DiLorenzo and his critics

LewRockwell.com ^ | June 18, 2002 | Clyde Wilson

[ned]

If I have a right to secede only when you have determined that my motives are morally valid, Then I Have No Right At All. I must be the judge of my claim to self-government.

In other words, the root of the "right" of secession has nothing to do with "state's rights." If accepted, it is the right of every individual to withdraw from the influence of government without the necessity of any geographical movement.

See any practical problems with that?

[Aurelius]

"If accepted, it is the right of every individual to withdraw from the influence of government without the necessity of any geographical movement.

"See any practical problems with that?"

No, I'm an anarchist - for me, the only problem is the existence of any government at all.

[Aurelius]

BUMP

[thucydides]

If men were angels, I would be an anarchist, too. Our dilemma is that we need some force to prevent violence, fraud, and abuse. But that force then becomes the target for all those who want to use its legal monopoly on coercion for their own advantage. Thus is the war of all against all carried on by new means.

[Aurelius]

BUMP

[ned]

No, I'm an anarchist - for me, the only problem is the existence of any government at all.

I respect your point of view. You've certainly got your work cut out for you.

[billbears]

bumping for Dixie!!

[Aurelius]

"You've certainly got your work cut out for you."

Actually, I'm an armchair, theoretical anarchist.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Concerning Lincoln's record, each must have his own opinion.  I begrudge DiLorenzo his opinion not one whit.  However, I am very concerned with the evident distortions and outright falsehoods that he makes concerning Lincoln.  Those who have a poor opinion of Lincoln should be the most uncomfortable with Mr. DiLorenzo's methods.  Those who embrace him appear to be willing to do anything to prove their point.  In so doing, they undermine their own position. Heaven knows that dishonesty never justifies your cause, no matter how worthy the cause.

[ned]

Actually, I'm an armchair, theoretical anarchist.

Sounds pretty cushy to me. Whatever your secret is, don't change a thing.

[Aurelius]

I can't help wishing that Professor DiLorenzo had taken more time and care in the preparation of his book, or that the task had been taken on by someone a bit more experienced in such projects. I would like to think that the factual errors that have been exposed were accidental; actually it makes no sense for a person in an academic career to indulge in deliberate falsification. But then there is Bellesilles. ("There was a flood in my office and my notes were destroyed" - never mind that records he quotes were destroyed in 1906). But maybe he thought he could get away with it because his misrepresentations were all of a PC, leftist-pleasing sort. And it worked for awhile, he even won a book award.

[4CJ]

Dixie bump! I wonder if any Supreme Court decision was ever handed down that held the Constitution could be revoked by the states?

[Ditto]

No, I'm an anarchist - for me, the only problem is the existence of any government at all.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon can not hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold:
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocense is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passion and intensity.

--- Wm. Butler Yeats

If you don't like poetry, try Somolia.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Maybe, but professor DiLorenzo is a professional historian and, as such, has no excuse for such egregarious errors.  It seems to me that putting words in Lincoln's mouth so as to make him appear in a worse light is way beyond the pale.

[Non-Sequitur]

DiLorenzo is a professional professor of economics. He is an amatur historian.

[Aurelius]

"Maybe, but professor DiLorenzo is a professional historian..."

I believe that he was trained as an economist and is a Professor of Economics at Loyola in Baltimore.

[drjimmy]

Don't forget to bump for Aztlan!

[Aurelius]

"If you don't like poetry, try Somolia."

The problem in Somalia was not absence of government but excess - multiple competing would be governments - each warlord wanting his own. As I think I have called to your attention before, according to Rummel's "Death by Government", civilians killed by their own governments in the last century numbered more that 170 million. If you estimate an average annual murder rate for the century, based on that figure, it well exceeds the peak rate for private murders in the U.S. in the same period. So, the "blood-dimmed tide" didn't require anarchy for its realisation - and, as Mencken said of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Yeats' lines are Poetry, not Truth.

[rdf]

Maybe, but professor DiLorenzo is a professional historian and, as such, has no excuse for such egregarious errors. It seems to me that putting words in Lincoln's mouth so as to make him appear in a worse light is way beyond the pale.

It's beyond the pale even if he is a Professor of Education. So is calling Lincoln a Legislator in Illinois in 1857. So is making Madison and J.Q. Adams out to be advocates of a legal right of secession. It's even beyond the pale, and a dishonor to Meade's Pennsylvannians, to say that no Union soldier got within 50 yards of the CSA lines at Fredericksburg.

And it's simply comical for Clyde Wilson to prefer DiLorenzo's slop to Jaffa's work out of respect for history.

Dr. D. will make money from this book, but he will make his side of the controversy look foolish ... unless they dump him, and choose a better champion.

Cheers,

Richard F.