‘Please provide evidence for your assertion that Harding was “initiated” into the Ku Klux Klan. Poor Warren can’t get no respect but I never heard that claim before. Again, I’d like to see where you read that.’

Harding reportedly was inducted to the Klan by Imperial Wizard William Simmons. The claim’s made in a number of books on race in the 1920s and the Second Era Klan—e.g. Wyn C. Wade’s THE FIERY CROSS, Philip Dray’s AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN, etc. If you want I can hunt track down some more detailed bibliographic information on the matter. (I wouldn’t be surprised if most biographies of Harding specifically went more or less entirely without mentioning it—the gruesome fact is that being a member of the Klan would not have been a distinctive or unusual fact about a politician of the time.)

‘BTW, the Klan was refounded during the term of Woodrow Wilson, who brought Jim Crow to the federal government and absolutely loved “Birth of a Nation” which he considered accurate history.’

Of course. Nothing in my remarks about Harding should be taken to imply that Wilson wasn’t a scumbag, or even that Wilson wasn’t even more of a scumbag than Harding. He probably was. Fortunately, neither Bush nor Kerry (for all their faults!) happens to have the attitudes towards race that white public figures in the 1910s-1920s routinely acted on.

As for Harding’s joke about “jumping the fence,” I’ve read a number of differing accounts about the remarks and Harding’s attitudes toward the possibility (some claim he was indifferent and joked about it; others claim he was ashamed and tried to hide it; etc.). Even at the strongest, though, the remark would be compatible with Harding joining the Klan—it was not at all rare for politicians of the 1920s to opportunistically participate in the KKK without actually believing much of it. I don’t know whether Harding was of this sort or was more of a sympathizer (a la Wilson); but I don’t actually think that either option would be any better for judging his political legacy.

‘As to quotas and tariffs, well…..nobody is perfect, but then I was comparing Harding to Bush and Kerry!’

But it’s not just a matter of minor flaws that vanish in the comparison to contemporary pols. The tariff rates that Harding and the Republican legislature enacted during the 1920s were far worse than anything even remotely envisioned by either major party today, and of course was among the leading causes of the worst economic depression in U.S. history. But beyond that, neither the tariffs nor the immigration quotas stand alone; they are both quite clearly of a piece with the nativist, white supremacist politics of the 1920s. The Republican administrations between Wilson and Roosevelt enthusiastically participated in that vicious atmosphere—and on some issues actively made things a lot worse. And whatever their merits vis-a-vis Wilson before and FDR after, or vis-a-vis modern pols such as Bush and Kerry, these are things that need to be remembered.

Thanks for the questions. Hope this helps.

“In Right-wing political philosophies, political power rises from the bottom up. These would include true democracies and representative republics. In Left-wing political philosophies, political power originates at the top and moves downward.”

This is not what the terms were made to signify, and it’s not how they’ve historically been used. In Revolutionary France (where the terms were coined) the “Left” were those (among them many classical liberals and libertarians such as Frederic Bastiat) who argued for the sovereignty of ordinary people, claimed that government could have no rights except those that people chose to give it, and defended the right of those people to make fundamental changes to the structure of government. The Right were those who argued that the absolute authority of the King was sanctioned by Almighty God.

If you want to clarify how the terms are used, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind would recommend that the clarified terms have at least some connection with their historical use.

Warren G. Harding also drove tariffs sky-high, approved the first ethnic immigration quotas in American history, and was initiated into the bloody Ku Klux Klan in the White House.

Bush and Kerry may be assholes, but thank God that men like Harding no longer make it onto the ballot.

“If you don’t vote for what you truly want,(limited govt.), you’ll never get it.”

But I don’t want limited government. I want no government. So building the Libertarian Party is for me (as it is for many others) just as much a strategic move as voting for some worse statist. (Indeed, this is the case even if you are (just like Badnarik) a committed minarchist Constitutionalist. “Limited government” isn’t on the ballot; Michael Badnarik is, and the argument for voting for him is, at the strongest, that he would do the most to advance the cause of limited government if elected.)

Given that, there are some good reasons to think that if you are in the particular circumstance of, for example, living in a swing state where a handful of votes may determine the outcome, there may be good reasons to think that a vote for Kerry is the wisest course of action available. (As Roderick argues, the case is much less strong insofar as these considerations aren’t in play—if I were still living in Alabama rather than Michigan, I wouldn’t hesitate to put in a ballot for Badnarik.)

I’m a bit baffled by the film, since, while it is an apparent attempt to rag on Michael Moore, it provides a much more devastating critique of the war and its supporters than it does Michael Moore.

If George Bush were personally going into battle to lead the fight against an army of vile, inhuman goblins directed by the unholy power of a Dark Lord bent on the desolation and domination of the whole of the Earth, and in the process of launching a massive assault on all the strongholds of the civilized world, then I don’t doubt that Michael Moore would not have had quite the same objections to his policies.

Do warhawks actually see the world like this? Much of their rhetoric outside of this silly little film seems to suggest it. If so, it would be funny, except for all of the people who have died because of their childish conception of the world.