January 9, 2008
Ron Paul Apologist
The Ron Paul Newsletter story fascinates. My first interest is in how little interest it has generated. I read it on ThreeSources (way to scoop, hb!) and did not see another word about until Glenn Reynolds linked to Ann Althouse at 3:21 PM. In an immediate gratification blogosphere, a story this big about the Internet's favorite candidate lies dormant for 15 hours? I thought it might be lack of credibility of TNR, but Brian Doherty suggests it might be Ron Paul.
This whole scandal is, for one thing, a sobering reminder to Paul fans exactly how little any of his opponents cared about him up until now, given that none of their opposition research brought any of this to serious public attention
Yeah, that Sen. Chris Dodd sex-with-turnips thing didn't attract a lot of press either...
Doherty’s post disappoints me with his readiness to defend something that seems pretty indefensible:
It is certainly worth remembering on this tense day for those who have admired Paul as a politician and as a voice in this campaign that, as his clear to anyone paying close attention to either his presidential campaign message (or his message through most of his congressional career) or to the concerns of the bulk of his current fans, that racial or anti-gay animus has zero to do with Ron Paul's campaign or its appeal [..] It is also worth remembering that every single other candidate is a fervent believer in policies that cause far more harm to far more innocent black people (the drug war) than old ghostwritten words that insult Martin Luther King, or insult rioters in racial terms, ever could.
He's sellin' but I'm not buyin'. I'd suggest that Doherty read an excellent book by [wait for it...] Brian Doherty. Radicals For Capitalism has 700 pages of this story -- and he doesn't get it. The liberty movement is a sequence of brave visionaries who had great ideas. But almost all of them had such extreme character flaws or communication deficiencies. They inspired a hundred cults, but not one of them inspired a movement. Compare William F. Buckley to Lew Rockwell.
I think the liberty movement can lay claim to great thinkers: I'll take Mises and Hayek and Bastiat against anybody in a Philosophy cage match. But, to go back to the Buckley example, Buckley chased the loonies out of the Conservative movement. Once the John Birchers were gone, there was comfort for a much larger group of less marginal thinkers.
I have zero invested in Rep. Paul and know he has some fans around here. But this really is the same story. He doesn't chase the 9/11 thruthers out of his "movement," he doesn't disavow the Nazis. Sounds pretty consistent with a guy named Ron Paul who doesn't bother to read what's said in the "Ron Paul Newsletter."
Hat-tip: Instapundit, who has a nice roundup.
Whether he wrote them or not, the words expressed in his newsletter are not acceptable and should be condemned. This shows why it is more important to be in love with ideas rather than individuals.
My second point involves the author of the article. I saw the author on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC program and he was making claims about Ron Paul and Tom DiLorenzo as being neo-Confederates and racist because they had each talked at a conference on secession. DiLorenzo's response is here. DiLorenzo essentially points out that the conference actually had little to do with the Civil War and slavery and that specifically, his presentation was on the Northern secession movement, etc.
Essentially, the author seems to have done no research other than stumbling upon these documents and then writing an article. While this clearly does not excuse what is written in those documents, it does highlight the fact that The New Republic is no longer a reputable source of information and that its writers do very little background research. While I do not have any sympathy for Ron Paul, I do have sympathy for DiLorenzo, who has apparently been slandered by the TNR newbie.
Posted by: Harrison Bergeron at January 9, 2008 1:43 PMI agree, and hope the Pimply-faced youth gets his ass sued off. (Again, I subscribed to TNR for several years -- it used to be a good, left-of-center magazine).
I also agree about ideas over individuals. You have control over your own ideas but not the behavior of others. All the same, I claim my point holds that the liberty movement has suffered from the number or crackpots and rascals. And, while Buckley is an imperfect comparison, do feel that any electoral success will require a Buckley and a Reagan.
Posted by: jk at January 9, 2008 3:31 PMI don't know about Ron Paul, but Tom DiLorenzo is hardly racist. I've heard him speak, and I've had the pleasure of corresponding with him about "that tyrant" -- Abraham Lincoln. "The Real Lincoln" is required reading for anyone who wants to know the full story of that time period. It really opened my eyes to who's often called the greatest president, making me realize he was among the worst.
DiLorenzo believes, as I've come to as well, that the South *did* have the right to secede. As Lew Rockwell has put it, "The very principle of the American Revolution was the right of secession against tyrannical government. The founders understood that even the threat of secession would hold would-be governmental tyrants in check." That's why the national government in Washington had to tread so carefully in inter-state matters, as illustrated by U.S. history until the War of Southern Secession.
