Will the REAL Tom Palmer Please Stand Up?

Oh, this is great. The Mises Institute has just put back issues of The Libertarian Forum online. See the article Will the REAL Tom Palmer Please Stand Up? (p. 7 of the August, 1982 issue). Seems like they had him pegged long ago. Now his bizarre, monomaniacal vendetta against all things Rothbard (including Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute) makes a bit more sense. Now we see where Palmer, a former Rothbardian, decided to become Crane's hit-man. Hehh hehh. It is reminiscent of Star Wars III, when Anakin joins the dark side.

Other Palmer nuggets in LF to come... heh hehhhh

Coda: Check out Palmer's letter in defense of Rothbard and other anarchists, Hoopla over Israel. Man, our boy was a firecracker way back when. He criticizes the neo-conservatives and Edith Efron for their "mutual hoopla over the socialist, militarist, religious state of Israel"; denounces Israel as a "theocratic state" and implies that it would be ironic for "advocate of 'reason, science, technology,  individualism,' etc." to want to send money to defend Israel.

Wow. I betcha if Tommy heard someone talking like that nowadays, they'd be relegated to his "Fever Swamp." Chuckle chuckle.....

***

Oh, here's another gem by Palmer, from 1976: Toward a Libertarian Movement (critiquing "right-wing opportunism" and gradualism, oh my!), a response to  a Robert Poole article in Reason; and see Poole's 1977 reply, and Palmer's response, The Fallacy of Gradualism: A Reply. Funny--in Poole's reply, he gives as an example of reasonable gradualism, the idea of not simply advocating the outright abolition of social security--but that critics of social security need to "suggest" some kind of "transition program for dealing humanely with the millions of people now dependent on Social Security and the millions who have paid into it for decades, expecting to receive benefits." Poole critiques the idea that we should "simply say tbat Social Security is morally wrong, economically inefficient, potentially bankrupt, and ought to be abolished."

Presumably this kind of Social Security gradualism--some kind of "humane" and "workable" transition program--was the kind of thing Poole would favor, and that he presumed Palmer would not. Heh heh.

In Palmer's little reply, he writes:

one of the most important steps toward our goal is to "Create" more libertarians. We must expand our rank or be doomed to failure. How would this be brought about if our broad-based political arm, the Libertarian Party, were to be emasculated and reduced to proposing crank schemes for enlarging the diameter of government fire hoses (thereby saving taxpayer's dollars) and turning government enterprises over to Bell Telephone via statist grants of monopoly? Not only does this have no relation to the market, but it will never get off the ground. How far did the cranky Friedmanite voucher plan, backed by forces considerably more powerful than the Libertarian Party, ever go? It was swiftly laid to rest, and justly so. Also, I would like to ask an embarrassing question. When has this scheme of creeping conservatism ever worked? Did the American revolutionaries demand private collection of English taxes? No. In fact, such tax collectors were the objects of intense popular hatred. Their homes were pulled down by patriots inflamed by a passion for liberty and a desire to escape the depredations of the English monarchy.

[...] Poole [...] wants to climb into the sack with the ruling class and the State before we have any power whatsoever to change its actions.

[...] Poole challenges me to come up with a "plan" to help those who have been bamboozled by the statist sleight of hand known as social security. Despite the fact that Poole himself offers no such plan, I accept his challenge. Roger MacBride's campaign book, A New Dawn for America, proposed that government assests be sold off to compensate claim holders who have been robbed of their earnings (note that this is not financed through further State plunder) and that, as an immediate and ("non-negotiable") minimal step, all persons 60 years of age or older be exempted from all taxes. If Poole can come up with another idea, I'd like to hear about it. As is typical of Poole's shoddy and superficial research in other areas (e.g., tax rates in local communities) he bas no understanding of the enormity of present social security liabilities. At the present time they stand at well over 3 trillion dollars [NSK: and this was back in 1977, ha ha] . No plan, no matter how humanitarian we may be, there is nothing that can save the social security system (by this I mean fully compensate tbme who have been cheated and robbed). It is bankrupt financially as well as morally. If Poole thinks that a private company will want to take over a program with no assets and over $3 trillion in liabilities, I suggest that he read David Hume and J. S. Mill on miracles.

