Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Lincoln Cult Smears Against Me

Thomas DiLorenzo writes at LewRockwell.com:

How to Become a “Neo-Confederate”

After my book, The Real Lincoln, was first published in 2002 the Lincoln cult became very frustrated over the fact that every time they attacked me personally, lied about the contents of the book, denied plain, well-documented historical facts, and I responded to them on LewRockwell.com, my Amazon.com sales ranking skyrocketed.  It was #2 in sales on Amazon at one point.  So their Plan B was to simply engage in even more name calling by labeling me (and others associated with the Mises Institute) a “Neo-confederate.”  Of course, what they were attempting to do was to call us “slavery defenders” without saying so explicitly.  The New York Times happily continued this practice, as have the lying libertine losers who call themselves “cosmopolitan” libertarians.
So I thought it would be useful to review just exactly what I wrote about the Confederacy inThe Real Lincoln.  As can be determined by looking at the index, it is mentioned on exactly four pages of my 333-page book:
1.  On page 8 of the Introduction I wrote that “the Confederate Constitution outlawed both protectionist tariffs and internal improvement subsidies . . .”
2. On page 240 I covered the same ground by writing that “protectionist tariffs were outlawed by the Confederate Constitution,” and then I quoted the relevant passage from that document.
3. On page 251 I wrote that “The Confederate Constitution was incompatible with Lincoln’s (and the Republicans’) economic policy objectives.”
4.  The final mention is on page 273 where I once again mentioned tariffs and internal improvement subsidies, and added that “the Confederate Constitution . . . eliminated the General Welfare Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
So there you have it.  That is the sum total of my “defense of the Confederacy” in The Real Lincoln.  Two pages after entry #4, at the top of page 275, I wrote:  “The one unequivocal good that came of Lincoln’s war was the abolition of slavery.”  But don’t expect the Lincoln cult, the totalitarians in the media, or the phony “cosmopolitan” libertines to ever mention such facts.
The Real Lincoln has now been in print for almost exactly twelve years.  To my knowledgenone of my critics has ever mentioned that the great Walter E. Williams wrote the foreword to the book.

22 comments:

  1. The Real Lincoln is a great book. I read it years ago. Lincoln was a fascist dictator. It's a shame that the J.W. Booth didn't shoot him 4 years earlier.

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    1. Is there any president who you do not consider a fascist dictator?

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    2. I am not sure I would call him a dictator or a fascist since to be a dictator you have to have absolute power and to be a fascist you have to actually, well, be a fascist. I don't think I ever read anything where Lincoln claimed to be a fascist. Did he do things that fascist leaders do, without a doubt, but that is a far cry from actually being a fascist. In today's world, and especially in Europe, the term socialist is used very broadly by political parties that probably have more fascists ideas in their platforms than socialists ones, however, they are still not fascists. They are socialists (that is what they call themselves) with ideas more often attributed to fascism or whatever.

      IMO, rather than getting caught up in all the various ism's and the blends that exist and trying to nicely put someones beleifs into a nice fitting basket with a label on it, its far simpler and more accurate to describe political views along a line where the far left view is total statistism (ie the state controls everything) and a far right view being a total anarchism (stateless society). When you do this its much easier to understand where political views stand. For instance, progressives and neoconservatives are both left of center statists. Sure they seem like they are opposites, but when you look at their views, they both believe in a strong central state to enforce their beliefs onto society. Their only difference is the things they want the state to control and do. For his day, Lincoln was much further left on the statist/anarchist line than most politicians, but he was never as far left as someone like FDR or even GWB.

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    3. @ Jerry, How about you? Is there any president who you DO consider a fascist dictator or do you love them all with that deep, deep love of Big Brother?

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  2. So what that Walter E. Williams wrote the foreword? He was on Tom Woods radio show last week agreeing with everything Woods said about a right to secession. Williams' race gives him more credibility? There is no right to secession. The Union is defined by Federal law. It takes a change in Federal law to secede. Federal law is supreme. This is a simple concept. Does not matter what quotes you can dig up from Jefferson, etc. Jefferson's interpretation of the Constitution was rejected by the Supreme Court in Marbury vs Madison and again in McCulloch vs Maryland.


    There is plenty of fair criticism of that book on Amazon. Had to get to page 4 of 11 pages of bad reviews before the word neo-confederate showed up. This one is on page 5.

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Unnecessary/product-reviews/0761526463/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one/181-8885101-7448855?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

    "This book is emblematic of one of the more bizarre sights of our day: the current alliance between some libertarians and paleoconservatives (chiefly of a neo-confederate or white racial nationalist stamp). There can be no objections to critical examination of Lincoln or his policies, but this books' rampant falsehoods, omissions and distortions forever exempt it from informed and intelligent controversy. It is, indeed, more like totalitarian propaganda than scholarship. (The title of this review was Orwell's comment on the grotesque falsity of Stalinist propaganda during the Spanish Civil War. It certainly fits this book.)

    The author rattles the dry bones of state's rights, while studiously avoiding the all-important question: right to do what? --To enslave people? To censor the press and even personal correspondence of any remark deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about slavery? By contrast, discussion of the conduct of the war was completely unfettered in the North, with some newspapers attacking Lincoln as virulently as any Southern journal--or this book. There is something utterly weird about libertarians who cannot (or more likely, will not) recognize that the racial caste system of the Old South prefigured 20th century totalitarianism in its division of human beings into a 'Herrnvolk' oligarchy and 'Untermenschen' chattels. To be sure, there were no extermination camps, Gulags, or Einsatzgruppen, but the first steps down a drearily familiar road had been taken before being rudely interrupted by force of arms, the only thing that would stop it.

