Was Abe Lincoln Gay? (The blockbuster book that will change America’s history)

See what I mean, LG? The bile is flowing freely from his mouth. And all of that was in response to a perfectly reasonable critique I made of his attempts to dismiss and even tar DiLorenzo for using Austrian economists rather than court historians as his sources.

Well, if you don't see that your boy and his ilk are "court historians" for their own small camp, that's your problem.

And alas, you prove my point once again. You cannot read. You don't think clearly or honestly. You can't go for long without trying to smear or insult those who disagree. Hence purposeful discussion with you is impossible.

Look at what I said. You must have seen it, since you excerpted it: "As a rule I do not respond to your posts." As a rule, based on long acquaintance with you and your methods, I don't respond to your posts. Over time, I've come to know how you operate quite well, and what I wrote was a response to the impression you've made on me and on others through years of experience.

I made an exception to my usual practice to indicate to anyone who might be following this thread that my initial non-response wasn't because I was trying to duck anything. I see now that this was a mistake, and my rule was right.

Well, if you don't see that your boy and his ilk are "court historians" for their own small camp, that's your problem.

In other words, your only response to having been caught in an unjustified slur upon DiLorenzo for using Austrian historical sources is to call him a name. Very mature, Mr. X.

And alas, you prove my point once again. You cannot read. You don't think clearly or honestly. You can't go for long without trying to smear or insult those who disagree.

And the bile continues to flow.

Over time, I've come to know how you operate quite well,

I'm happy you think that you do. I'll simply note that there is great ire and frustration evident throughout your last several posts. Perhaps I've gotten under your skin, or perhaps it's because I've simply cast due doubt upon your screeds and platitudes. Whatever the case, it remains evident that you are neither interested in substantive discourse nor willing to honestly consider the validity of citing the Austrian school despite your initial tarring of them based upon an ignorant review of a book you've never read. But go ahead - take your ball and go home if it makes you happier and alleviates the discomfort I have caused you. Once again I'll make due note that while you purport to have your own rule of engagement, so do I. So long as you fib, distort, and continue to post intellectually unjustified and unsustainable posts on this and any other thread, I will respond where it is necessary. What you choose to do with that response or whether you desire it to be made is not a matter of my concern.

Most conservatives regard the Rockwellites as a nuisance because, for people who are willing to sacrifice principle for the sake of power, people of principle and consistent ideology are always a nuisance. Why have to listen to all those spoil sports pointing out deviations from principle when there is a meaningless victory to celebrate.

Did I accidentally log onto the moveon.org website? I'm sure you didn't mean to criticize Austrian Economics, did you? While someone does not necessarily have to accept all the libertarian policy conclusions they come to, is it really up for debate that the free market is the most efficient, best, and least coercive way to distribute goods and services? (For example, one could agree that the free market is clearly the most efficient way to distribute prostitution, without agreeing that it ought to be legally available.) What alternative school of thought are you proposing? Keynes? Marx?

I consider the Rockwell/Mises folks paleo or right-wing libertarians. They are not leftist Utopians like some libertarians, hoping to usher in heaven on earth despite all the evidence that man is flawed. I attribute this to the fact that by and large they are theistic in world view. The hostility from some left libs, is because they respect the role of religion, culture, tradition etc. in creating a stable society where we can hope to live free. For left libs, who are primarily interested in sex, drugs, and abortions to get rid of the consequences of the former, their friendliness to tradition and religion is intolerable. The Rockwell folks have also been willing to forge alliances with people or organizations who they clearly disagree with on some issues. Such as Paul Craig Roberts. Their willingness to post articles by fellow isolationist who are "historical revisionist" for example has elicited cries of antisemitism from some libertarians who are just as neutered by the forces of political correctness as are liberals and mainstream "conservatives."

While I am not a libertarian, I recognize that any alternative right-wing movement that can replace the pathetic brand of "conservatism" that we have today, will include Rockwellites. And for that, I think they make an invaluable contribution.

How was the Peroutka victory party? Was it crowded?

Seriously, when I first came on line in the Clinton era I was rather taken with lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com. What they were saying was new to me then and stimulating. But I've grown up since those days. The Rockwellites don't seem to have much sense of how the world really works in practice. Theirs is a perfect world in which everything works out for the best if it's left alone. It's certainly true that plenty of things in the world are like that, but not everything.

One can certainly argue that glasses should always be completely full or completely empty or that markets should be given free rein in all circumstances and government completely removed from whole spheres of activity, but I doubt life and circumstances will allow that, and you have to put up with half-full and half-empty glasses. Some might say that to demand unalloyed perfection is what it means to stand by principle, but I'm not so sure.

People who take "principle" to mean "all or nothing" are usually disappointed and often taught a harsh lesson by life. In the early years of the republic, Americans who wanted complete isolation from foreign affairs were disappointed by the way that Europeans refused to comply with their wishes, as reality so often does, and forced to take actions that they didn't theoretically approve of.

While I'd agree that less government is better than more, there's something stupifying about lewrockwell.com, mises.org or strike-the-root.com: six times a week the same hastily written illustrations of the same idea without regard to the specific circumstances involved in any particular situation.

