P-dog writes:

A very weak retort. Thomas Jefferson did not lead a revolution for the purpose of furthering slavery. The signers of the South Carolina secession resolution did. There's a difference. Evidently you don't get it. A libertarian, on the other hand, would.

Ah. I see. Can't reply direclty to my own post--don't want to sully your hands. It's all electrons, Tom, you know. And no one cares about you finnicky rules. You insinuate here I am not a libertarian. I think you are not one. So there. Where are we now? Fisticuffs? On Segways?

Look, you obviously have a carefully-mapped out list of what is permitted, and what is not. It's okay to worship Jefferson, even though he owned slaves and raped one of them... but not to admire Jeff Davis, who freed his slaves.... because of "the" "purpose" of the "secession." Jefferson was in favor of secession... so was Jeff Davis... both secessions resulted in independent nations where slavery was legal... hmm, but "the" "purpose" --heck, I didn't konw there was "a" "the" purpose. You sure are smart, Tom.

Jusy give us the list of officially approved rules (run it by your benefactor first, would you) so we will know how to conform to the new world order.

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.

Why stop with South Carolina? Read three more here, all of which put slavery right up at the top:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/csapage.htm

The real significance in the criticism of Lincoln, in my mind, is quite apart from either antiquarian sympathy for the Confederacy or a personal animosity to Lincoln. It is two-fold and urgently relevant to current events.

First, The Lincoln Myth is used as a precedent. Since he has become a secular saint, his actions are appealed to as precedent for actions to be taken now. Did Lincoln crush secession? Then Russia ought to crush Chechnya. Did Lincoln make war on civilians? Then the U.S. ought to flatten Fallujah. Tellingly, one rarely (never?) hears Lincoln used as a precedent for going after slavery ("We ought to invade Sudan and stop slavery there! Lincoln would have.") even though that is supposedly his primary legacy.

Secondly, and more importantly, Lincoln is the founder of the current U.S. government, (as many critics and fans of Lincoln have concluded). To recognize this is to recognize that the original federalist intent of the Constitution has been a dead letter for nearly 150 years. We now have a centralized state. To be critical of Lincoln and what he wrought, then, is to be critical of the current centralized, militaristic, mercantilistic U.S. federal government.

Steve, I take your meaning on some of your points. But look--re Darwin: I have issues with the Darwin opponents, but I dont think their problem is that they're contrarians. I don't think they are, but there may be a bit of the "distrust of everything 'everyone' thinks is true" here. But why do you think this is a libertarian phenomenon? It's just religious. Many fundamentalist types have hated Darwin from the beginning. I don't see it as linked to libertarianism.

Pro-Confederacy stuff? I'm not aware of much of this. I am not pro-Confederacy at all and all these Dukes of Hazzard Rebel Flag types are definitely not my cup of tea, but that's primarily b/c I am too individualist and Randian to like the notion of all this collectivst membership crapola. (But then, many others do the same thing, with their religions and cultures; making a big deal about all this, insisting they are different and "part of" this other thing, all because of an accident of birth.)

Anti-Lincoln--yeah, you're right, there's much significant truth in it. You might call it contrarianism to try to expose Lincon's foibles but given his elevation to godhood in this country and the abysmal ignorance of what he did that was terrible, perhaps we need a teensy weensy bit of an antidote. Is it any different really than us Austrians/libertarians continuing to bitch about Bretton Woods and the Federal Reserve system, even though it appears we are stuck with the modern monetary system? Is it "contrarian" to try to fight the very idea of the modern money system, that is so accepted, ingrained, and established?

I think the Hayek dehomogenization debate and the socialist claims are separate. THe dehomogenization debate was not contrarianism at all, in my view, it was an attempt to highlight and examine crucial differences that had been sort of glossed over or not sufficienatly realized.

There may be a bit of the contrarian streak in Walter Block's fairly straightforward case that Hayek had many socialistic views, or whatever you want to call advocating government programs that most libertarians think are statist. But even if this is "contrarian," it of course does not prove the substance wrong.

Your complaint here seems to be almost bemoaning the fact that some libertarians won't just lie down and accept the "established" view, that they are continually rocking the boat.

