paul roberts: pomp and circumlocution
good for don boudreaux, who puts some more nails in the near-dead carcass of the simple-headed, overrated paul roberts.
out of respect for the mises institute, i stayed in my seat with my mouth shut last year when the boorish roberts took the stage at the austrian scholars conference and began a ridiculous spoof of a windbag professor — only… well, you get the picture.
he claimed that austrian economists needed to get their minds right, and he pulled out a chalkboard to diagram how outsourcing is a net loss for nations. he kept repeating the absurd claim that exchange of services is not trade. ha! fuck you, you tar-pit-destined piece of shit. unfortunately, some people who should have known better found that to be a profound and true point; then they sat there and took in the rest of his baloney without scrutiny. i guess that was the tactic, and it worked.
roberts tries what all the other anti-liberty freaks do on mercantilism: draw opponents into utilitarian hogwash. forget it! there’s nothing to discuss. trade is not a “national” issue. it is up to each individual to compose a voluntary self-interested and moral policy on trade. though he doesn’t do it in the article linked above (that i saw), at the mises institute he was encouraging government intervention. what of liberty, jackass? where does liberty fit into your grand plans?
anti-traders are busybody freaks who haven’t yet “gotten their minds around” freedom. if the result of freedom hurts, people must be trusted to remove the pain themselves. this constant assumption of the need for coercion is nothing but tyranny at its worst, dressed up as knights on white horses riding in to “save the country” from itself.
liberty. hold it up highly and respect it, or admit what a scumbag you are. can’t understand how some people fall for the control-freak nonsense of roberts and his pals.
stop looking out for me. i beg you!
[more here.]
April 25th, 2005 at 00:25
Heh… didn’t he write a book called “The Tyranny of Good Intentions”? He may write good columns about the threat of neocons and their brownshirted followers, but his economic stuff belongs alongside the examples of tyranny he attacks in his book.
April 25th, 2005 at 00:32
you said it, brother.