General

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:02:01 GMT

Wheylous had linked this before, but I only just read it. Seems Kinsella was right on the money, as he penned this on Friday, and it was only today that the expose on Wenzel's aliases came out.

Posted as an update to the blog post on the debate, as well as on Facebook:

Some of my friends have admonished me for the Larouchie comments Wenzel is pretending to go crazy about. I do not disagree that it is possible it was a tactical error to even debate him, or take my approach in continuing to engage him.

But I have not been persuaded that any of my comments to or about him were wrong (though I am open to this). Let me give some context.

Wenzel appeared out of nowhere in 2008–2009 or so. He starts attacking Jeff Tucker and my IP comments—implying we are “communists” etc. Implying he has a “book” on IP coming out (and even a book on libertarian theory). He does this while cozying up to Mises Institute people and people interested in Austrian economics. He sets himself up as a big economic prognosticator, though no one had ever heard of the guy before. Is this even his original name? Where did he come from? No one knows.

So this no-name non-scholar, a kind of loud-mouth crude braggart self-promoting showboat type, more akin to Bill O’Reilly or Morton Downey Jr., starts loudly braying and attacking me and Tucker. It was obvious to me then, and remains obvious now—in fact it’s more obvious now, after our “debate”—that he has no coherent theory of libertarianism or of IP. He could not even present one in our debate, for which he needed 2–3 months to “prepare.” I half-suspect he did it all as a ruse to sell his ridiculous Drudge formula, which is odd in itself that he would want to hawk $100 or $500 sales of a formula that he can only sell a small amount of, all the while claiming to be rich (offering to pay $500k if people can prove he is not a Larouchie) and while claiming to charge $750 per 10 minutes for a phone consultation (that amounts to $4500 per hour. yeahhhh…. right).

The guys is an obvious blowhard, oddball, and loose cannon. A sensationalist, and not an intellectual or scholar.

A few years ago at Mises Institute in Auburn I was sitting alone in the bar, on my iPad. Wenzel walks up to me and the first thing he says is a snarky, snide remark about me using an Apple product—after all I must be a hypocrite if I use a product from a company that uses copyright, right? So I smiled, changed the subject and bought him a drink. We had a long conversation, some nice, some of which he revealed utterly bizarre things that made me question his … perspectives on life, let’s just say (and which I did not mention in our debate, as they are irrelevant).

Then his attacks continue on me and Tucker. He invited Tucker to debate him and Jeff (probalby wisely) declined. Wenzel then makes some rude, smartass comment that Tucker was a dumbass follower of mine but that at least I had a real theory to be contended with. This is a bizarre slight on Tucker, from whom I have learned a lot, but in any case I offered to “discuss” with him this issue. Within an hour he was trumpeting and promoting it though we had not worked out ground rules yet, and he was asking for a month or two. I guess, to prepare.

So the guy is some outsider, a nobody, spoiling for a fight, looking for traffic. A blustering clown, really. In response to some queries abou this on FB I said what I think (I never mince words): that he would weasel out of the debate like a worm, and that he was a clown. If you listen to his interviews you’ll see what I mean. He is untalented, rude, and a hack. He is a clown. And as for the weasel comment—partly I did that so he could not back down. In any case, in the end he did as I predicted—he weaseled out of presenting a real case for IP or having a real debate about it by wasting time asking why he is a clown; in our “debate” he never did present a coherent view of IP and even today is still grasping for some coherent theory.

Honestly it’s curious why he would even want a “debate.” Why would he debate me if he had no theory? Why would he even care? Why would he be certain that I am wrong? To get attention, obviously. Which he almost admits in subsequent posts bragging about how the debate increased his traffic. This guy is an unscholarly, crude oaf. He has the temerity to cozy up to the Mises Institute and then start attackin me and Jeff Tucker (and implicitly all the senior scholars and other Austro-libertarians who have learned what a horrible thing IP is) and now even the Institute’s leading intellectual and Rothbard’s closest intellectual associate, Hans-Hermann Hoppe—and in the name of Rothbard, to make it worse. In our debate Wenzel violated our pre-agreed upon rules; he was incivil; he did not give me equal time; he talked over me repeatedly; he evaded the issues and failed to answer questions and present a coherent case for IP.

