To Understand Them, You Must Know Them
Lance on Feb 19 2008 at 11:50 pm | Filed under: History, Lance's Page, Libertarianism
As Ron Paul’s more disturbing and radical views are emerging, especially how closely he has associated himself with the Mises Institute, it might behoove those of us who consider ourselves on the libertarian side of things to more closely examine who these radicals are.
Certainly we have to understand we have many areas of agreement, but I think it telling that in selecting works of the late Murray Rothbard’s to feature, they would choose some of his most extreme and disturbing works of history at this point in time. Read Murray show not only a great degree of tendentious distortion, but the depth of his loathing, and that of those who would choose this particular piece, in his evisceration of George Washington. Every anti federalist conspiracy theory is presaged here. It is not that he wishes we had been more anarcho capitalist that strikes one, but the seething disgust at any deviation from the faith, even when fighting a war, and the way evidence is presented to paint Washington as an 18th century version of a totalitarian.
Of course, men who can fawn over Milosovic and Putin can twist reality to show whatever they wish.
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Talk about irony. The man with the plan that Rothbard says we should have followed, Charles Hill, expected to be CIC of the Continental Army. But…
He also had a different goal:
So, we would have still been a colony within the Empire, and the United States as we know it would never have existed.
I’ve always tried to be very aware of the differences between the many disparate individuals who self-identify as “libertarian”. I also think there are many people who are some flavor of libertarian, but who are too moderate/mainstream to identify as such. I try to be aware of them as allies, too.
But it’s disturbing to see how unrealistic and extremist some are willing to be. That Rothbard hack-job on the man who refused to be king was really too much.