After a while, one gets the basic message and the daily hammer blows serve only to deaden the mind and senses. If they published less often, or only when they really had something to say, I might think better of them. Or if they looked seriously at the difficulty putting their ideas into practice or considered the objections to them. It looks to me like they're deficient in the skepticism and empiricism that are necessary in dealing with the real world.

Some things in particular turned me against Rockwell. First, most of us are aware of the troubles under the Articles of Confederation that led to the adoption of the Constitution, which gave us a more powerful federal government. I don't think at the time and given the circumstances that that was a misstep. Plenty of Rockwellites and fellow travellers, like Stromberg and Sobran, Rothbard and Rockwell, Trask and Tucker do, to one degree or another.

Second, when they were in power Jeffersonians like Madison and Monroe went some distance in implementing elements of Hamilton's economic program. I don't blame them for that, though radicals like John Taylor did. It was part of a praiseworthy effort to put a new and fragile country on its feet militarily and economically. Yet reading pig boy's book on Lincoln one finds little awareness of this compromises Jeffersonian Republicans made. Nor does he address it in his latest. The Hamiltonians are evil, the Jeffersonians good, period, and the complexity and ambiguity of the situation elude him. Hardly a recommendation of ferret man as a historian.

Third, in 19th century America the promoters of "empire" and expansion tended to be Democrats, as increasingly, did the strongest supporters of White supremacy. Yet one hardly sees any acknowledgement of this in DiLoDufus's work. We're told that Western expansion and the displacement of the Indians in the late 19th century were the doing of Lincoln, his Republicans, and the evil North, but the actions of Democrats and Southerners when they held power are more or less ignored. DiLamentable is our generation's equivalent of Arthur Schlesinger Jr, who wrote a whole book on the "Age of Jackson" without addressing the "Trail of Tears" and the expulsion of the Cherokee when his hero was in the White House.

For weasel boy, it's all about economics. The Whigs are the party of statism and intervention in the economy and hence evil, the Democrats libertarian and good. But in fact, there were plenty of reasons why someone opposed to empire or White supremacy would oppose the Democrats. Corruption and excesses in government power plagued the dominant Democratic Party as well as the Whigs, at least in the eyes of many alive at the time.

Finally, The Rockwellites assume that the "right" to secede was taken for granted in the early Republic and some how stolen or destroyed by Lincoln. From what I can see this question is so complicated, that one can't simply accept such a simplistic view of things as Gospel. As with plenty of other subjects not specifically addressed in the Constitution there were conflicting interpretations. It came to be assumed by many that unilateral secession would mean civil war, and this was something secessionists were aware of and ought to have taken into account when they made their plans.

So, four criticisms of the Rockwellites' view of our history. Do they matter in the larger context of contemporary politics? Maybe not, but when it comes to talking about history, some of these objections are enough to discredit the Rockwellites now and for a long time to come. If you want a party line and marching orders that's one thing, but I don't necessarily go to history to rage at one side and celebrate the other, but to understand what happened and why, which options were available to people and why they took the options they did.

What I've said of Rockwell applies to other neoconfederate groups. A lot of people have some sympathy for "Southern heritage" groups and don't see any point in blaming 19th century Americans for having been what they were. But when we discover latter day Confederate sites that abuse Northerners who fought for what they understood to be freedom, union, and the Constitution, and whitewash all the negative aspects of the rebellion, we aren't especially inclined to go along or to accord such sites and the writers on them much respect.

Most conservatives regard the Rockwellites as a nuisance because, for people who are willing to sacrifice principle for the sake of power, people of principle and consistent ideology are always a nuisance.

That is true. I've spoken to many "neo-libertarian" types who are not of the Rockwell branch of that ideology. While they vehemently disagree with the Rockwellites on many issues, most of them give them credit for hardfast adherence to libertarian principles at times when some other libertarian groups like Cato have wavered a bit.

Theirs is a perfect world in which everything works out for the best if it's left alone.

What on earth are you talking about/smoking, Mr. X? The Rockwell-type libertarians are probably among the LEAST utopian members of the libertarian movement out there. Their ranks are full of cynics and old style realists who truly despise government and consider most forms of government intervention to be damaging yet also realize that government exists virtually everywhere. By and large they tend not to push some sort of goofy end-of-history anarcho-libertarian utopia theory like their counterparts elsewhere in the libertarian movement. They also tend to look with scrutiny upon most who do and have strong criticisms for the Reason Magazine crowd and Randians who tilt in that direction. Much like the Austrians who they draw upon ideologically, they will openly admit that they desire a minimalist government but also note that one does not exist at present. Schumpeter's most famous theory was that, despite the great and powerful benefits of the free market, political society in the 20th century would trend towards intervention and the "democratic socialism" form of the communist left. He was a realist and, given the "democratic socialist" examples in Western Europe today, was largely correct but that doesn't make him any less of an Austrian free marketeer nor could he reasonably be considered a utopian. Schumpeter, along with Mises, is one of the most frequent citations in DiLorenzo's newest book, which you ignorantly maligned based upon faulty second hand information and your own personal prejudices against the author.

