VDare/WND/Taki Columnist Ilana Mercer is on a quarry of sorts to discredit anarchist strains within the libertarian movement. Mercer, who calls herself a "paleolibertarian," advocates a Ron Paul-Geert Wilders type of fusionism, meaning cultural purity("We come from Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. That makes our civilization special, and certainly worth preserving"), restricted, militarized borders, and strong US support of Israel against the Palestinians, whom she considers more or less to be "savages."

Her latest screed against the "anarchists" involves a recent column by Kent McManigal at The Examiner. Mercer cites McManigal's article as an example of the type of "idiocratic, shock jockery" that threatens the legitimacy of the libertarian movement proper. Actually, McManigal has maintained a blog for a number of years that I have read from time to time. He's a solid libertarian thinker. He's no "shock jock," nor is he trying to be the Howard Stern of the libertarian movement. As a free thinker, and in a moment of self-admitted levity, McManigal posed a question of the ethicality of "cannibalism" in terms of libertarian justice. Because libertarian justice is so "thin," these types of questions often serve as an intellectual sport of sorts for free thinking libertarians.

Here's my "consistent" answer from an anarchist perspective. Obviously, homicidal cannibalism violates a "thin" NAP. Necro-cannibalism may not violate a "thin" NAP, but if we employ a "thicker" context for NAP, as we should in this case, it's not difficult to establish that Necro-cannibalism would largely be in violation. My methodology for "thickness" relies on Hayekian social theory. Human burial and "respect for the dead" dates back to 130,000 years ago. Although there have been outliers in terms of cultural acceptance of cannibalism, human social institutions and social customs for the most part have evolved to reinforce the human evolutionary trait of "respect or the dead." Anthropophagy is almost universally a taboo practice, one that finds little social acceptance. Taboo means in this instance implies that implicit contracts, if not explicit ones, would be violated by one engaging in such behavior. The social framework simply wouldn't support it. Frankly, Necro-cannibalism usually only rears it's head in survivalist situations. The movie, "Alive," documented how members of the Uruguayan Rugby team, after crashing in the Andes, made voluntary contracts with one another to have their flesh eaten if they died during the course of their 72 day stranding. Contextually, in such a case, there would be no violation of NAP, but such is really an example of a rare exception.

Since the United States is not under any threat of invasion by Necro-cannibalistic hordes, the bogeyman of cannibalism is an utter red herring. However, it's surprising how often the knee-jerk specter of cannibalism is thrown up against libertarian social theory.

The fact is that Ilana Mercer's conception of libertarianism is inconsistent, despite her claims to the contrary. Putting forth Ron Paul as the champion-bearer of consistent libertarianism is a tenuous claim. The fact is that Paul is Mr. Strict Constitutionalist, Secure-the borders guy when talking to conservatives, but is a libertarian anarchist when in the company of knowledgeable libertarians. Paul, as a follower of the Rothbard-rockwell wing of the Austrian School, is likely an anarcho-capitalist at heart. He probably leans toward the Hoppean version of it. Hoppe's property rights argument against the free flow of labor can be turned into a Reductio ad absurdum argument against the free flow of capital itself.

Arguments that a welfare state for labor necessitates a police State enforcement against the free flow of labor itself sort of implies similarly that a welfare state for corporations necessitates the need for a police state enforcement against the free flow of capital. Hmmmnnnn.....

Mercer's support of Israel as a cultural imperative sounds suspiciously like the Neocons who advocated coercive, western democracy in the Middle east for a primary reason of recognition of Israel. I'm not for any violence, systemic or otherwise, against the the jewish people, but the fact that the jews suffered great, systemic historical violence at the hands of christian europe doesn't give them the right to return the favor to the Palestinians.

Kent McManigal over Ilana Mercer...