I gave this guys a long leash. I was polite to him. I ignored his earlier slights. I bought him a drink, and talked with him in person. I agreed to a discussion about IP with him, on the terms that we have a civil discussion as equals—not his normal clownish, amateur, embarrassingly oafish “interview” style (read: interrogation). He promoted it to high heaven, then was rude and blustery and loud and ridiculous. He covered up his intellectual and scholarly deficiencies with ridiculous bluster and outrageous rudeness. In response I sometimes laughed in bemusement, in utter amazement that a specimen like him even exists in the real world. And I sometimes mocked him, and toyed with him, since every time I tried to make a serious point I was met with his bizarre bluster and intellectual incompetence. Was it a tactical mistake to engage this mental troll? I don’t know. Was it immoral to mock him and not treat him with respect? I don’t think so. Does he deserve respect? This guy attacked me, Tucker, now Hoppe, and libertarianism itself (by promoting IP). It is rich that he plays the poor victim after engaging in this outrageous stuff.

In any case: he has not (and cannot) demonstrated that IP in any form can be justified.

I am actually surprised any Austro-libertarians take this guy seriously. I never have. No one I know that I respect ever has.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:00:04 GMT

Over 40 posts in the last two days...and not one mention of Kinsella or IP. And this after roughly 2-3 posts per day for the entire two weeks since the debate.

Quite the dropoff.

I think the goose is cooking pretty good by now.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:48:52 GMT

It was good before, now it's just getting reaaally good...

Robert Wenzel (if that is even his name), the pro-IP plagerist liar

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Nick — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:14:20 GMT

a) Who cares? My whole purpose would just be to share it with the world. And stick it to Wenzel. There's been times when I couldn't find an audiobook free online anywhere (and trust me, I know how to look)...so I'd go buy it on Audible and create a torrent and put it out there. Sharing the info dude. That's what it's all about. Even Friedman understood this...

I meant that I personally wouldn't make the decision to spend $550 with the only reason being to share it. My ego isn't as big as Wenzel's, so I wouldn't spend that much money just to stick it to him. I might spend less than that amount, however.

What are you talking about? IP is the best stuff to pool for...it's non-rivalrous: You don't even have to split time use with all the other people in the pool...you just make copies and everyone has it.

You've never split the cost of an online service and just shared one user account with people? You've never put money together for a high-end subscription service and distributed the info among all the people in the pool? You've never bought an expensive education product (e.g. a set of DVDs/CDs) with a group of people and just made copies for everyone?

Yes, I've done many of those. I completely, 100% agree with you. You misunderstood me, or I wasn't clear enough.

I meant that I'm not sure how Wenzel would view it, how it would work in his world. From listening to the debate and reading his IP posts, I can only imagine he'd want his contract with the owner of the Paypal account, for the formula not to be shared with anyone else, and would consier pooling money and sharing the info with the other buyers as an immediate opportunity to sue or call in the Hell's Angels. Which, of course, is the main reason to pool money, buy the formula, share it widely, and see Wenzel's reaction.

I'd also guess that he does have a set of suggestions (= formula) for getting on Drudge, and I'd guess it's worthless for all practical purposes. When have his posts ever appeared on Drudge before? The only huge spike in his website traffic in the last 3 months came from around the time of the Fed speech story. I just don't see huge increases in his traffic where I can guess, "Ok, this is probably a Drudge spike."

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Malachi — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:37:01 GMT

Pretty soon not only does the whole thing get kind of old, but even if you wanted to, it's tough to keep up with all your different threads...you have to try and remember who said what where, where you commented, where you haven't, and when...and then on top of that you've got the whole moderation thing, so there's a delay in your comments showing up.... So you'd have a hard time keeping up even if you tried...you never know when or even if your comment is going to show up, and so not only are you having to remember everything I just mentioned, but you have to keep up with everywhere you submitted a comment and keep checking back to see if it got approved before you can even move on with the discussion.

thats because you have no idea what intellectual property is so you have no idea where your own intellectual property is and isnt, youre littering just as surely as if I tore pages out of a book and scattered them about a public park (something anarchists are no doubt inclined to do, no doubt).

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:51:39 GMT

luc2posse:
I thought about buying the formula, too. But I don't have anything to put on Drudge so wouldn't be able to test it, and I don't really trust anything Wenzel does at this point to be worthwhile or useful.

a) Who cares? My whole purpose would just be to share it with the world. And stick it to Wenzel. There's been times when I couldn't find an audiobook free online anywhere (and trust me, I know how to look)...so I'd go buy it on Audible and create a torrent and put it out there. Sharing the info dude. That's what it's all about. Even Friedman understood this...