Dunno what to say about the smoking thing, don't have much of an opinion, other than to note that I wrote an article, Let Kids Smoke, you would probalby consider contrarian. I did not downplay the dangers, so much (as far as I know, smoking does tend to cause cancer), as try to trace out the consequences of free will and individual responsibility and to argue against the common idea of addiction, as, say, Szasz has. Something like that is not so mcuh contrarian as maybe provocative. Yeah, maybe, but that's just a writing technique.

AS for the Illuminatis and conspiracy stuff, I myself have a strong aversion to all these kooky conspiracy theories. I think for example Oswald acted alone and killed Kennedy by himself. I think there is no need to look for conspiracies to explain what is wrong; in fact it diverts from the true problem by lookking for a hidden flaw that once fixed, everythying woudl be fine. YEt even here, this is not contrarian, it seems to me; conspiracy theorizing is widespread.

Steve, don't you think libertarianism is by its nature a bit contrarian? Don't you think we are viewed this way by others?

Also, as I noted on another comment, given the direction the world is moving, aren't you concerned about the menace of libertarian mainstreamism, the bias towards agreeing with the state. I don't mean to criticize successful libertairnas with mainstream careers; I am one of those. But I definitely see a great danger here, becuase there are innumerable pressures to conform, if one is cozily ensconced in mainstream jobs or positions. It is natural to want to go to cocktail parties and regular social events and be respected as a "serious" thinker, not some kook. Sure. But surely there is a gentle pressure from this to dull your sharp edges, to not mention so much all the problems that the cocktail party or watercooler-at-work set would think are nutty concerns. Surely we could use a few contrarians just to keep us on our toes. Think of Alan Greenspan. My personal view is that to the extent he was in favor of the gold standard and opposed the institution of a fed, I don't think he has really changed his mind. He just realizes it's not his job to challenge the fed's existence; that's not what he was hired to do. Nonetheless, someone as influential as he is could at least someday explain that the fed should be disbanded. But he does not and will not, b/c his wife is Andrea MItchell and he hobnobs w/ the powerbrokrs in DC and would be written off, after a while, as a kook if he did this. So he does not; and I cannot even say it is not rational of him. Hell, his own career and livelihood ougth to take an important place in his hierarchy of values. But isn't it good that there are some Austrians out there who are still unshackled and able to speak the truth about the Fed, even though this makes them contrarians?

When someone says that I'm a contrarian at root, I'm tempted to deny it. But in this case, it would be true. To be a "contrarian" per se is just to be contrary: against what others believe. I believe in liberty. It is a positive value. I want it and I work for it. That's the difference between libertarians and people who are merely "anti-state." The latter are merely against something, but not for a positive alternative. Lots of people are in opposition to the state: they include a great many people with whom I would not want to be categorized, such as criminals, terrorists, advocates of other forms of coercion and tyranny, such as a Caliphate or feudalism. I'm not just "against the state," because I favor liberty, which is why I favor restrictions on the state. When people enjoy more liberty, I am pleased by that, at the same time that I am mindful that injustices still exist.

Being a "contrarian" is being a second-hander, letting others dictate to you what you will stand against, rather than choosing that *for* which you will stand.

Why libertarians would be worried about "contrarianism" I don't know. As I said, we are basically contrarians at root. But especially given the direction the world is moving, it seems to me there is a much greater danger arising from the menace of libertarian mainstreamism, the bias towards agreeing with the state. Thus we have for example libertarians now adopting the very ultra-politically correct terminology and concepts fostered by the state, for example.

Mr. Carson's response is the most reasonable to come from those quarters. One can agree that the centralized state wrought by Mr. Lincoln is hardly desirable, without valorizing the thoroughly evil decision of South Carolina to secede for the purpose of maintaining slavery (I know that the Rockwellites will swarm out to say it had "nothing to do with slavery," as they always do, without having done the most basic research; a good start is the South Carolina resolution for secession, which puts slavery at the very center of the decision to secede: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm ).

Moreover, the Civil War happened well over a hundred years ago and I see little connection between that and, say, Chechnya (especially considering how eager Mr. Raimondo -- a staunch lewrockwell ally to whom Rockwell frequently links, especially in his zanier conspiracy theories about the Jews, er, Zionists -- is to support Putin's crushing of the Chechens).

