Nelsen Mandela

Ziggy,

I forgot to put you on the list.

Why Mandela?

For standing up against a racist regime

For coming out of prison & not preaching retribution

For leading South Africa fairly peacefully from Apartheid to the Rainbow nation

For knowing when to retire unlike many African leaders 

Hi Lysander - Long time no hear from.  Hope all is well with you.

How about Tom Sowell?  Not sure if he considers himself a libertarian or not, but he sure sounds like one.

Stevo

I'm just about 60 pages into Sowell's Knowledge and Decision. It's a pretty impressive piece of work. A kind of extended exegeses on Hayek's brilliant seminal essay on the role of Knowledge in Society. But, then, by your standards, Hayek wouldn't be a libertarian, either. And we certainly know that on foreign policy I'm too much of a "neocon" (I wonder if you even know what that word means) to qualify.

But Gabriel Kolko makes the list? But Thomas Sowell doesn't. Kolko is more libertarian that Sowell? What have you been smoking, dude? Perhaps your conspiracy theory fetish is getting the better of your judgment.

Copernicus

I am not familiar with any of your positons. Reread the thread title.  It lists people I like who aren't necessarily libertarians. Sowell may talk and write a good game on economics, but read this little gem written by him after 911,

"Pearl Harbor is the only thing in this century that can compare to the terrorist catastrophe that has struck the United States. With all its shock and tragedy, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ended our naive innocence about the dangerous world we live in and united a very disunited country. Will this series of attacks unite Americans today?

Will it make a dent in the lofty citizen-of-the-world types among the intelligentsia who like to treat international borders as just arbitrary lines on a map, who dismiss talk of enemies as paranoia or politics, and who delight to snipe at their own country from above the struggle?

Will it stop Congress' nickel-and-diming of our military and our intelligence agencies, so that they can spend the money on more giveaway programs and porkbarrel projects? Will it stop those who like to snipe at Israel for retaliating against terrorist attacks? Will the sight of Palestinians dancing in the streets cause any second thoughts -- or perhaps first thoughts -- among those who have been brightly chirping for so long about "the peace process"?

Much of the future history of this century may depend on what the American people and the American government do in response to the worst assault on the continental United States in more than a century. The last thing we need are tough words and soft actions. That would just guarantee more of the same.

Make no mistake about it. There are people around the world who will be gloating at our tragedy. Not just the Palestinians or the professional terrorists or even our avowed enemies. There will be people in Europe who will not mind seeing America taken down a peg, including people in countries liberated from the Nazis at the cost of American lives. Not most people in those countries, of course, but some among the intelligentsia and the political classes.

This is not only a dangerous world but a world in which we are ourselves the only people we can really depend on when push comes to shove. Americans' ability to stick together may determine the survival of this country and of this civilization.

Those who make being morally one-up on "our society" their top priority will have to face the painful costs of this self-indulgence. For example, those who are for flinging the borders open to all and sundry from everywhere will have to face the consequences of letting in people who can destroy us from within.

Most of the immigrants who come here from the Middle East, for example, may be fine and decent people. But their presence provides communities where those who are neither fine nor decent can blend in unnoticed, until time to do their dirty work, as in the previous bombing of the World Trade Center.

Immigrants who come here from around the world with every desire and intention to become Americans may be hi-jacked by those activists who are ideologically committed to keeping them speaking foreign languages, loyal to foreign values and -- if possible -- taught to feel historic grievances against the country that is welcoming them today.

Magic words like "diversity" evade the brutal reality of what Balkanization actually means, whether in the Balkans, the Middle East, Rwanda, Sri Lanka or other places where "identity" rules supreme and its price is paid in never-ending streams of blood.

Back at the time of the American Revolution, the phrase was, "we must all hang together -- or we will all hang separately." That was the plain and brutal reality then and it has always been the brutal reality ever since, though it is no longer plain to those whose rhetoric has permitted them to obscure the obvious and engage in the politics of moral one-upmanship, secure in their sense of safety.

The terrorists who perpetrated these outrages and the countries that shelter such terrorists all know that we have the power to wipe them off the face of the earth. They obviously think we don't have the guts.

Unfortunately, our foreign policy establishment over the years has perfected the response of speaking loudly and carrying a little stick. If they start using weasel words like "unacceptable" and "warning" or making milk-toast military gestures, the terrorists and their protectors will know that they were right.

