336. Rothbard at 100 Conference: Talks by Ammous, Hoppe, Kinsella & de Mombynes

— Rothbard on Palestine and property rights: Saifeddin Ammous examined Rothbard's dissection of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, showing how Austrian economics—anchored in property rights—naturally leads to conclusions about land dispossession and the impossibility of displacing an existing population without violent conflict.

— Rothbard's prescience on fixed-supply money: Ammous highlighted that Rothbard advocated for a fixed money supply in the 1960s–80s when it seemed heretical, laying intellectual groundwork that later enabled understanding of Bitcoin.

— War and empire: Hans Hoppe discussed how internally liberal states—paradoxically—tend to pursue the most aggressive foreign policies, using externalized costs (taxation, conscription) to fund imperial expansion abroad.

— Intellectual property critique: Stephen Kinsella presented Rothbard's "greatest hits," emphasizing his defense of argumentation ethics, title-transfer theory of contract, and early opposition to intellectual property and defamation law—areas where Rothbard came close to rejecting IP entirely.

— Obstacles to becoming Rothbardian: Hoppe recounted how his generation in post-WWII Germany absorbed official narratives about guilt and democracy, later rejecting them through reading Rothbard on monetary policy, state monopolies, central banking, and affirmative action perversions of justice.

— Bitcoin as digital sound money: Opening remarks and closing segments explored whether Rothbard would recognize Bitcoin as fulfilling his vision of money separated from state control, even if he initially preferred gold remonetization.

— Study Rothbard's *The Austrian Theory of Money* and *War Guilt in the Middle East* to understand how Austrian praxeology cuts through propaganda and emotional narratives—a framework applicable to current geopolitics and monetary debates.

— Recognize that property rights are foundational: conflicts emerge when they are violated; peace requires respecting them universally, not selectively based on ethnic, religious, or state identity.

— Question narratives that rely on "civilizational" hierarchies or collective guilt to justify coercive policies; sound analysis rests on individual rights, voluntary exchange, and consent—not appeals to majority feeling or vague tribal identity.