Those Peaceful Libertarians

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Like Becky Akers over at LewRockwell.com. First, you de-humanize your opponents by turning them into "goons" instead of fathers and mothers with kids and dreams, just like the rest of us. This paves the way for the "second American revolution" that Akers wants. After which... well, Akers' job is not to make recipes for the cook shops of the future, now, is it?

Comments

  1. Anonymous9:26 AM

    I find these Appeal to American Revolution tactics to be embarrassing.

    Partly because (and I don't want to deliberately offend anyone) it is clear that the American Revolution was done over reasons that would be considered trivial today.

    Having to pay a tax? On the purchase of paper? Levied to pay for a war that halted Spanish invasion? God forbid! And then the King of England had the nerve to demand freedom for slaves? Such a tyrant! Overthrow the bastard!

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  2. Daniel McCarthy6:32 PM

    It's not as if such incidentals were the only "reasons" for the revolution. There was a great deal of Whig paranoia about the king abolishing colonial legislatures and constitutions, ruling through appointed governors, and establishing bishoprics. If you thought your way of life -- the government and religion in which you participated -- were going to be swept away by a guy an ocean distant, you might take up arms, too. These fears, which had lesser analogs among various Whigs in England, were mostly bogus, but not entirely. (In hindsight they sound crazy, like anti-Catholic paranoia about papists plotting to erect tyrannies, but the danger seemed real enough to smart people at the time, and history certainly was not predestined to Whiggish outcomes.)

    The trouble for libertarians and other anti-statists is that at root the revolution was less about "no taxation" than about "representation" -- popular (if limited) rule through legislatures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gcallah12:14 AM

    Prateek, you forgot to mention that he was actually trying to get the colonists to honor treaties with Indians. (The Indians had opened a "Curry Delight" in Philadelphia, and the colonists weren't paying for their vindaloos.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:14 AM

    Yes, I found her language and motives to be less than stellar. I can firmly say that I do not side with her in most instances (she strikes me as too radical for my tastes). Usually, the only people that I pay attention to there are Bill Anderson, Lew, DiLorenzo, Woods, Butler Shaffer, etc. I am not very familiar with some of the other posters.

    There is a poster there that likes to make statements regarding military people. I am a vet so I often get pretty irked. It isn't that there aren't bad military folks, rather it is that he likes to clump them all together and call them all criminals (or worse).

    Last week there was a blog post there that was pretty offending (at least I thought that it was). I cannot remember exactly what it was about (I think it was about the troops), but Lew put the kibosh on it pretty quickly.

    I am not so certain that this is a libertarian thing (I am a libertarian, after all). I think that it is more that there are some twisted people who call themselves libertarians. If Lew lets some of this keep up, then it will be a reflection upon him, as well as the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete

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