It is time for Americans to remain calm -- but resolute."

Compare this to something Harry Browne or Jacob Hornberger wrote after 911.  Maybe I'm tougher on conservatives but that is only because they claim to be for liberty.

Since I am the original poster, I think it's unfair to expect me to know the political beliefs of those who reply.  While I have seen you name on a few posts, I don't recall reading any of them, although I'm sure that I did.  Either way, I was completely unaware of your political leanings, until now.  As far as Kolko goes, I never said I agreed with him.  I just appreciate a Leftist with the intellectual honesty to point out that the "Progressive Era" was a top-down movement sold as a movement for the little guy.  As far as Sowell goes, let me address the three points you made.

1)  I'm sure most people on this board would agree with that our government is a far more serious threat to the liberties of Americans.  2)  At best, neocons are only marginally for less government that your typical liberal.  Being for a 3 Trillion Dollar government instead of a 3.2 Trillion Dollar government hardly makes one an advocate for liberty. 3) Reagan never cut any taxes.  He only cut tax rates.  He ran deficits every year.  Deficits either have to paid for by future tax increases or inflation, which is just another form of taxation.  He also raised taxes in 1982.  The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act  (TEFRA) was the then biggest tax increase in American history.  He also "saved" Social Security by increasing  SS taxes.  He was a protectionist.  He ramped up the War on (Some) Drugs.  And then there's the Iran Contra affair and the S & L debacle.  Admittedly, many, if not, most of the above were supported by Democrats.  But the Democrats never claimed to be for small government.  It was Reagan that said that government was the problem.  In my opinion, a self-described socialist is less dangerous that a socialist/fascist conservative that claims to be for free markets.  I can't tell you how many people think that laissez-faire failed in the 80's when it was never tried.

Oh yeah, by the way, America lost the Cold War.  (So did the Soviets).  Look at our society.  You don't defeat statism (Communism) with statism (Military-Industrial Complex).

Here's some links from the late Murray Rothbard.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard49.html

LS,

Dude, it’s not that I expected you to know my views on anything, I was just commenting that it was too bad that you didn’t so that you could have saved us both the trouble of copying and reading that lengthy excerpt from Sowell’s post 9/11 commentary, which you seemed to assume would constitute some kind of kill-shot.

Similarly, I specifically acknowledged the undeniable failings of Reagan’s administration just so that you wouldn’t feel the need to make a long list of its faults. But, hey, it’s your post: live it up. I’m not going to argue with you about the Reagan tax impacts – at least for now. My understanding is very different from what you claim, but I’m not a close student of the issue, so I’ll reserve reply for the moment. As to these other matters, though: why did you even bother responding if you have nothing to say. First, I didn’t say anything about anyone winning “the cold war.” That’s a purely ideological debate in which I have no interest. All I said was that Reagan played a significant role in bringing the Soviet slave empire down. And that’s a matter of historical record. And for that alone he deserves the appreciation of liberty-lovers everywhere. This rebuttal you make is entirely beside the point. Also, undoubtedly, the majority of those on this board would agree with you that the U.S. government poses the greatest threat to its citizens. But – not to put too fine a point on it – that’s not really an argument, is it? It’s actually one of the original logical fallacies: argumentum ad populum. Anyway, I’ve taken on this attitude at length elsewhere on this forum and have no patience to rehearse the points, yet again. If you’re interested you can find the lengthy discussion under: Gardner's double standard on Foreign Affairs?

As to the neoconservatives, this may be where our differences are most telling. There has never been a neoconservative as President, nor Secretary of the Treasury, so the citing of government expenditure is irrelevant. The neoconservatives were an intellectual movement. More to the point, though, if you’d ever read the actual (not media constructed) neoconservatives you’d see there’s a vast difference between what they promote compared to Trotskyists and Marxists. To me this is a big victory for liberty. Again, I only care about the real world, not some idealized standard of libertarian purity. Real progress is always in small steps; I welcome each one.

