Acknowledgments

As noted in the Preface, I’ve been intensely involved in libertarianism for over forty years and, for almost thirty years, with the Mises Institute. I’ve been fortunate to have learned from thinkers from the past such as Rothbard, Mises, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Frederic Bastiat, and many others,1 but also from countless friends, mentors, colleagues, co-authors, acquaintances, interlocutors, discussants, and so on over the last forty years. It would be impossible to try to thank them all by name. Nonetheless I would like to try to express my appreciation for some special people and groups that have meant so much to me. I apologize in advance for those I have inadvertently omitted.

First and foremost, to my wife of thirty years, Cindy, and to all my close friends and family, for tolerating my libertarian obsessions and libertarian macho flashes for decades, and for listening to me argue, explain, and explore ideas.2 To my son Ethan, to whom this book is dedicated, for inspiring me and enriching my life, and for also loving liberty and goodness. And to my trainer and friend, Stephanie Rakoczy, for letting me vent about all matters libertarian for many years now in between squats and pushups. I am grateful to my birth mother, Gail Doiron McGehee, for blessing me with my adoptive parents; to my mom for taking me to the library as much as I wanted; to my dad for driving me to school so far away in another parish for so many years; and to Mrs. Reinhardt, a librarian at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge, for recommending that I read The Fountainhead.

This book would not be possible without the understanding of property rights I’ve arrived at, and this in turn would not be possible without the work of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, whom I have also been fortunate to call a close friend. His support, friendship, guidance, and example of personal and intellectual integrity over the years mean more to me than I can properly express. My life would not be the same, nor this book possible, without him.

I’ve had a host of libertarian friends and friend groups that I’ve learned and benefitted from, or had support from, over the years, including my longtime friend Jack Criss, Jr.; the “Las Vegas crew”—former students of Rothbard and Hoppe, and now my good friends: Doug French (and Deanna Forbush), Jeff Barr, Lee Iglody, Jim Yohe, Joe Becker; others such as Juan Fernando Carpio; Greg and Joy Morin; Konrad Graf, Michael Conaghan, Jacob Huebert, Gene Healy, Gary Chartier, Gerard Casey, Richard Storey, Tom Woods, Michael Malice, Bob Murphy, Roderick Long, Jan Narveson, Frank van Dun, Robert Bradley, Jr.; Gil Guillory, Paul Edwards, Jacob Lovell, Rob Wicks, Greg Rome, Brian Martinez, Dick Clark, Isaac Bergman, Daniel Coleman, Timo Virkkala, and many others in my “Libertarian Forum” crowd (you know who you are); James Cox and Daniel Rothschild; many friends and scholars from the Property and Freedom Society and from countless Mises Institute events and conferences since 1995, including Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, Tom DiLorenzo, Peter Klein, Jeff Herbener, Joe Salerno, Sean Gabb, and others; correspondents from years ago such as Johan Ridenfeldt and Chris Whitten; co-authors and friends such as Patrick Tinsley, Jeff Tucker, and Walter Block, the first two of whom co-authored chapters with me in this volume. Thanks also to Nelson Loftin, for nudging me over several years to complete this book.

My dear friend Guido Hülsmann, whom I met on a bus from the Atlanta airport to the Mises Institute in Auburn in 1995 when we were both going there to meet Hans-Hermann Hoppe, has been an important friend and influence, both personally and intellectually. My friend Wendy McElroy has also been an inspiration and sounding board and helped me see the light on IP.

The notes for various chapters in this book also thank various commentators.

I would also like to thank Randy Barnett, and several LSU law professors, such as Saúl Litvinoff, Glenn Morris, William Hawkland, Alain Levasseur, Robert Pascal, and John Devlin, for inspiration, support, and guidance in my earlier years in law school and in the beginning years of my legal practice and scholarly and educational endeavors (Litvinoff and Pascal were not my professors but they became friends and correspondents after law school). I learned a great deal at the LSE about international law and legal scholarship from professor and now Baroness Rosalyn Higgins, later President of the International Court of Justice; she inspired and informed much of my subsequent legal publications on international law.

I am also grateful to my intellectual adversaries, who have forced me to hone, refine, and clarify my arguments to counter and explain the errors in theirs.

P.J. Doland, a fellow libertarian and web-designer with www.DancingMammoth.com, has graciously hosted and helped me run my own websites and others I manage over the years, all in the service of liberty, which were invaluable in collecting, publishing, and assembling material used in the preparation of this book. Since I haltingly started this book project about fifteen years ago, I’ve had the assistance of several people, including Lisa Eldridge and Rosemary Denshaw (transcriptions); Justina Clark, Harry David, Lauren Barlow, and Carly Catt (copyediting); Susi Clark, of www.creativeblueprintdesign.com, for cover design, typesetting and publishing assistance; and Susan Bruck (proofreading, indexing, and bibliography).

The image on the back cover of the book is based on a painting by my childhood friend John Wax, of www.JohnWaxArt.com, which itself was based on photographs of a statue by H.C. Andersen.3 To get permission and arrange a private photographer at the Andersen Musuem in Rome, I was fortunate to have the help of my Italian libertarian friend and scholar, Roberta Modugno, and my Italian-speaking Canadian libertarian attorney friend Daniel Roncari.

To all these, and many others not mentioned, I am grateful.

1 Many of them included in the works listed in Stephan Kinsella, “The Greatest Libertarian Books,” StephanKinsella.com(Aug. 7, 2006).

2 See Michael Cloud, “The Late, Great Libertarian Macho Flash,” benbachrach.com (1978; preserved at https://perma.cc/KY9P-V7K7). See also Jeff Wood, “The Triumphant Return of Libertarian Macho Flash,” medium.com (March 8, 2017; https://perma.cc/KE6W-WQK4).

3 See Kinsella, “The Story of a Libertarian Book Cover,” StephanKinsella.com (March 4, 2011).