Cocaine and marijuana should not be banned, either.

Are you trying to suggest here that it’s wrong to decriminalize ANY drug unless you simultaneously decriminalize ALL of them? Or that it’s wrong to decriminalize a drug if you think the people who stand to benefit financially are bad people?

Before I abstain from voting on my own category, and vote on the others, I’m a bit curious to know how Theory & Practice can be both a New Libertarian/Classical Liberal Group Academic Blog and a New Libertarian/Classical Liberal Individual Academic Blog. Irfan’s a good writer, but I’m not sure he’s good enough to transcend the law of identity…

Gus: “So — praise the most ruthless power in the White House for breaking the law to eliminate political oppoosition in order to help consolidate his hold on state power by punishing the wife of a man who told the truth about the government’s abuse of power, an abuse that has killed tens of thousands. Yeah, Karl Rove, defender of rights.”

According to the book of Revelation, in the coming ordeal, a servant of Satan or perhaps Satan himself will come into the world and destroy earthly tyrants as part of his rise to absolute power before the Second Coming. I mention this because I hear that Satan is a pretty bad guy, and his motives in destroying earthly tyrants will certainly be bad. But while these are good reasons to think poorly of Satan, they aren’t good reasons to cry about the trampled prerogatives of the fallen tyrants.

I mention this parable because, in the comment you are replying to, Stepp makes it quite explicit that his point is that if Rove outed a CIA agent, then he may be a real sleaze, but in this particular case what he did is, at worst, disregarding an expectation (confidentiality and support for members of a criminal conspiracy) that nobody has the right to demand be respected.

Stepp’s earlier claim that whoever did it deserves a “Libertarian Medal” is of course silly bluster. But so is your own reply, which simply substitutes a philippic against Bush and Rove in order to distract from the point being made about what CIA operatives do or do not have the right to expect — as if the sheer weight of their depravity could somehow make Plame’s complaint legitimate. You then follow up this red herring with a broadside against the intellectual “sophistication” of “anarchists, right or left”.

Come on, Gus. You’re smarter than that.

S.K.: “Do you know Tom DiLorenzo? I do. He has nothing to do w/ the bucktoothed yahoo type you must envisage. He is a cosmopolitan guy, and very intelligent and sincere, and not the type to pine for the plantation. So give it a rest. These continual character assassinations are of fellow libertarians are disgusting.”

Who’s “envisaging” anything? I cited some things that DiLorenzo wrote and said (1) that they seemed like indications of “a fetish for the Confederacy and its leaders, which sometimes overrides respect for documented historical fact” and (2) that “in addition to unthinking pro-Confederate apologetics, it may also serve as a good example of unthinking contrarianism as well”.

If you think that believing either (1) or (2) about someone requires you to believe that he or she is a “bucktoothed yahoo type” then you should probably think harder about it. The “Lost Cause” mythology has always been promoted primarily by well-spoken, articulate white Southerners, including politicians (among them Jeff Davis himself, in his memoirs), educators, and professional historians. Being articulate and well-spoken, however, does not have any bearing on whether what they say is true or false, nor on whether what they say indicates sincere engagement with the facts or dishonest fetishism.

So, let’s move on to the actual issue, which is what DiLorenzo said, not the ad hominem context of what virtues or vices you think DiLorenzo has as a person.

S.K.: “As I have almost no interest in the Confederacy issues, I have no opinion on DiLorenzo’s comments on Jeff Davis etc. I don’t know what it has to do with “Confederacy” worship.”

If you care so little about “Confederacy issues” that you haven’t bothered to form any opinion at all about DiLorenzo’s decision to single out Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee for praise then how in the world do you know that DiLorenzo (or anyone else writing for LewRockwell.com, other than yourself) is not engaging in dishonest fetishism for the Confederacy? You make strong claims that he isn’t, but it seems to me that if you haven’t bothered to look into these questions you shouldn’t have any rational basis for giving an answer.

That said, the connection is simple. DiLorenzo singled out two central figures of “Lost Cause” Confederate mythology for praise, in spite of the fact that they are opposed to libertarian political principles on every important point—from slavery to conscription to secession. He did so in spite of the fact that they had no apparent qualifications for the praise other than their leading roles in the Confederate government and the Confederate war machine. And in his writings there and elsewhere, he has told flat lies (e.g. that Lee willingly freed his father-in-law’s slaves when he actually kept them in slavery as long as he legally could) and omitted important truths (e.g. that Jeff Davis, not Abe Lincoln, pioneered national conscription in America) in order to make Confederate leaders look better than they actually were. Doesn’t that seem like pretty clear indication of a fetish for the Confederacy to you? If not, what would?