(Please visit the site to view this media)

b) Surely you could find some use for it. Even if it's just a matter of selling it to someone else who wasn't aware of it.

Not sure how pooling money to buy IP would work in his world.

What are you talking about? IP is the best stuff to pool for...it's non-rivalrous: You don't even have to split time use with all the other people in the pool...you just make copies and everyone has it.

You've never split the cost of an online service and just shared one user account with people? You've never put money together for a high-end subscription service and distributed the info among all the people in the pool? You've never bought an expensive education product (e.g. a set of DVDs/CDs) with a group of people and just made copies for everyone?

I think Wenzel is trying to deflect focus on the IP debate onto selling his stupid Drudge Formula. Either he simply wasted 2 1/2 hours of Kinsella's time just to promote a $550 product (unlikely). Or he came up with a hypothetical Drudge Formula, saw how much interest it generated in discussions of the debate, came up with some hairbrained set of suggestions he calls a formula, and is trying to sell that instead of engaging in any further debate.

I really highly doubt that. I honestly believe what he says on this. I don't doubt he has a process that he was able to use to increase his chance of getting picked up by Drudge and that he was honestly just using it as an example of what he thinks is "scarce", valuable information. There is no possible way that debate was all a ploy for selling this formula.

My guess is he just got a lot of emails about it and saw a profit opportunity, and one more way to try and attack Kinsella.

I checked his site earlier today. It seems he's doing more economics/current events, rather than personal attacks. But it also seems as though the comments have thinned out a bit. People staying away? Or just a delay in comment approvals?

Could be a little of everything. I'd lean more toward people just getting tired of trying to keep up with all the posts. You respond to one, then other folks jump in, and you've got a little dialogue and an actual conversation thread. 4 hours later Wenzel's got another post up. Then you respond to that one, and the guys you were debating with in the last one come and respond in that one.

Pretty soon not only does the whole thing get kind of old, but even if you wanted to, it's tough to keep up with all your different threads...you have to try and remember who said what where, where you commented, where you haven't, and when...and then on top of that you've got the whole moderation thing, so there's a delay in your comments showing up.... So you'd have a hard time keeping up even if you tried...you never know when or even if your comment is going to show up, and so not only are you having to remember everything I just mentioned, but you have to keep up with everywhere you submitted a comment and keep checking back to see if it got approved before you can even move on with the discussion.

And what's more, I think depending on the platform you use to submit a comment, it actually affects when it will get approved. I'm not completely sure how it works, but it seems that sometimes, even when I got comments approved, there were others getting approved ahead of me, even if their timestamp was after mine. Meaning I submitted a comment, and others appeared in that same thread...then hours later mine appeared above theirs. My first guess would be that the Blogger platform might have an easier time receiving comments submitted from its own users (as opposed to those using some other OpenID from some other platform like LiveJournal, which I was using.) I could be totally wrong on that though.

Either way, I think 3-4 blog posts per day on the subject just wears down your audience. And particularly when all your arguments are the same tired fallacies, it just gets cumbersome.

But yeah, I'm sure Wenzel's gotten plenty of hatemail and comments calling him out for being an ego-bruised clown. And you can only fool yourself for so long. Eventually you get enough people telling you how much you suck all the time, even the biggest most delusional narcissist can start to get affected. I'm sure if he was getting more supporting comments, he'd turn the whole blog into an anti-Kinsella/Tucker site. Or at least start one.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Nick — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 21:49:45 GMT

I'm so tempted to get this formula just to release it and shut Wenzel up. Get it put up on TPB, and a few forums, and then post links to all of them in response to his "What's the Formula Stephan?" post.

Of course, Wenzel's argument seemed to be that, if a single person on the planet didn't have internet or the Google skills to look up the formula, it would still be scarce. Therefore, copyright is justified.

I thought about buying the formula, too. But I don't have anything to put on Drudge so wouldn't be able to test it, and I don't really trust anything Wenzel does at this point to be worthwhile or useful. The $550 price point was way too high, but I'd consider joining a pool. Not sure how pooling money to buy IP would work in his world.

I think Wenzel is trying to deflect focus on the IP debate onto selling his stupid Drudge Formula. Either he simply wasted 2 1/2 hours of Kinsella's time just to promote a $550 product (unlikely). Or he came up with a hypothetical Drudge Formula, saw how much interest it generated in discussions of the debate, came up with some hairbrained set of suggestions he calls a formula, and is trying to sell that instead of engaging in any further debate.

