Thank You, Ms. Parks
A friend who follows such matters more closely informed me that there were some, um, rather ugly postings at Racial Collectivism Central (RCC), Lewrockwell.com (LRC), about the late Rosa Parks. He described very ugly remarks about a lady whom the rest of the county has honored.
Someone on Lew Rockwell’s staff with editorial powers exercised some strategic sense and they were all yanked down, so I didn’t have a chance to read them…until today. My friend informed me today that the posts had not in fact been removed from the archives, so here they are for you to view.
Here’s what Tom DiLorenzo had to say about the lady:
Thanks for the extra care documenting all of that, Tom. The only way to fight this kind of sickness is to shine a bright light on it. No doubt, poor Lew Bennett — umm, I mean Rockwell –will claim that his comments were taken out of context.
In fairness, I believe the description of the history given by Rockwell is accurate. I generally agree with your criticisms of the “fever swamp” but Rockwell’s point is simply that Rosa Parks’ act of civil disobedience did not occur as popular mythology has it (the first two quotes by others, on the other hand, are purely obnoxious). It hardly detracts from the ideals she represented or the courage she must have shown to violate the South’s strict racial codes to press for historical clarity (incidentally, the Scopes Monkey Trial is another example of a planned test case evolving into something of a popular legend).
Rosa Parks was chosen as a test case because of her squeaky clean personal history; a harmless church lady being fingerprinted by police was just too much for any civilized person to bear. As subsequent history shows, they could not have picked a better person! The civil rights movement showed extraordinary PR smarts in conducting its campaign for equality. Certain libertarian-leaning organizations could learn a thing or two from the civil rights movement and how to appeal to the public.
Again, Rosa Parks was an admirable person but more than anything she was a symbol that galvanized the civil rights movement. If she is a larger than life character it is because what she symbolized was indeed larger than life.
Bravo for unmasking such ugliness. Such remarks–and the attitude they display–are nauseating. So what if Mrs. Parks was an NAACP member or a part of a campaign to overturn injustice? (I say, More power to her.) In what warped mind is the fact that her case was chosen as an ideal test case “even more disturbing” than the history of racial segregation? And in what warped mind is there “a grain of truth” in Professor DiLorenzo’s description of Mrs. Parks and her allegedly “big fat, lazy ass”? From what I’ve seen, Mrs. Parks was a lady, but Professor DiLorenzo is no gentleman.
Segregation is one of the very nastiest examples in American historyof what Ludwig von Mises studied as “interventionism.” Too bad it’s the president and faculty at the “Mises Institute” that have whitewashed statist oppression and smeared the people who got rid of it. Mises must be rolling in his grave.
I find myself agreeing with Mark’s comments above. But do these certifiably off-color judgements rise to the level of “racism?” Uncalled for meanspirited disparagement – sure. and can any great legacy, as shown by the dissent in Barbershop, become oppressive? Sure.
Let me offer another perspective on Rosa Lee Parks passing by considering President Reagan’s. Reagan can be heralded for liberating many millions by winning the Cold War. I’m amazed. But it took control of the levers of power to do that. It took a lot of other peoples’ money and not a few lives. That’s tough to relate to, even if an admirable consquence. It requires Herculean vision.
What Rosa did, however, along with an important line of civil disobedience like Gandhi, amplified the rising demand for simple personal respect and human dignity throughout the world. MLK and the civil rights movement inspired Mandela, making a peaceful end of apartheid in South Africa possible. What makes this achievement different and less difficult to wrap one’s mind around is that Rosa could have been you – or me – or our grandmother.
Thus, thanks to our open society and the rule of law, we can imagine being HER. It’s easier to embrace the simple (even though calculated) exertion of courage, and thereby to do greater things for others we will never know. It’s easier to be inspired by Rosa Parks than Ronald Reagan. The latter is almost too complicated to grasp; the former, simple enough for almost anyone to embrace.