Poole's rebuttal is a significantiy more "soft core" defense of gradualism than his Reason editorial or his Cut Local Taxes. It is no less incorrect, however. If we follow Poole, we will go the route of the classical liberals, though with one important ditference. For many years the best of the liberals kept their principles at the fore, and achieved remarkable success.   Poole going further, would rob us of our principles before we had a It was when the gradualists gained ascendancy within liberalism that the liberal movement faltered and collapsed. Poole, going further, would rob us of our principles before we had a chance to appreciable influence at all. We would then become an insignificant oddity in the history of political movements. At best, our example would serve to warn libertarians of the distant future of the dangers of compromise. [Some emphasis added]

So... Palmer here is bashing libertarian gradualism, opportunism, creeping conservatism, social security "transitions," Friedman's voucher ideas... Wow, Tom, sounds like the kind of people you now villify as Fever Swampers! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I suppose Palmer could disavow his earlier stuff, on the grounds that he's matured (does that mean he used to be an anti-semite?, ha ha); or that Rothbard really wrote these pieces "for" Palmer (Palmer does seem to ape Rothbard's style a lot, like Randians do top Rand--Observe: all the em dashes--and italics. Blank out.).  But in the latter case, wow, how dishonest is it of Palmer to take credit for others' writing. So I doubt he'll claim this. Ha ha ha hahahahahahah

Comments

[David J. Heinrich]

In my opinion, it was definately some great work.

[Frank Mazorski]

Have you guys ever stepped back and realized just how obsessed you look? I have frequently enjoyed reading Mr. Kinsella's comments in the Mises blog, and his stance on Kelo gave me a lot of thought. And yet when I visit his personal site it's all about someone named Palmer. I'm not even sure who Palmer is or why he is hated like a scorned ex-lover - can his politics be worse than Kim Jong-Il? Did he kill more people than Saddam? Is he more disgusting than Ted Kennedy?
There is a chance some people on the fence (or just begining their journey) to libertarianism come across your writings - and then see this childish attack and get turned off by it. Grow up!!!

[Stephan Kinsella]

Thanks Frank. I appreciate your comment. However, as long as Palmer continues his incessant and monomaniacally obsessed attacks on friends of mine, I, for one, intend to keep the light shined on him. I do not think his outrageous and unjustified attacks against decent and great libertarians should go unanswered, do you? But you have a good point aobut my personal blog; I think I may just link to this one instead, and use it as the central repository for all things Palmer.

[John T. Kennedy]

See the article Will the REAL Tom Palmer Please Stand Up?

Wow. What an eye-opener...

[anonymous]

"The neo-conservatives hold a hodgepodge of pro and anti-liberty views, and I suspect that the primary reason that Ms. Efron embraces them with such loud hosannahs is their mutual hoopla over the socialist, militarist, religious state of Israel. If Ms. Efron wants to send money to defend a theocratic state (how quaint for an advocate of "reason, science, technology, individualism," etc.) she should be free to do so, but her stance is hardly appropriate to one sincerely interested in liberty." — Tom G. Palmer, The Libertarian Forum, Jan-Feb, 1978.

"I shouldn't assume that the enemies of my enemies are my friends, but it's clear that the enemies of Israel are despicable. I'm not a Zionist, but the people who are attacking Israel the loudest are precisely the sort of people who make me more sympathetic to the Israelis." — Tom G. Palmer, April 21, 2002,
www.TomGPalmer.com

Hahahahaha!

[prosolution]

I am thinking about starting a new project like this, very helpful indeed.

[really odd]

I find the comment that Palmer could appear in the Fever Swamp column odd. Perhaps it would be accurate if he was running around with the League of the South, Christian Reconstructionists, White Supremecists and anti-Semites. But he isn't do that. Can't say as much for the people discussed in the Fever Swamp.