Five Private Steps in the Statist Censorship Continuum
Censored image: This Substack distills every article into clear syllogistic infographics—saving readers time and preventing shaky premises and reasoning from being hidden behind a torrent of words. However, AIs often refuse to generate politically incorrect infographics. Initially Grok refused to generate this infographic and gave instead a long lecture on the great trustworthiness of the Mises Institute. Here is an example:
After being pushed, Grok finally agreed to generate an infographic but refused to include the terms “Jewish monopolies” (historical tax farmer, slave trade, war contractor, trade and banking monopolies) and “Jewish Problem” (Diaspora group refusing to assimilate). Yet other American AI models are even more censorious. ChatGPT, for instance, flatly refuses to discuss historically documented Jewish monopolies, while China’s DeepSeek allows these conversations.
Introduction
The Ludwig von Mises Institute serves as the headquarters for the Austrian School of economics and the rationalist-conservative strain of libertarianism known as Austro-Libertarianism. Although Ludwig von Mises passed away in 1973 and his leading disciple, Murray Rothbard, in 1995, their memory and intellectual message are carried on by the Institute. Led by President Llewellyn Rockwell Jr., the Institute’s foremost resident intellectual is David Gordon—a close friend and disciple of Rothbard. Like Mises and Rothbard, Gordon is Jewish. So too was Burton Blumert, whose Center for Libertarian Studies helped establish the Mises Institute before later integrating into it.
Following Blumert’s passing in 2009, only Rockwell and Gordon remain from the original guard. Gordon serves as the scholarly editor of the Mises Review and stands as the ultimate authority on all things Rothbardian. He is deeply revered by the Institute’s student body; some of his student fans even affectionately refer to him as the mastermind or “God” due to his encyclopedic knowledge on virtually every subject.
Image: Burton Blumert, Lew Rockwell, David Gordon and Murray Rothbard
Together, Rockwell and Gordon have led the Institute for decades, dramatically expanding its footprint into a multi-building campus where thousands of university students and scholars have been educated on the principles of liberty.
Austro-Libertarianism is renowned not only for its free-market ideology and cultural conservatism, but particularly for its anti-war, isolationist foreign policy. This stance is rooted in an Austro-Libertarian Theory and historical narrative that views the United States as the world’s foremost imperialist power. At first glance, the Austro-Libertarian theory of history appears paradoxical. Much like Marxist theory, it posits that world history is largely driven by genetic and economic forces. However, unlike Marxism, it assigns a key role to specific individuals who operate at the crossroads of history when economic crises and wars create turning points. These key actors can be great generals, politicians, or entrepreneurs—but they can also be intellectuals. Occasionally, these intellectuals act as true masterminds, steering the course of history toward either liberty or tyranny through the sheer force of their ideas and personality.
Austro-Libertarians believe that during the last century, two great masterminds successfully turned the wheel of history toward liberty: Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. Mises championed the fight against socialism. His disciple, Rothbard, not only expanded Mises’ work into a comprehensive, rationalist anti-statist paradigm, but also laid the foundations for the modern paleolibertarian movement alongside allies like Howard Buffett, Ron Paul and Patrick Buchanan.
The most famous of these allies is former Congressman Ron Paul, who remains closely associated with the institute. His historic campaigns in 2008 and 2012 brought him remarkably close to securing the Republican presidential nomination. Today, the Ron Paul Liberty Movement continues to exert significant influence within the Republican Party, MAGA and the larger libertarian movement.