Best takedown ever. This is the mind of the modern conservative dissected in a few words. A beautiful thing to see…
The libertarian is generally not interested in arguing about empirical facts or the empirical validity of a theory, just as Rothbard is not interested in examining the possible similarities between Westerners and primitive tribes people and their respective economic systems. Instead, they are only comfortable when making broad-sweeping moral or metaphysical arguments – and so, a typical rhetorical tactic is to assign a moral or metaphysical point-of-view to the opponent and then take this apart. Meanwhile the opponent sits there in a complete daze, trying to get a point in sideways about the structure of the banking system or something so banal while being accused of being a ‘primitivist’, a ‘communist’ or some other such nonsense.
This is the ground, the ground of generalisations and stereotypes that the libertarian inhabits. The world is divided up into ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ with clearly delineated metaphysical positions that can be attacked or approved of. Meanwhile, those of us who eschew such pat generalisations try to argue with facts and are baffled when the libertarians begin once more to talk about their metaphysics. But such is nature of the libertarian mind.
If there is one thing that is true of every libertarian everywhere, it is that they deal only in overly broad stereotypes.