrian economics,” the Foundation for Economic Education. As a follower of the Claremont School Of Hard Chicanery, he mentioned them with some reservations as he apparently found the writings of Mises to be brilliant yet anti-Christian, or something along those lines (he still works at the college and still feels the same way).
So in March of 2001 I attended a FEE student seminar and felt somewhat out-of-place. Donald Boudreaux (he maintains a great blog) kicked off the session by discussing the “I, Pencil” essay from Leonard Read. This was all fine and dandy and quite interesting if one is not familiar with decentralization, specialization or the division of labor, however this was about as “radical” as the academic discussions got. Being the hot-headed rash Texan I argued with Burt Folsom and others over the need for taxation and other superfluous conditions in what Lysander Spooner aptly called the Constitution of No Authority. However, Mawell’s Demon persisted in this case and the State left a bad taste in my mouth (be sure to check out the blog “analysis” maintained by Sheldon Richman and Jude Wanninski of FEE).
With this background (there is much more where that came from…), I would like to pose a question to individuals such as Tom Palmer, Radley Balko, No-Treason bloggers, the SPLC and other organizations and individuals that feel that the Mises Institute is anti-liberty.
I am willing to listen to any criticisms you have of the Institution, the published books and journals, etc. I really do not have time for ad hominem attacks though, as I am too busy making fun of frat boys, so keep the personal attacks in your little black book for another time. I have no vested interest in the Institute financially or academically and consider both libertarianism and economics to be fanciful hobbies – neither of which I intend to make careers out of.
With that said, I should note that I did attend the Mises Summer session this past summer and had the time of my life. I went in half-expecting it to be like a FEE seminar mixed with a twist of some militia meeting or the South-Will-Rise-Again scheme. It was in a league of its own, quite entertaining, informative and professional – and a number of the students had just attended a similar event from Cato (they felt the organizations are like apples and oranges, but are both good in their own right). I should also point out that on occasion I do blog at Mises.org however I do not receive any kind of compensation or request for autographs from fans (neither Cato nor FEE have blogs I can post at). I also wrote several articles for LRC back in 2001, however I had them all removed for personal reasons (I also wrote for Playboy and Penthouse…).
A couple pre-emptive rebuttals that deal with recent topics, first I think Abraham Lincoln and just about any other politician (Ron Paul being the only recent exception coming to mind) is a douche bag as defined by Eric Cartman. Grant was a choad and Sherman was a man-whore. I have no relatives that fought on either side of the war, nor am I an honorary member of any southern or northern or masonic heritage group. So, you probably will not win too many points by pointing out that Lew Rockwell or DiLorenzo or Stromberg has a fetish with the South (much to the dismay of Jaffa, neither Rockwell or DiLorenzo donned on KKK masks during my stay at Auburn, I will keep you posted though). I am also not a fan of the State, so trying to justify its existence or why humanity should try to streamline it to make it better, faster, cheaper will not win any points either. And, I have no clue what is going on in the Ukraine and frankly I do not give a rats ass, I have enough work to keep me busy on this side of the Red River, let alone some other land with dragons, unicorns and magical dermatologists.
One last point: try to separate your beef with LRC and antiwar.com from the actual Institute – they are three separate entities and you should presumably have enough Jerry Springer dirt on the later to not need to worry about the two former.
In a nutshell: I want to know why I or anyone else should not be affiliated with the Mises Institute at all because of their supposed anti-liberty stance and maybe why I should join the ranks of other enlightened libertarians in whatever spiffy movement they are involved with. I honestly do not want to waste my time working with vagabonds, so free me from their tyrannical shackles por favor.