Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Who Is Behind the Vicious Hit Job on Walter Block?

A vicious hit job has been launched against Austrian-economist and libertarian Walter Block.

Before I go into the specifics of the hit, it makes sense to take a moment to understand the launching pad for the hit: Voice4America.com. Who is behind Voice4America.com? Who knows? The site says nothing, zero, about who is running it. A look at NetworkSolutions tells us that the site was registered through GoDaddy which gives the person who registered the site a bit of privacy. But that person went a step further and hid his ownership by also using Domain by Proxy, whose specialty is hiding the names of web site owners.

Here's what part of their front page looks like:



So whoever registered Voice4America.com took many steps to remain anonymous to the public. Given the regular attacks on Republicans at Voice and the positive spins on Obama news, the site appears to be an Obama Campaign affiliated site.

In other words, this site appears to be part of Obama's ground game: Go after Republicans with any kind of distortions possible and with no one publicly linked to the site there are no holds barred.

Walter Block seems to have been shot at simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, namely, on television in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign.

As for the specifics, the web site headlines: Professor Argues Slavery Better Than Welfare for Blacks.

During an appearance on RT, Professor Block argued that beyond the slave period in the United States, most black families remained intact and the splitting up of black families coincided with the launch of welfare programs. He was in no way arguing that slavery was a good thing, he was arguing that blacks got gypped in the 1960s and beyond with monetary rewards (welfare) that split up the families. Thus all the good things like stability and roll models that come with family life, were removed from the black community .

If anything at all could be taken away from Dr. Block's comments, it is that he was advising on things that needed to be taken into consideration (e.g. welfare) in moving towards a black society that has a strong family nucleus, which is now more predominant with whites in the U.S.

But if you are hiding behind the curtain of anonymity and your job is to get Obama re-elected, then truth is not your goal. Outrageous charges and headlines will be your goal to catch the eye of headline readers and drive them into the voting booth with the idea that everyone in the world is a bad actor, outside of Barack Obama.

19 comments:

  1. Definitely has to be related to obama. Can anyone on here dig deeper and find out who owns the site? Is there a way to track them down, or does it stay anonymous?

    The comments are absolutely priceless. Look how many morons are threatening violence against Block who clearly didn't even read anything other than the title. The spelling ability is horrible with almost everyone there, which is ironically an indictment of the public school system that they would all defend. They all keep pointing out that white people get welfare too, and that we can't legalize drugs bc then they would be in the cities! LOL

    No wonder Obama and Romney types keep getting elected. The avg voter is a complete moron!

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  2. I suspect Professor Block is drawing on the work and research done by Professor Walter Williams who proclaimed that, "[T]he welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely break up the black family,”

    Professor Williams has the good sense to be black though, which serves as an effective shield to the idiotic "racist" charges likely to follow if a white person says something similar.


    http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/04/walter-e-williams-on-welfare-as-govt-plays-father-black-males-have-become-dispensable/

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    1. "Professor Williams has the good sense to be black though, which serves as an effective shield to the idiotic "racist" charges"

      Not so fast. Walter Williams may not be able to be called a racist. But they will certainly call him a race traitor or Uncle Tom. (See, for instance: http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/2010/05/26/uncle-tom-radio-host-walter-e-williams-its-ok-to-discriminate-catherine-ariemma-the-ku-klux-klan-teacher/) He is not immune.

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  3. Here is the full Walter E. Williams, which is where, I suspect, Dr. Block was first exposed to the facts he cited about breaking up the black family and so on.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OIBOSJTwg

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    1. Walter Block sited charles murray, not williams, btw

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  4. Walter Williams has made a similar point.

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    1. Thomas Sowell has also written movingly on the destruction of the Black Family due to the LBJ "war on poverty" programs.

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  5. It is a staple of libertarian thought that there is minimal difference between, say, Obama and Romney. But I think people will be shocked by the velocity of statist change under Obama, supported by the shoveling of taxpayer dollars to supporters and aided by a compliant media.

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    1. I believe that, were he to ever be elected to any political office again, certain Anonymous commenters would "be shocked by the velocity of statist change under" Willard.

      It wouldn't shock me though, sadly.

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  6. I don't disagree with the post, but frankly, when you look at the social dysfunction and dependency culture created by welfare, how far is this really from slavery? Moreover, statism, which the people behind this shady site are pushing, is itself a form of slavery, hence their sensitivity to the issue.

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  7. The smear of racist racist racist is all that one might expect when criticizing welfare culture and the smear of Jew-hater is all that one might expect when criticizing Israel and US foreign policy. That's the behavior of someone who has already lost the argument and knows he's lost the argument.

    Here's Ben Stein responding to Ron Paul discussing blowback:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP-mDSLWgok&feature=plcp

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  8. I don't disagree with you Bob but I think maybe you are giving the domain registrar protection too much weight. A lot of people simply don't want their personal details up on the web for everyone to see. A lot of web hosts also offer this service themselves where they appear as the website contact. I believe my own personal web host charges $10 per year for this service.

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    1. You don't disagree with Wenzel, but you disagree with him. Nice. The point is that this web owner went out of his way to hide his identity and doesn't disclose anything about himself, or anyone else on the site, which is clearly an Obama campaign site.

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    2. Actually, I think the point is not merely that the website's owner's identity is being hidden, which is a common, standard practice these days, when site owner details lead to site owner intimidation, especially with threats of assault, rape and death.

      The real point is that the owner's identity is being deliberately indicated as being hidden, not merely undisclosed.

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  9. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Bob.

    On a column about a racist attack on Dr. Block, is it nice to write, '...got gypped...'?

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    1. I'm assuming you never use the words hooligan, vandal, barbarian, cannibal, picnic, etc.???

      There are thousands of words derived from our "racist" or "intolerant" past. Please refrain from using them all, or shut up. No one uses "gypped" to be racist, or to refer in anyway to gypsies (the Roma, who by the way did "gyp" people all the time, that's where the word came from) they use it to imply that they got ripped off generally.

      Shut up.

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    2. Geeze, Derrick, don't you think it was a joke? Lighten up, big guy.

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  10. I hate to say but when I saw the interview I knew only misunderstanding would spew forth. I don't know if I would go so far as to say it is an Obama ground game, though I don't doubt it very well could be, but the point in fact is it is a tremendous misunderstanding. I agree with Dr. Block and his point needs to be made I just think that different examples would provide a far more reaching point.

    We as libertarians do have to understand that people will only hear 20% at best of what is said so it is our job to present our case clearly and especially when on a format such as a tv appearance. We should reserve the 'hot potatoes' issues for when there is time for discussion between the speaker and listeners.

    Libertarians have to start marketing better. Sure the truth is great and there are many it will help, THANK YOU DR. BLOCK! But there are many who simply aren't interested in the truth and must be 'tricked', for lack of better terms, to reaching it.

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    1. Agreed, it doesn't surprise me in the least that these numbskulls have slandered Block. They have simply been stuck in the statist matrix, and anyone who presents a view of the potential freedom will be threatened.

      Libertarians have finally established a significant base, I believe, and the next great challenge will be presenting our ideas in ways that the boobus will understand (is this even possible??). Tom Woods seems to be doing his best at this, along with others.

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