Since none of my remarks had anything at all to do with Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Lew Rockwell, or DiLorenzo’s criticisms of Lincoln (which I mostly consider to be just and well-founded), the rest has been snipped without reply.

Oh, I should add that besides what clearly looks like indulging in Lost Cause fantasy, DiLorenzo’s posts also clearly indicate the supposed offense that his comments are giving to “liberventionist” bogey-men as one of the chief motives for putting out the claims that he put out. (“Cackling like a flock of hens,” &c.) So in addition to unthinking pro-Confederate apologetics, it may also serve as a good example of unthinking contrarianism as well.

Stephan: ‘Pro-Confederacy stuff? I’m not aware of much of this . . . Palmer’s libel of Lew Rockwell et al. notwithstanding, there is not “fetish” over the “Confederacy” at LewRockwell.com. Palmer insists on labeling those who oppose Lincoln’s war as neo-Confederate apologists for slavery.’

Stephan, what do you think about Tom DiLorenzo’s recent post on LRC blog, nominating pro-slavery, anti-secession statist warrior Robert E. Lee for the top of his list of “greatest Americans”? Or his decision to lie about Lee’s role in the emancipation of his father-in-law’s slaves? Or his follow-up suggestion of pro-slavery, pro-conscription, anti-secession Jeff Davis for the state of Mississippi? How about his repeated false claims that Lincoln “introduced” conscription in 1863, “for the first time ever”, as an “unprecedented coercive measure”, etc. without ever once mentioning that Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy implemented a national draft more than a year before the Union?

If these don’t seem like indications of a fetish for the Confederacy and its leaders, which sometimes overcomes respect for documented historical fact, on the part of a prolific author at LewRockwell.com, what do they seem like to you?

Kennedy:

“If you promise me $10 and then don’t deliver do I have any moral claim against you?”

Well, yes, obviously. That’s what promises are for: keeping.

There are lots of speech-acts that morally bind you to carry something through even though breaking them doesn’t count as a violation of anybody’s rights: not just making promises but also, e.g., swearing, taking oaths, exchanging vows, making alliances, etc. By giving your word you accept a moral obligation on yourself, and by breaking it you are doing wrong. If the moral obligation is an obligation directed towards somebody else (e.g. if you exchange a vow of sexual faithfulness with me, or if you promise me some gift) then by breaking it you are specifically wronging the other party.

Of course, it is only in the case of a contract that the sort of wrong you do is a violation of rights. But violating somebody’s rights is hardly the only way that you can do wrong by her.

“… do you seriously think that we enjoy less freedom today than did the people of 1776, a substantial percentage of whom were in chains? The principles of 1776 are the same today as they were then, but in many, many ways they are realized to a far greater extent today than they were then.”

Tom, this is an important point that needs to be stressed. Given the absolute subjection of (1) most Black people and (2) all women under government-backed private tyranny in the 18th and 19th century, and the breathtaking gains that struggles for the emancipation of both have made (bear in mind that this represents well over 50% of the population of the country) it probably is the case that the freedom enjoyed by the average person in America is much higher than it was in 1776, and it is certainly case that the worst case that could be faced is today far, far milder than it once was.

That said, though, there are lots of good reasons for Roderick to point out the abandonment of the principles of ‘76 over time and the political consequences of that abandonment. It may very well be true that the average case and the worst case are better than they used to be; but it’s also the case that the best case (the amount of freedom enjoyed by those whose free citizenship was recognized and socially protected) has gotten substantially worse. That doesn’t mean that the vast decline in freedom for those recognized as free citizens is more important than, or should make us neglect, the immense increase in freedom for those who were once not recognized as free citizens but who now are. But it does mean that on a day specifically devoted to the Declaration that eloquently put forward those lost principles, there is plenty of reason to take a mournful pause.

Of course it would be better for marijuana to be legally available and taxed than it would be for marijuana to remain criminalized. The question is what the reasons to be given for opposing marijuana prohibition are.

Trading off increased theft from peaceful marijuana users may be reasonable as a ransom for keeping them from being locked in cages for years. But it seems pretty dodgy to talk up the increased loot from the ransom as if it were a positive reason to endorse ending prohibition, doesn’t it? Why not stick to the aspects of ending prohibition (like reducing government spending, and, more importantly, not assaulting innocent people and robbing them of years of their life) that are genuine benefits, rather than those that are not?

Why is “raising” government “revenue” through taxation a good thing?

If it turned out that the government could solve all of its revenue woes by, say, picking out some wealthy minority (say, Christian televangelists), seizing all their assets and all the money in their bank accounts, and using the proceeds to pay down outstanding debts, would that make it a worthwhile policy?