And I don't consider Rockwell a "crackpot" in the least. While we're at it, here's another "crackpot" quote:
"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Ah yes, that Tom Jefferson dude was a nut, wasn't he? The context was that the Federalists, fearing the national government was too weak, had begun a secessionist movement of *New England*. Jefferson and other Republicans (not today's GOP, but the party at that time which believed in a weaker central government) believed that secession would be wrong, but only as a specific action. Jefferson and other believers in liberty knew that, after all, we'd fought our own *secessionist movement* just two decades before. Ironically, it was the Republicans' belief in "states' rights" that allowed them to support the principle of such dissent. Had the Federalists won, they wouldn't have tolerated Republicans' plotting secession.
Another irony is that Lincoln's desire, but not his methods, to keep the Union together saved it from being reconquered by Great Britain. This is where I disagree with DiLorenzo that the South would have peaceably reconciled with the North. The South became very friendly with Great Britain and might have eventually established peace treaties. If it didn't actually rejoin the British Empire, Southern cotton and agriculture would have strengthened GB's position to where the latter might have attacked the North.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at January 10, 2008 9:47 AMI should add, believing in "states' rights" does not mean racism. DiLorenzo and I don't support the notion of slavery, not in the least. But we believe in *real* federalism, with individual states left free to govern their own internal matters. Slavery was simply not something over which the federal government had jurisdiction.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at January 10, 2008 9:50 AMI'm not familiar with Tom DiLorenzo and I agreed that he seems to be getting a bad deal. Plus, I cede to no one in my enjoyment of seeing the post-Peretz TNR get whacked about. A bunch of adolescents claiming to be taken seriously because they have taken over a once respected American periodical.
I also share a lot of your concerns about our Sixteenth President. I'm researching a book on Chief Justice Taney (another man with a complex relationship to race in the United States, but I digress). Taney had a full time job convincing Lincoln to honor the Constitution at some level. I've always admired much about President Lincoln but I am definitely reassessing his tenure.
I do not, however, share your admiration for Lew Rockwell. I don't know how much you admire him but you say "he is not a crackpot" and I don't think I'll go that far. After I discovered the writings of Ludwig von Mises, I was excited to find the Mises Institute -- and then disappointed at the "crackpot density" I encountered.
I have ruffled feathers around here because I feel the same about Leonard Piekoff and the Objectivists. If you only knew Mises through Rockwell and only knew Ayn Rand through Piekoff, I think you'd be in a world of hurt.
Arnold Kling has a great column on TCS today about Politics and Cults. I would offer Rockwell and Piekoff as Exhibit A and B of cult leaders.
Posted by: jk at January 10, 2008 12:05 PMI'd lend you my "Real Lincoln" copy, but I lent it to a friend who similarly reacted, "Whoa, Lincoln did *that*!"
People think Bush today is "the worst president ever" and "stifles dissent," but Bush hasn't thrown 300 newspaper editors into God-awful prisons just for opposition editorials. Lincoln did. And as I pointed out a while ago in a comment elsewhere, Lincoln was the first president to institute a draft. And a national income tax.
He was also a mercantilist, believing the Republican Party should follow its Whig tradition of supporting "a high protective tariff." That's in fact what I heard DiLorenzo speak on. I bought his book but didn't want to stand in line to talk to him, and I regret that.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at January 10, 2008 12:57 PMLife is complex. Lincoln expanded Federal government and rode pretty roughshod over civil liberties (those who can generate a heartfelt caterwaul over The Patriot Act should bone up on their history). But he preserved the Union, which I am going to have to put in the unalloyed good column, together with the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Like FDR's instituting horrible collectivist economics which we still bridle under -- and fighting for much more. Yet the same President defeated fascism and led the USA to military dominance.
And President Clinton signed NAFTA.
Posted by: jk at January 10, 2008 1:08 PMIn line with my Protestant theology, I don't believe that good works can make up for a person's sins. A few good things might come about from an administration, but I won't give it a pass on the rest, or say "It was more good than bad." Yes, I demand a lot from elected officials and their appointed bureaucrats, but that's because they wield so much power over others' lives. When you have that kind of authority, there's no room for error.
I didn't notice what you said about Lew Rockwell. My only disagreement with him is his extreme anti-war stance. War in some cases is the only option (like with Saddam, I maintain). Other than that, where do you find him wrong? I'm not the most well-versed in his writings, granted, but things like his "30 days" are fantastic. A pipe dream, yeah, so "fantastic" in both senses of the word, but he believes in raw freedom.
Oh, I did stop linking to Mises.org and ceased reading it a while back, because a couple of their blog contributors are self-righteous putzes.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at January 11, 2008 1:47 PM | What do you think? [8]