The embrace of the Confederacy and of such retrograde racists as the late Sam Francis (of the KKK-friendly "Council of Conservative Citizens") and much more is documented in the postings at The Fever Swamp http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/cat_the_fever_swamp.php , for anyone who wants to discover the depth of the yearning for the confederacy and the south's peculiar institution that Lew Rockwell has fostered.

Indeed, one reason for the general pessimism among that crowd is the lack of appreciation for the spread of freedom to previously excluded groups. Blacks don't have to get off the sidewalk in southern towns when a white man approaches. That's an advance of freedom. Gay people aren't arrested, beaten, and thrown in prison for holding hands with thier same-gender partners. That's an advance of freedom. And, of course, the economy is substantially freer overall of command-and-control regulations governing price and entry than it was in 1965 or 1975 or 1985. There has also been substantial retrograde motion in some areas (including "PC" restrictions on campus speech and the deeply threatening developments concerning civil liberties over the last three years), but in general the trend has been for more people to enjoy more freedom than ever before in human history. I find that uplifting, rather than -- as in the case of those who yearn for the Confederacy -- depressing.

With the War Between the States came conscription. Since that war ended, somewhere around fifteen million Americans were enslaved under threat of death and sent all around the world to kill people. That's a loss of freedom. With the War Between the States came Lincoln's generals with a policy of attacking civilians and committing genocidal ethnic cleansing against the Plains Indians. Since that war ended, total war became dominant in U.S. foreign policy, especially by World War II. That's a loss of freedom, and for millions of people it was the end of their lives. With the War Between the States came the principle that the federal government can do whatever it wants, despite Constitutional barriers and the intended perpetual threat of secession and nullification, and no matter how many civil liberties or lives are destroyed in the process. That's a loss of freedom, and the U.S. government is now the largest, most interventionist and potentially most dangerous empire in the history of the world. With the war came income tax, gun control, censorship, deportaions of dissenters, national corporate statism, and many other horrible precedents for American society. Yes, in the chaos of the war, the slaves freed themselves. But, as we all know, racial equality and liberty hardly were won immediately after the war ended.

Everyone in the world knows that slavery is evil and that chattel slavery's demise was good, that in many ways liberty and effective freedom have advanced since 1789, or 1861, or 1898, or 1917 or 1933 or 1941 or 1965 or many of the other particularly horrible years for American liberty. No one who considers himself a libertarian wants slavery to return, or the Confederacy — an organization that, like Lincoln's government, sanctioned slavery, and implemented conscription and national economic policy — to come back to life. But given that most Americans know the evils of slavery but not of Lincoln and the American statism he gave birth to — given that the U.S. capital city has a disgusting monument sanctifying this lying, sociopathic Machiavellian piece of human trash, as if he were Jupiter and we were the Ancient Roman Empire — why should it be any surprise that libertarians interested in history might find time to critique Lincoln as if he still mattered? Or is there a statute of limitations for mass murder? After 140 years are we supposed to forget about one of the worst rulers in American history, the father of the consolidated U.S. nation state and accept the fact that so many Americans have an unfortunately distorted view of Father Abraham?

And I hated Lincoln long before I read LRC or knew who Rockwell or even what Austrian economics was. In 1996 Harry Browne's book Why Government Doesn't Work had a brief section on Lincoln that seemed to coincide with what one of my history teachers had said — that the Union's war against secession wasn't about slavery, nor was it necessary, yet it had plenty of ghastly long-term effects for American liberty, limited government and peace. This did not shock me too much at the time. The revisionist interpretations seemed to fall in place with the historical facts stipulated by most historians, even those who admired Lincoln. As time went on, I realized that many libertarians shared Browne's view of Lincoln. I saw that many of the libertarians in the California Bay Area, none of whom I would assume for a second had sympathies for Antebellum chattel slavery, also agreed that Lincoln was a tyrant, and that he had no right to stop Southern secession. In fact, I thought until recently that most or nearly all libertarians recognized the evils of Lincoln's regime. Everyone knows slavery is bad. It takes a libertarian methodological individualism to see how Lincoln was so bad in all the slavery he implemented. All my friends here in the supposedly liberal, PC Bay Area know I feel this way, and yet none thinks it's because I long for the oppressive race crimes of antebellum America.

Yes, to hate Lincoln is contrarian. But it is also quite libertarian, and in no way implies a defense of anything unlibertarian that Lincoln supposedly fought against.