I checked his site earlier today. It seems he's doing more economics/current events, rather than personal attacks. But it also seems as though the comments have thinned out a bit. People staying away? Or just a delay in comment approvals?

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

DanielMuff — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:53:39 GMT

Good point. Wenzel doesn't have the least basic understanding of computer technology, and that is obvious by what he says about them rit IP. Either that or he is a troll.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:34:43 GMT

(I authored this before luc2posse's latest post)

More Wenzel insanity:

The "Drudge Formula" Now Available for Purchase

During the Wenzel-Kinsella debate, I revealed I had a formula for getting my links posted on the Drudge Report.

I am now making the formula available for $550. The formula is included in a short two page report. It reveals the types of posts that Drudge is likely to pick up from an unknown blogger. The better your skill at writing copy that matches the formula, the more likely links to your post will show up on Drudge.

One can't be sure what exactly he is looking to do with this, but I'm sure it's a combination of everything you could think of...a way to make some money, a way to allegedly "prove" is "IP through contract" concept, and a way to continue his "destwoying of stefwan".

But here's where it gets fun...

Obviously the first thing on people's minds is all the normal problems with trying to create IP through libertarian contract law...

Derrick April 12, 2013 at 10:38 AM
If you sell more than one of these, and then it's discovered that others are using it, how are you even going to figure out who leaked it?

test April 12, 2013 at 11:01 AM
Am I liable if a third party breaks into my computer and reads the formula?

awake April 12, 2013 at 11:31 AM
Going to the legth you have to make something infanitly reproducible into artificially scarce does not dissolve the fact that this formula can be replicated for everyone on Earth.

If you get everyone to agree to keep your formula to themselves then great, contracts are contracts. But your formula is not truly scarce as physical resources are, it is artifically restricted by your contractual efforts. Once this secret is let out beyond contracts, your only option is to begin to agress against the persons who have no contract with you in a vain attempt to plug the gaping hole in your theory of IP.

Somewhat surprisingly, Wenzel is actually answering these questions...

Everytime someone mentions something about the almost impossibility of actually proving who leaked the formula, Wenzel comes back with his mysterious "I have my ways. Try it."

Someone did mention that Wenzel could simply slightly alter the formula for each buyer, but even then, several problems arise:

1) It sounds like the "formula" is nothing more than a general outline of recommendations on how to write a juicy blog post, and perhaps a few instructions on various off-page SEO tasks to perform. I really don't see how someone couldn't just reorganize the process into a write-up of all the same generic information, and simply eliminate any traceable aspects.

2) Even supposing one just wished to release the exact PDF Wenzel sends him...how the hell Wenzel expects to be able to identify (let alone find) the culprit, is beyond me. The old fart is certainly not a technology genius, and even if one was, there's virtually no way to positively ID someone in this arrangement if he doesn't want to be identified...

You honestly could hide yourself every step of the way. You just simply use Tor to set up Paypal account with fake information. Transfer money into the account through making a sale of something or through a transfer from another account, and then make the purchase with the dummy account.

Wenzel has no way of enforcing his contract.

The only hurdle is that his price point is $550...and sometimes Paypal restricts accounts to $500 worth of activity before requiring bank account verification. (I wonder if this is a coincidence, or if Wenzel is actually knowledgeable enough to be aware of this, and that is actually what dictated his price point. I doubt it though, as he agreed to sell his (apparently lessor-value) traffic formula for $100.)

But really, if one were determined, or had a little bit of knowledge/skill, he would know how to get around this issue. (And there are multiple ways).

3) Suppose someone leaks the exact file Wenzel sends, and he uses his personal Paypal account, literally giving Wenzel his name and contact info. Is Wenzel really going to expend the time and resources trying to go after this person? It would be incredibly time consuming and expensive, particularly if the person was a foreigner, (although apparently Wenzel is just rolling in cash and has all the money in the world to throw away on petty bullshit like half-million dollar wagers). But even supposing this is the case (which I would find odd, considering how busy Wenzel always claims to be), it leads to another problem that at least one commenter raised immediately...

4) What if this person has nothing of value to seize? What if he is "an unemployed basement dweller in his mom's house and he has no assets."

If The Point didn't publish the name and address of the recipient of the funds, I'd actually crowd source the cost, just to shove it in his face even more. (Can you imagine the reaction upon having a Point campaign dedicated to collecting pledges for the sole purpose of purchasing and releasing his precioius formula?)

