Demonstrated Preference and Regime Propaganda

Libertarian friends: please guard against falling for cheap sophistical tricks of authoritarian regimes. To take an example, the fact that a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party apparatchik says a few nice words about Rothbard does NOT mean that he is more pro-liberty or pro-market than, say, a random high-ranking American bureaucrat who has no nice words to say about Rothbard. All diligent students of Rothbard should heed the principle of demonstrated preference: it is actions that matter, not words.