Obviously you’re entitled to make any list you like and put whomever you like on it. You did, though, invite input. And when you only included Kolko, I merely rolled my eyes and couldn’t be bothered saying anything, but when you stated that Sowell was unworthy of such a list that Kolko apparently deserved to be on, to me that was patently ridiculous. And incidentally, yes, Kolko’s history of the Progressive movement was good, but his history of WWII the “cold war” was pretty awful. His venomous, knee-jerk anti-Americanism leads him to misrepresent all of kinds of facts and evidence. But maybe it’s precisely that venomous, anti-Americanism that you like about him. It certainly seems to be a popular perspective on this website. As an uninvolved observer – perhaps with a little more critical distance on the matter – I can only be thankful that people like Kolko (and you?) have no impact at all on U.S. foreign policy. And trusting in the pragmatic reasonableness of American good sense, I’m confident that such people never will.  (Which -- do I really need to say this -- of course, is not a blanket endorsement of ALL U.S. foreign policy.)

But this lengthy discussion is all a bit extraneous. All I was saying was that any list of friends of libertarianism that includes a Marxist, syndicalist with a spotty scholarly record, but is supposed to exclude a lifelong defender of free markets rooted in a prestigious body of scholarly work is a bit silly. And I think you know so and at this point only stubbornness or pride prevent you from admitting it.

B.C.'ing you.

Copernicus

Thanks for the thoughtful response.  I'll try to respond to all of your points.  You said, "All I said was that Reagan played a significant role in bringing the Soviet slave empire down."  It is my contention that Reagan and the Defense Department Democrats in Congress had ZERO role in bring down that slave empire.  Here's an article with a list of revisionist works on the Cold War:  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/spielberg7.html.  This rebuts the narrative of the left/right paradigm where the only people who could criticize war are hard core lefties.  Many of the people on the list in the above article were/are "Rightists".

As to your second point, I didn't intend to use argumentum ad populum as evidence of the correctness of my position.  I just wanted to point out that this is a legitiimate position.  Neocons claim that foreign terrorists are some great threat.  Sowell is conflating two groups of people in his condemnation.  Liberals and leftists who hate America as a country and libertarians and conservatives who blame the policies of the American government.  Liberals and Conservatives both equate the government and the people.  For the conservatives, criticizing the government's foreign policy is the same as "Anti-Americanism".  And for liberals, criticizing the government's domestic policy is "anti-government extremism", a la Tim McVeigh.

Of course, the  Left is horrible on economics but they are pretty good on the war issue.  And I am talking about the real left, not some corporate liberal type that conservatives like to brand as leftists.

I tend to judge people by their actions.  I could care less how many free market books Sowell writes.  When push comes to shove, he comes down on the side of Big Government types like Reagan, et al. 

Ah, LS, it’s been a blast, but I suspect we’re whittling things down to a conclusion here.

Just as a quick aside, don’t you think it’s better to provide an argument than to assign a reading list? I mean, quite aside of the fact that most people aren’t going to bother reading your reading list, isn’t it just a gesture of intellectual respect? Much as I love the computer revolution of the last thirty years – hard to believe I wrote my undergrad papers on a typewriter – one sad consequence has been this tendency to offer hyperlinks as substitutes for arguments. I’ve always believed, if you have an argument you should make it. God knows, more than enough times I’ve been forced to retract or revise arguments on the strength of others’ arguments. I like to think that occasionally the process has been reciprocated. But isn’t that the point: dialectics of reason? Otherwise, it appears (and I’m not accusing you personally of this) that the person is simply trying to score short term debating points in the absence of any substantive evidence for the position being advocated.

But, now, let’s get to the gist of the matter. At the risk of stating the laughably obvious, textual analysis can be just a wee bit on the...uhm...subjective side? So, I’m not going to presume to tell you that you’re wrong in your interpretation of what Sowell says, but I sure don’t read it that way. He’s not saying that one shouldn’t criticize the U.S. government – that would be contrary to his lifetime’s work. What he’s taking exception to are those who lack critical (in the original sense of the word) perspective and systematically engage in, what he nicely calls, moral one-upping of – not the government – but “our society” (which he was wise enough to put in quotation marks). He’s taking aim at the professional dissidents – the Chomskys, Zinns, Saids and, yes, Kolkos of the world – who perpetuate the delusion that the U.S. government constitutes a greater threat to liberty than Sharia-jihad. (And, incidentally, terrorism is a red herring here. The non-violent Sharia-jihadists are much more dangerous than the terrorists are. Which is why the self-indulgent, sanctimonious cultural self-loathing of the crew mentioned above is so important and worrisome.)