Technically you could still do it, but the hoops need to jump through to protect yourself would be too many, I think. You can never tell how far he'd be willing to push his lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy would bankrupt himself carrying that case as far as he could, just to be able to blog about getting his retribution. You never want to underestimate the tenacity of someone with a lot of time and extremely low self esteem.

If anyone would want to donate more privately, through bitcoin, or directly to the dummy Paypal account...I'd even more strongly consider being the mole.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Malachi — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:21:04 GMT

his rant against Ann Coulter for not appearing on his show seemed a little too personal.

indeed.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Nick — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:18:09 GMT

Yes, RIP Economic Policy Journal. No one swung the hammer of Rothbard at Krugman harder than Wenzel. But now I feel that Wenzel doesn't like Krugman just because Krugman "doesn't understand Rothbard," not because one or the other is right or wrong on any given issue. Maybe Wenzel can save face by shutting down EPJ and opening RothbardianDogmatismJournal or something.

I've followed EPJ for a few years now, and always ignored his IP stuff and promises of a libertarian, pro-IP book. When he started his show, and I saw how overbearing he was to his guests, I lost a little confidence in him. His performance on the Peter Schiff show was uncontrolled, and his rant against Ann Coulter for not appearing on his show seemed a little too personal. I bet his ego was missing being able to quote Rothbard at Coulter and post a "Coulter Crushed!!!" blog entry.

The Fed lunch speech story seemed a little "thin," for lack of a better term. He never mentions how many people were present when he gave the speech. He gives an indication of a Q&A session, where "one economist" (ambiguous, but he seems to be indicating one economist at a time, and multiple total) plays his Austrian economics sparring partner. Why would they invite him to speak? Hadn't they heard how he treats guests on his show? No surprise the whole story is falling apart now.

I saw on his blog that he's now trying to sell the Drudge Formula for $550, and threatening to sue for negligence anyone who pays for the formula but has it stolen from them. I see how IP would work in his world now.

It's hard to tell whether he's ignorant or dishonest about his whole scarcity-super abundant understanding. I'll chalk it up to dishonesty for a paycheck by Rossini, who seemed the clearer thinker and who I had a higher opinion of than Wenzel to begin with. Here's a post from May 2009 where he discusses sorting out the issue of using/discovering the wheel in court.

I don't think Wenzel is a statist on this issue. I think he legitimately thinks he can convince the world to recognize that he has a property right in the income potentially or actually generated by any thought he has, and recognize that he can enforce that property right with any means at his disposal (No Trespassing signs, Hell's Angels, or lawsuits, for instance). And according to him, this would be a libertarian world.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:55:38 GMT

Ansury:
Has anyone spammed that Wikipedia rivalry link on Wenzel's blog yet? Seriously, if he has even a single brain cell firing correctly (which I have doubts), he should be able to figure this out after reading that. With all the Googling for quotes to read he was doing you'd think he'd have the sense to look that one up.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/hans-hoppe-issues-statement-supporting.html?showComment=1364953660790#c7939496327774198337

FFS, why can't he just admit he was wrong and move on?

Like I said, ego. Remember this is the guy who promoted the shit out his 3-man lunch one day as some epic truth-to-power stick it to the man speech at the Fed.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

DrewNull — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:48:06 GMT

John James:
Even outside the libertarian community, people are getting it. The Internet and digital age has moved the world into an era in which it is getting harder and harder not to see the reality of ideas and patterns as not ownable property.

This is a really important point. From my own experiences I have found this to be true. I am kind of a firebrand in RL--but am making a conscious effort to take a softer, less incindiary tone--and of all the things I say that my family, friends, and coworkers object to, my stance on IP is not one of them. Which is amazing to me because IP is one of those things that I always took for granted myself. But rather than a no I usually get, "I've never really thought about it before", exactly where I was prior to reading Boldrin & Levine's book (thank you Jeffrey Tucker!). The leftists I talk to, of course, agree for all the wrong reasons. But it's encouraging to see the wheels spinning in the eyes of a conservative or Republican. That's where the IP battle needs to be won, imo.

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

Ansury — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 08:36:55 GMT

Rivalry isn't psychological or "only existing in people's minds", it's physical reality. Wikipedia explains it pretty well I think:

A rival (subtractable) good is a good whose consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers.^[2] Put differently, a good is considered non-rival (non-subtractable) if, for any level of production, the cost of providing it to a marginal (additional) individual is zero.

also

Goods that are non-rival are goods that can be enjoyed simultaneously by an unlimited number of consumers.

