My argument was that on balance Lincoln was not a force for tyranny. You brought up tariffs. I responded that tariffs were a matter of ordinary government policy. I would have gone further into this but we have rehashed the issue at length earlier. It's clear that neither Washington, nor Hamilton, nor Madison considered protective tariffs tyrannical or incompatible with liberty. On balance, I said, Lincoln was a force for more, not less liberty.
You've insisted that the discussion was about tariffs and that my mention of slavery was a "red herring." But slavery is something that has to be taken into the balance. It was an implicit part of my argument from the beginning. And if you look at the thread title, it's "Setting the Record Straight: Lincoln's Wisdom on the Politics of Race ," and clearly has more to do with slavery than with tariffs. on
If you want to talk about tariffs in isolation, fine, but don't act as though a broader focus is somehow illegitimate or a "red herring." Seen in the context of history or of the thread, a narrow and inclusive focus on tariffs, looks like a real "red herring."
There were hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people who disagreed with Lincoln about tariffs, yet agreed with him about slavery and secession, and on balance regretted his passing. And there were tens of thousands or more who agreed with Lincoln on tariffs, yet still fought against him on other grounds. If you do want to talk about tariffs in isolation from other factors, Non-Sequitur may still be waiting for the extended economic analysis you offered to provide him with two weeks ago.
But for the record: The argument against taxation without representation advanced during the revolution doesn't allow those who throw away their right to representation to cry about tax levels. And the idea of your "guys" at Mises Institute not imposing a narrow orthodoxy on their fellows is laughable. In grammatical English, we do not use articles before proper names. And "diefy" is not a word.
The fealing is mutual.
You habitually ignore, avoid or dismiss out of hand views that don't accord with yours.
I don't believe I've excessively avoided or dismissed that which is at hand in the conversation. I will readily concede to dismissing your little slavery equivalency charade, but I've already stated my reasons for doing so and stand by them as sound. Beyond that I would ask that you specify your allegations as I don't believe I've committed in any serious way what you accuse me of doing.
That's par for the course, but what's offensive is the way you change what the argument is about and attack others for not arguing what you think they should.
As is often the case with you, that statement would be well suited for a mirror. As for your allegation, I think we may assess its merits in the history of this discussion. You began with the comment that various political policies of The Lincoln, most of them economic, were not a recipe for big government. I challenged that assertion and made the case that they were. Rather than responding to my case, you threw the issue of slavery in the bag, evidently with hopes that by doing so you could respond not by addressing the intrinsic problems raised by economic policies under The Lincoln, but instead by their relative position as gauged by you through the lens of slavery. I then responded by pointing out the fallacy of that tactic and calling you to task on using it, to which you respond now by alleging that I'm trying to restrict your argument to my mold, and that is where we stand right now.
Now, it seems to me that your grievance is based on my dismissal of your attempt to use a tactic of diversion to alter the debate's subject matter into what you percieve to be your favor. That being the case, I respond that your grievance is without merit because it pertains to my refusal of your attempted manuever for similar lack of merit.
My argument was that on balance Lincoln was not a force for tyranny.
Your initial argument was that a list of The Lincoln's economic policies provided in your earlier post were not themselves a recipe for tyranny. I responded to that point, and you responded to me with a relativist judgment of them through the lens of slavery, an issue that is not intrinsic to the discussion of those policies.
I responded that tariffs were a matter of ordinary government policy.
That you did, and I offered my response as it pertains to taxing policy's relation to tyranny. I do not see any further response from you.
It's clear that neither Washington, nor Hamilton, nor Madison considered protective tariffs tyrannical or incompatible with liberty.
Nor do I suggest that protective tariffs are always tyrannical or incompatable with liberty. I do say though that abusive taxing policies are tyrannical and incompatible with liberty and, considering the presence of that issue as a central point of contention in the American Revolution, I do not believe you could successfully maintain that the founding fathers would disagree.
On balance, I said, Lincoln was a force for more, not less liberty.
That is your belief and you are entitled to argue it. Mine is that the gains in liberty under The Lincoln were outweighed by the losses in liberty caused in the denial of life by war, the destruction of homes and livlihood by the practices of that war, and the continued expansion of government power as a result of that war. It is my belief that The Lincoln won a pyrrhic victory.
You've insisted that the discussion was about tariffs and that my mention of slavery was a "red herring."
When you randomly toss out the issue of slavery as a relative standard by which to view all else that is being discussed, your mention of it is a red herring.
But slavery is something that has to be taken into the balance.
Yes, in a discussion of the war as a whole. But you threw it out there during a discussion of several specific economic issues and then proceded to use it as a relative standard by which to view those issues. As an argument, that type of a tactic is unsupportable.
If you want to talk about tariffs in isolation, fine, but don't act as though a broader focus is somehow illegitimate or a "red herring."
I would not do that to a broader focus. I would react that way, and did so accordingly, in the event that what you purport to be a broader practice is in reality a diversionary fish thrown out to reorient the discussion away from intrinsic consideration of The Lincoln's policies to a relative judgement of them through the lens of an issue external to their discussion, slavery.
There were hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people who disagreed with Lincoln about tariffs, yet agreed with him about slavery and secession, and on balance regretted his passing. And there were tens of thousands or more who agreed with Lincoln on tariffs, yet still fought against him on other grounds.
Every cause has its minority of opponents somewhere. The fact that they exist does not make them equal in size to those opposite of them. In this particular case, the country divided over the tariff along lines virtually identical to the war as is evidenced in the May 1860 House vote on the Morrill tariff.
If you do want to talk about tariffs in isolation from other factors, Non-Sequitur may still be waiting for the extended economic analysis you offered to provide him with two weeks ago.
Non-Sequitur did not indicate during the course of that discussion that his interests were in doing so, or if he did, I must have missed it. I attempted this once before with him several months ago and went into extensive detail with formulas and import-export figures, but he ignored it and went back to the same old line of entry ports he has been towing ever since. Therefore I am hesitant to expend the effort as long as he is unreceptive to it. If he will indicate otherwise, I will do my best to accomodate him. But until then...
But for the record: The argument against taxation without representation advanced during the revolution doesn't allow those who throw away their right to representation to cry about tax levels.
Your argument here smells of chickens and eggs. One could just as easily say that the action of removing itself from the union government was in part brought about by the advancing installment of a the very same tax. Did the tax cause them to leave, or did they leave causing the tax? Citing the May 1860 sectional trends, I say the tax. If you care to argue differently you are free to do so.
And the idea of your "guys" at Mises Institute not imposing a narrow orthodoxy on their fellows is laughable.
If you wish to make your case, please do so. I'll happily do the same with Claremont though and point out that Claremont's network extends much deeper than you allege of "ours."
In grammatical English, we do not use articles before proper names.
Yet concepts are a different story. If you have not yet noticed, I maintain that the concept of The Lincoln, espoused by many around here, is significantly different from the man Abraham Lincoln in his worldly existence.
And "diefy" is not a word.
Neither is "demostrate" for that matter. On that note, I anticipate that you see the sillyness and potential dangers of letting this slip into a game of "typo patrol." If you have anything further to offer to this discussion though, I look forward to it.