Hans-Herman Hoppe

You said you've been meaning to create an article on him. That bozo deserves all the exposure he can get. There's something about him that just drives me…Hoppeing mad! (Obscure Rothbard reference.) Shall I suggest that you start with his argumentation ethics first?

Actually, someone beat me to it. I am working on cleaning it up a bit. I find Hoppe to be refreshingly honest. He pretty much draws out what ancapistan would look like in real life, it's just that he endorses it rather than finding it horrifying.

Basically, he wants a paleoconservative town, but just dresses it up as a "proprietary community". It's always the JBS types who say that they're anti-government, but when they explain abolishing the federal government and the state government, I'm left scratching my head. It always sounds like a town with a government. Take Gary North for instance: he yaks on and on about "the state", but he just seems to be replacing it with theocratic government. Hardly "anti-statist", if you ask me. Unfortunately, I've lately been leaning towards seeing it as "zero government" for some strange reason, but my older views seem more accurate. But, really, you have to add argumenation ethics to it. It is SO bad. (Strangely, though, I still feel like it works, but again, my more rational side disagrees.)

Yes, the paleo-libertarians are really railing against FedGuv, so they can set up their own governments at local levels.

I am most familiar with Hoppe's book Democracy: The God That Failed. Maybe you would be better at writing up a section for argumentation ethics? It is quite amusing, from the little summary I read on the LvMI site. It is very similar to the other rhetorical ploy used as regards the action axiom -- "Are you denying that people act? You are contradicting yourself!" Also very much like the Randroids' abuse of identity -- "Do you deny that A is A??"

In defense of praxeology…

The article also notes that Jurgen Habermas was his adviser! I wonder what Habermas thinks of him? And vice-versa? Hoppe is the intellectual descendant of... (thunderclap) cultural Marxism!

Yup. Argumentation ethics is a rip off of discourse ethics. Is it bad if I still feel AE is kind of convincing?

Per Wikipedia:

Hoppe says his theory proves that arguing for any political position other than libertarian anarchism is logically inconsistent. ... his theory is an a priori, value-free praxeological argument for deontological libertarian ethics.[1] Argumentation ethics asserts the non-aggression principle is a presupposition of every argument and so cannot be logically denied during an argument.

This is just the transcendental argument for God adapted for libertarianism, isn't it?

Seems like it. I think it works if we're only talking about two people. But what if those two people are debating whether to bomb the residents of the next country over? How does that in any way presuppose NAP?

Isn't the NAP kind of empty though? If I'm hitting you, I may not be "aggressing" against you.

Not necessarily. Though I think if it is consistently applied, it ends up undermining the ancap position. After all, property is theft.

Stephan Kinsella already wrote a rebuttal of that way of seeing the NAP, but GC demolished both. Speaking of that bald man, an article needs to be written on Kinsella, too. He's less of a crank in that he doesn't buy conspiracy theories, but he's HHH's lapdog and he's sort of a cultist.

Austrian arguments often look logically airtight until you scratch the surface and notice how specious they are underneath. I can't even say that for this one, though. I don't even understand the justification Hoppe gives for jumping from rational discourse to the bits about homesteading and scarce resources. Perhaps this is omitted in the summary; it doesn't seem to be too informative.

As for Habermans, I always thought his ideas came from an overly idealistic rationalism, though I haven't read him in any depth. All my knowledge is second-hand from some historians I read who seem to love him.

The link you gave to the LvMI article outlines it. Notice the obligatory boilerplate "...and Liberty" in the title. Kinsella is such a clown; not many in the movement even like him. Also, check out the praxeological argument for intellectual property! What snake oil.