Defined any other way, the basis for the need to have private property would probably collapse completely (as it does with IP). This is a fundamental principle libertarian ideas are built upon, and it's a disgrace that Bob had no clue about how this works. For me this makes him unqualified in his current role (or what's left of it), sadly.

Carried out to the logical conclusion, even air or land would run out eventually (although I suppose you could say those are "less" rivalrous currently). An idea, or a design, or any pattern in nature cannot "run out". You can't fight someone else over something that both of you know, it makes no sense. It would be like fighting to take someone's apple in a world where the supply of apples is infinite. But you can compete for the profits gained when employing ideas or patterns - that's what Wenzel is really arguing for the "protection" of, as if profit was property. i.e. Protection against competition, i.e. private monopolies.

So I guess apparently, to Wenzel, profit = property (but only for IP!)...it's hard to think of anything more nonsensical than that.

Has anyone spammed that Wikipedia rivalry link on Wenzel's blog yet? Seriously, if he has even a single brain cell firing correctly (which I have doubts), he should be able to figure this out after reading that. With all the Googling for quotes to read he was doing you'd think he'd have the sense to look that one up. FFS, why can't he just admit he was wrong and move on?

Re: Kinsella v. Wenzel

John James — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:43:02 GMT

luc2posse:
EDIT: also wondering if this will be Wenzel's shark. Just checked his Alexa stats, and -14.01% reach over the last 7 days. Not long enough to be a trend yet, but I'll be interested to see if his site loses some of its popularity among libertarians.

As you note, I'm pretty sure it already has. As I mentioned, the unlibertarian reality of IP is becoming more and more apparent to libertarians. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority are at least skeptical already. Even outside the libertarian community, people are getting it. The Internet and digital age has moved the world into an era in which it is getting harder and harder not to see the reality of ideas and patterns as not ownable property. Again, just look around... (Falkvinge.net; Torrentfreak.com; Legal Scholars: Thumbs Down on Patent and Copyright; The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism; The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism)

I myself sent a couple of videos to Kinsella illustrating the growing reach of IP skepticism, which he posted...

LearnLiberty: Can Artists Make Money Without Copyrights? (Video)

Wenzel has had to keep doubling down, and he's just been digging his grave deeper and deeper. And his logical fallacies and painful lack of any positive argument whatsoever are bad enough...but you throw in his pettiness and barrage of 12-year-old-butthurt blog posts, and it's easy to see why his traffic would be going down. The guy is undoubtedly losing credibility with libertarians with virtually every IP post he makes. (And of course, libertarians likely make up better than 90% of his readership.)

And as noted in this thread, the shrilly petty tone of his Kinsella/Tucker attacks is leaking and drowning out the rest of his blog. He obviously has real self esteem issues, and of course, ego is never a good look on anybody. That's actually a really great way to lose followers.

But even without his childish behavior, his intellectual ineptitude would be enough to turn off his audience. Libertarians tend to be some of the more active minded and considered thinkers of all, and I find they tend to be more intellectually honest as well. (I personally think this is a side effect of having the morally correct philosophy and the scientifically correct economic understanding.) They therefore don't care much for (and have an easier time recognizing) poor arguments and abject nonsense. This is largely what we've been seeing all month in the comments throughout the libertarian Internet sphere in response to the podcast.

As I said in commentary elsewhere, Wenzel was wise to keep his mouth shut on his position and just keep shoving it off on his unpublished book that never appeared. By the time word of the debate came around, he was already too invested...both in his position as well as the debate itself...and he couldn't back down on either one (ego issues, remember.) And ever since, he's been his own worst enemy. You'll find he has maybe 2 or 3 ardent supporters defending him at length in literally every one of his blog posts against the onslaught of criticism. (And I wouldn't be surprised if he or Chris Rossini was one of them.) And of course, that's just the criticism we see...every single comment that gets submitted has to be manually approved. So we have literally no idea how much more is out there, lost in cyberspace. But of course we can get at least some sense of it just based on the sheer amount of it elsewhere.

I think it's safe to say Wenzel has put his goose on the fryer, and has absolutely no intention of even turning down the heat. I guarantee that codger will take his IP nonsense to his grave (which probably isn't far off, by the way.)

Senility sure is a bitch.

Rest in peace EconomicPolicyJournal. June 1, 2003 - April 1, 2013