Permit me to use a Bible account to start this article. Whether a Christian or not, this account of Solomon’s son highlights some key aspects regarding government and taxation. The passage is from 1 Kings 12:1-20, describing when Rehoboam became king after Solomon, the son of David:

In 2001, now-Mises Institute President Tom DiLorenzo wrote about California being a “La-La Land” where rolling electrical blackouts were reminiscent of what happens in Third World countries. While keeping the lights on is now a bit easier in the Bear Republic than it was two decades ago, the recent Los Angeles wildfires have exposed the follies of never-ending progressive governance there.

In his inaugural address President Trump called President William McKinley (1897-1901) “great” and proudly announced that he had changed the name of Mount Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley. The reason the president picked McKinley of all past presidents to heap praise upon is that McKinley was a lifelong political tool of big business, primarily Northern state manufacturers who championed protectionist tariff taxes so rabidly that he was called “the apostle of protectionism” and “the Napoleon of protectionism.” 

Founder of the Austrian School of economics, Carl Menger, some of his most famous intellectual descendants like Ludwig von Mises, 1974 Nobel Laureate in Economics F.A. Hayek, and author of the best-selling Economics in One Lesson Henry Hazlitt could be said to have literally saved civilization via their educational efforts on multiple occasions.

I typically avoid Twitter skirmishes, but James Lindsay’s diatribes against key dissident thinkers such as Paul Gottfried and Hans-Hermann Hoppe warrant scrutiny. As someone who knows Paul Gottfried personally, I can confidently clarify a few points. Yes, he was under the tutelage of Herbert Marcuse, but the Old Right has a greater influence on him than Marcuse. Paul is fond of people like M.E. Bradford, Wilmore Kendall, and Southern conservatives. Secondly, he is not preoccupied with white identity politics and IQ gaps.