Mr. Gregory may not himself yearn for a return to the Confederacy and its peculiar labor policies, but why have there been so many connections between Lew Rockwell & Co. and those who *do* yearn for such policies, such as the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens (their newsletter editor was a favorite reference)? What accounts for the astonishing whitewashing of the Confederacy, starting with the risible claim with which I have been bombarded from those quarters that the decision to secede had nothing to do with slavery, that it was *really* about tariffs and nothing more?

And for Mr. Gregory's account of the Lincoln-bashing to be plausible, we would expect that others who have built the modern state would come in for comparable bashing. Why is there so little Wilson-bashing, for example, given the ways in which he brought back conscription and set it on an essentially permanent footing, sent U.S. soldiers to Europe to engage in an utterly stupid war, and effectively nationalized much of the economy? What is it about Lincoln that so enrages Lew Rockwell & Co? Could it be that he actually defeated the side they preferred, the one that broke away (referring to the initial secession, not Virginia's) in order to preserve slavery?

Tom Palmer writes:

"Moreover, the Civil War happened well over a hundred years ago and I see little connection between that and, say, Chechnya (especially considering how eager Mr. Raimondo -- a staunch lewrockwell ally to whom Rockwell frequently links, especially in his zanier conspiracy theories about the Jews, er, Zionists -- is to support Putin's crushing of the Chechens)."

I have not written a single article about "the Jews," although I frequently criticize Israel. Israel and "the Jews" are not the same thing, in spite of neoconservative (and Israeli) efforts to conflate the two.

I do not support "Putin's crushing of the Chechens," as anyone who reads what I have to say on the subject can readily see. What I oppose is U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of the former Soviet Union, whether it be military, diplomatic, or propagandistic. It is interesting that someone who supports the U.S. military's effort to "crush" (his word) the Iraqi insurgents is lecturing the rest of us from a supposedly high moral plane.

Palmer's efforts to smear me -- and others -- in the midst of what ought to be a scholarly discussion are unconscionable, and I wonder why it is tolerated on this board. Does every discussion involving Palmer have to degenerate into a stream of invective directed at fellow libertarians?

I see from the posting times that the Cato Institute is now paying Palmer to smear people full-time. What I want to know is why "Liberty and Power" is allowing itself to become a sounding board for Palmer's personal vendettas.

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?

Oh, Mr. Raimondo. Let's agree to disagree on this for now. You have slimed, slandered, and assaulted with the most vile language imaginable every person with whom you have disagreed. Your complaint is implausible.

In any case, the question raised by the original posting remains an interesting one. Why are some people so remarkably pessimistic, and others optimistic? What should the objective evidence tell us? To a substantial degree, that will depend on what one considers the important freedoms that are realized or abrogated or imperiled. Those who care little for the freedom of black Americans would see no reason to rejoice in the victories of liberty over Jim Crow laws. They would likely be the same set of people who consider Jefferson Davis a truly great American. It's always struck me how odd it is that people who justly cry out against, say, laws against discrimination, see no advance for freedom when laws requiring discrimination were eliminated. (As was said of so many conservatives years ago, when they opposed forced busing: they didn't complain about it when children were forcibly bused to segregated schools.)

A very weak retort. Thomas Jefferson did not lead a revolution for the purpose of furthering slavery. The signers of the South Carolina secession resolution did. There's a difference. Evidently you don't get it. A libertarian, on the other hand, would.

Well you can certainly find small numbers of libertarians who are skeptical about Darwinian evolution, for one thing. I do think that some of the pro-Confederacy stuff that has come out of LRC and the Mises Institute smacks of this sort of in-your-face contrarianism, as does the related take-downs of Lincoln. (The work on Lincoln certainly has significant truth to it, but I think goes way over the line in its demonization of the man. That smacks of the same sort of contrarianism.)

The "scholarship" that has attempted to "de-homogenize" Mises and Hayek, and more generally demonize Hayek as a socialist smacks of the same sort of contrarianism, although this is an "insider" form. Skepticism about the dangers of things like smoking (again, aside from the politics of what to do about it) can be found from time to time. And, of course, the usual array of Federal Reserve - Illuminatus type crazies.

More generally, it's a distrust of almost everything "everyone" thinks is true. It feels not just contrarian but conspriratorial in its worst manifestations. If I had more time, I'd hunt down links etc, but I just don't out here in CA.