    Once more, we are treated to the old chestnut that slavery would have died a natural death had not meddlers like Lincoln interfered. This almost reads like a parody of Marx's prediction that the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' would wither away of its' own accord. Libertarian economists such as Mr. Dilorenzo seem so mesmerized by their idee-fixe of 'homo economicus' that they fail to grasp that the master-race mentality does not know or care a whit whether its dystopias are cost-effective or not. (After all, the masters are usually doing just fine, thank you.) Not only were the concentration camps a net economic drain on Nazi Germany; the cost in transport and manpower needed to keep feeding the gas chambers 'til the last possible moment came at the expense of the Wehrmacht. (Perhaps I should have had the tact not to bring up the Nazis; many libertarians and paleoconservatives seem just as eager to ignore or minimize their atrocities and execrate Churchill and Roosevelt.)

    One leaves a book like this with a kind of bemused wonderment at those Americans whose perverse hostility towards their own country easily matches that of a defeated KGB officer, a Nazi (or Serbian) war criminal, or an Islamist."

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    1. Jerry,

      So, when is it that you actually READ the book itself?

      What a blowhard.

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    2. Well, if there is no right to succession, I guess you would have to agree we aren't really free.

      Thanks Jerry!

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    3. I love all the evidence the review provides for the statement, "this books' rampant falsehoods, omissions and distortions forever exempt it from informed and intelligent controversy."

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    4. He didn't. That why JW: Troll.

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    5. The review is not convincing:

      Para 1: Falsehoods are asserted, but we can't evaluate them because they're not cited.
      Para 2: DiLorenzo doesn't avoid the question, but discusses the right of states to secede and provides historical and legal arguments. A cultural critique of the South is beside the point, although DiLorenzo does clearly condemn slavery.
      Para 3: The argument that slavery would have died out without military intervention has merit, as this is exactly what happened in almost every other instance, as DiLorenzo describes.
      Para 4: Weak arguments end with ad hominems.

      Jerry, one might almost suspect you hadn't read the book. I appreciate it most when you present your own analysis, as you did before quoting the review (and it would certainly be interesting to read an intelligent rebuttal to those points).

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    6. Jerry,

      How can you possibly say nullification and secession is illegitimate and impermissible? It was not only Jefferson's interpretation, but Madison's ("the father of the Constitution") as well. See the Virginia Resolutions on nullification. He's a more authoritative source than you, American's brainwashed in government schools, and government lawyers put on the Supreme Court.

      On secession, Congressman were trying to pass laws making it illegal before the War Between the States, meaning most people recognized that the Union was of a voluntary nature. We did secede from British Empire if you remember correctly.

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    7. I read the book, and as a Civil War buff who has done extensive reading on the subject, I didn't find any falsehoods, omissions, or distortions. So what is one unsourced Amazon review worth?

      And though it is true that the Federal government most assuredly does not currently represent a right to secession, this does not mean that such right does not exist under the Constitution. Do you believe every single law and court opinion is Consitutional? Probably.

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    8. Jerry would apparently by on the side of an abusive husband, telling his wife "you have no right to leave!".

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    9. Jerry, Would you join a club if you could never leave?

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    10. That was a long critique for a troll, lol.

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    12. The simple concept is that any party to a CONTRACT cannot unilaterally change the terms of the contract; and 'constitutionality' was to be easily interpreted without the need of a bevy of ideological lawyers. The Compact Theory of the Union..... IS the correct interpretation.

      Because Federal dictates and, simply idiotic, Supreme court rulings favor the State is NOT too hard to understand except for an obvious moron. Supreme court 'precedent' was to be avoided at all costs. The outcome of which was also fortuitously expected and has been the reality. Brushing aside intent and period writings and statement from either the Federalist or Anti-Federalist perspective is just lazy intellect and begets the popularity and success of ideological sophistry of today.

      Another reality that such a 'great thinker' such as yourself (and I am sure you think yourself as one), and of course which completely flies right over your 'towering intellect', is that OUR government has been HOSTILE with nearly every principle it was supposedly founded upon (particularly those forbidding its own encroachment of power) from the very day and before the ink even dried on the words written into our Constitution.

      Was it Socrates who stated, and I paraphrase, "That the idiot always thinks he is wise, while the wise man knows he is a fool'. The former fits you perfectly because you certainly would not be expected to understand, or be considered one of, the latter.

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    13. Hmmmmmm........makes one wonder why Hitler was so agreeable and supportive of Abe's 'Bismarckian' autocracy. Must of been during Hitler's more 'innocent' age? But no....but during his compilation of Mein Kampf.

      Wolfgang, your bemused wonderment of what principled liberty looks like and what you perceive as 'perverse hostility' towards what is just another 'march toward totalitarian socialist rule' only reveals your own pathological mindset that is essentially identical to the mindset that parasitically effected of the majority of German people of the 1930's......passivity, ignorance and the fuhrer complex. Or perhaps you actually hold the mindset of a real Nazi and a wannabe wielder of power within the political minority of the sort that has cursed that nation and humankind for all eternity.

      Fortunately, more and more of us know of your where your pathological dribble has led the human race in the past.......and may we NEVER let it happen again, in any twisted VARIATION with the same heinous results.

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  3. "Neo-confederate....racism...slavery" LOL! That's all they have.

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  4. Oh, the Federal Government's Supreme Court rejected it? Well that should settle it since the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution has a history of really being rock-solid. Imbecile.

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    1. "King George rejected the secession of the original 13 colonies, so we're all still British!" -JW

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