Also, if you're going to critique the Rockwell crowd and the Austrian school of economics, AT LEAST make some effort to faithfully represent their ideas before taking them on. What you post is a crude, ill-informed, and uneducated mockery of their positions - a straw man designed for you to easily tear down or dismiss. Your references to them as "perfect world" utopians and your attempts to dismiss their books when you have not even faithfully examined them are classic examples of this and, given that the shortcomings your early attempts at a critique have been thoroughly discussed in your presence, you cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for persisting in misrepresentation. Only willful deceit suffices and if you don't like the fact that I am "personalizing" the debate by calling you a filthly liar for persistently espousing the same deceitful slurs and straw mans, Mr. X, tough. If you don't want to be called a filthy liar, quit telling filthy lies about your opponents and quit making gratuitous and prejudiced attacks upon them and their works.

Second, when they were in power Jeffersonians like Madison and Monroe went some distance in implementing elements of Hamilton's economic program. I don't blame them for that, though radicals like John Taylor did. It was part of a praiseworthy effort to put a new and fragile country on its feet militarily and economically.

Whatever the ideological inclination you may have towards justifying Hamiltonian economics, the overwhelming volume of historical evidence shows that the program was an utter failure. Frank Taussig's study on three key "infant industry" sectors (iron, woolens, and cotton textiles) that were protected as part of the mercantile program from 1816 through the 1840's concludes that not one was helped in any significant way by the tariffs. Iron was so ADVERSELY impacted by protection (which turned domestic manufacturers into lazy monopolies) that it wasn't until the 1830's that the United States implemented smelting techniques invented in Britain during the revolutionary war! THAT'S A FIFTY YEAR TECHNOLOGICAL LAG, in case you did not notice. Virtually all of the ill effects that John Taylor predicted about the mercantilist protectionism of the 1820's came true.

Yet reading pig boy's book on Lincoln one finds little awareness of this compromises Jeffersonian Republicans made.

Incorrect. Madison was never a true Jeffersonian-Republican but rather a political moderate who was notoriously inconsistent on a whole range of issues throughout his career. In 1789 he was a crusader against protection of virtually any form and led the arguments against the protectionists in Congress. Later he relaxed his positions off and on as he saw it fit to do so. Monroe had the convenience of being in office for one of the few times in our history where there was basically a single political party, the federalists having met their demise at the end of the War of 1812. Thus his form of Jeffersonianism was not at all identical with the previous form under its namesake and his followers. The primary Jeffersonians were Jefferson himself, St. George Tucker, and John Taylor - all of whom held to their beliefs (Taylor even published a book against the tariff during the middle of the post war of 1812 "infant industry" protection drive) unlike the fair weather adherents like Madison.

The Hamiltonians are evil, the Jeffersonians good, period

Not quite "period" for all that Hamilton was concerned with, but as far as his mercantile policies go it's pretty darn close. The Hamiltonian mercantile agenda, when implemented, WAS a dismal failure, period. It simply did not accomplish the infant industry growth it promised and in many cases, such as iron, it actually retarded development. Given that fact - one which has been subsequently affirmed in several research studies and at least a couple econometric models BTW - it is not at all unreasonable or incorrect to state that the Hamiltonian mercantile agenda as implemented from 1816 through the 1840's was wrong for the new nation or to characterize the policy as one deserving of scorn.

Another thing, Mr. X, on your comment below:

First, most of us are aware of the troubles under the Articles of Confederation that led to the adoption of the Constitution, which gave us a more powerful federal government. I don't think at the time and given the circumstances that that was a misstep. Plenty of Rockwellites and fellow travellers, like Stromberg and Sobran, Rothbard and Rockwell, Trask and Tucker do, to one degree or another.

You treat the fact that many Rockwell followers favor the Articles of Confederation as if this were some sort of "crime" against a matter of fact. It is not. While there can be no doubt of the outcome of the debate over the articles and constitution, one cannot honestly and fairly dismiss the opposing view in that argument for simply taking the side that lost. The Anti-Federalist ranks included several very respectable founders who made founding era contributions just as worthy as the likes of Hamilton and in many cases more so. They included such names as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Luther Martin, George Mason and dozens upon dozens of other notable revolutionaries, constitutional convention and continental congress delegates, and other leading figures from the founding era. The Rockwell crowd is not any more "wrong" for espousing an anti-federalist today than those men were back in the 1780's and for you to implicate them with an historical wrong rather than simply stating your disagreement on the position they take constitutes yet another unjustified slur.

I admire your ability to churn out these long posts. I can't possibly deal with that whole post. I will say this. I am an unapologetic anti-Federalist. That Patrick Henry (after whom my oldest son is named) was a real scoundrel, wasn't he? Look around you at our government grow totally out of of control. Everything the Federalist said the government wouldn't or couldn't do, it has. Everything the anti-Federalist have said the government would do, it has. How are those checks and balances working for you now? When it comes to government, not only is smaller better than bigger, but more local is better than more distant.