As we’ve established, I fully agree with Sowell on this and, if I understand correctly, you fully disagree. That’s fine, but it’s still a far sight from claiming that it’s “un-American” to criticize the government. I don’t see that anywhere in the text.

However, and maybe, in the end, this is the source of our disagreement, even if you were right about his post-9/11 polemic – which, again, I don’t think you are – I’d still say that his over 30 years of free market scholarship has had a far more positive contribution to the cause of liberty and, more importantly, will continue to do so for decades, or maybe centuries, to come than some rash reply to a vicious attack on Western civilization. (Again, if you think this was simply an attack on the U.S. you’re ignoring the self-proclaimed intentions of the key sponsors – contemporary and historical.) I wonder how much of Sowell’s serious scholarship you’ve read: in the Vision of the Anointed, Race and Culture, and Knowledge and Decision, it’s hard to imagine an author more willing to challenge conventional myths of Americanism and the rationalizations of Big Government.

Maybe there’s no where further to go with this. If so, I thank you for an engaging and civil conversation. I wonder if anyone other than you and I read this thread. If so, it would be a shame, I think it nicely focused a number of important issues.

B.C.’ing you
Copernicus

Let me end this thread with this.  I am not friends with or acquaintances with anyone who even closely shares my political beliefs.  The point of the thread was to remind libertarians that there are honest people who are statists of varying degrees.  And they are not the enemy.  As far as Sowell goes, I don't find him interesting.  If I can get into a little psychology here, Sowell used to be a Marxist.  What I've noticed is that a lot of lefties who become righties overcompensate on certain matters.  For instance, in order to repudiate the allegedly anti-war left (Most of the Left, btw, was only antiwar as a way to get power), many on the right become super warmongers.  On top of that, any good that he does is cancelled out by his support of phonies like Reagan and Limbaugh.

I agree with Ziggy that many libertarians are more interested in winning arguments and being purer than the other guy than they are in getting people to move toward a liberty positon.  I can deal with honest people.  The people that I tune out are the supposedly free-market conservative leaders.

I'm going to go back and read your "Gard's double standard thread".  And maybe make a comment.

Your Cold War argument is a nutshell is this:  "We 'beat' the Soviet Union by making our government bigger"  Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of demonstrating that Communism is a bad system.

I'm all for cutting government programs but I think you wrong about my deficits comment.  Once a deficit is incurred, it either has to be paid back through taxes or inflation, or directly repudiated.  Any future spending cut, while good, doesn't pay down a deficit.  It may divert tax money from current spending to paying off debt, which are just the accumulated deficits of prior years.

Let me also address Reagans tax and spending number.  I apologize but I will be quoting from free market economist Murray Rothbard. 

"The much-heralded 1981 tax cut was more than offset by two tax increases that year. One was "bracket creep," by which just inflation wafted people into higher tax brackets, so that with the same real income (in terms of purchasing power) people found themselves paying a higher proportion of their income in taxes, even though the official tax rate went down. The other was the usual whopping increase in Social Security taxes which, however, don't count, in the perverse semantics of our time, as "taxes"; they are only "insurance premiums." In the ensuing years the Reagan Administration has constantly raised taxes - to punish us for the fake tax cut of 1981 - beginning in 1982 with the largest single tax increase in American history, costing taxpayers $100 billion."

Ronald Reagan:  An Autopsy

"Sophisticated economists say that these absolute numbers are an unfair comparison, that we should compare federal spending in these two years as percentage of gross national product. But this strikes me as unfair in the opposite direction, because the greater the amount of inflation generated by the federal government, the higher will be the GNP. We might then be complimenting the government on a lower percentage of spending achieved by the government's generating inflation by creating more money. But even taking these percentages of GNP figures, we get federal spending as percent of GNP in 1980 as 21.6%, and after six years of Reagan, 24.3%. A better comparison would be percentage of federal spending to net private product, that is, production of the private sector. That percentage was 31.1% in 1980, and a shocking 34.3% in 1986. So even using percentages, the Reagan administration has brought us a substantial increase in government spending"

The Myths of Reaganomics