For this reason, together with the passing of a historic civil rights era – were I on the East coast, I would have gone to the Capitol building to bear witness. She was beautiful.
Many of those posts were in poor taste, which is probably why they were edited away. How, though, do they rise to the level racism, as you implicitly claim? It seems to me that most of the comments are the sort of banter that political fringe groups such as ours are wont to engage in — questioning the received historical narrative, investigating conspiracies (even conspiracies against the state!), and questioning sacred cows.
And, does the fact that after consideration, Lew pulled these posts speak well or ill of him? It stands to reason that if he pulled the posts, it was his considered opinion that they did not express his views. You seem to interpret his actions as uncharitably as possible.
Mr. Guillory’s post seems a case of never suspecting fire no matter how much smoke one observes. It would be odd for Lew Rockwell to consider that an opinion he had expressed in print did not express his views. What would move someone to write that sort of thing in the first place? It seems more likely that his considered opinion was that he didn’t want others to know what his views are, not that they aren’t really his views. He has given hints of his views on “racialism” (how he used to describe his views in the past) often enough. For someone who is a passionate defender of the Confederacy who has done much to inject such weird views into the midst of libertarians to quote approvingly the view of some kook that he felt violated because other people had worked to eliminate injustice is simply too weird for words. At best it shows indifference to the rights of black people and at worst it suggests that they didn’t have any rights worth caring about, which is consistent with the comparison of Jim Crow laws with being asked to pass the peas and with the standard remarks of CSA apologists that “the people” of South Carolina wanted to secede from the Union to manage their own affairs, so it was an open and shut case of the right to leave, a claim that assumes that the slaves who lived there just weren’t people.
Making regrettable off color remarks is one thing. Rockwell & Co. would not be the first to do that. But the hateful assault on the memory of Rosa Parks is a part of a larger picture and that picture is a very, very ugly one, indeed.
In answer to your question, I don’t know. Now, how about answering my two questions?
I did answer your questions. Rockwell’s posts were a part of a larger picture, one of unremitting hostility to every effort to correct injustices against black people and of friendliness toward one of the greatest conspiracies against human liberty ever, the CSA. Most rational people would call that racism. (Rockwell, in personal remarks, has distinguished his views from racism by characterizing them as “racialism,” a distinction without a difference.) Moreover, pulling them down does not speak well of Rockwell; it shows that (since they were his own posts, anyway) he was embarrassed about being so open about his reprehensible views.
So, you would think (ever so slightly) more of him had he kept them up?
Wouldn’t the act of keeping them up on the site just indicate that Lew’s not that smart? So we know that by taking them down, he’s not stupid, that is to say, we can bet that he’s smarter than he would be if he had kept them up. But being non-stupid doesn’t make him a better person, does it? The postings still seem – on first, second, and third reading – to be examples of downright mean racism.
Just out of curiosity Tom. Why is this act of civil disobedience so heroic? I am aware of your dislike for Lew Rockwell and anyone associated with him, but you are really reaching this time. As a libertarian, I understand that laws mandating segregation were reprehensible, especially when they were enforced on a transit system subsidized by tax dollars, and Rosa Parks certainly did the proper thing. But she is a symbol of a much greater movement (and it is this symbolic association which gives her the status of national icon). This movement is one that I have a difficult time getting too excited about, and certainly not because I exhibit mean racism. In my mind, she is in league with the people who refused to move from the Woolworth’s lunch counter, and with the people who applauded several Warren Court decisions that made it illegal for business owners to discriminate against patrons. As a libertarian, do you support these latter manifestations of the civil rights movement? If another group of libertarians are attempting to de-construct the greatness of this historical moment by going after the memory of Rosa Parks (by questioning the mainstream wisdom about her heroic legacy), why would you so viciously attack them? Is it because the bus that she rode was tax-subsidized, or because you think that forced integration was a good thing? Or is it because you really hate Lew Rockwell that much yet have such a difficult time finding a reason to do so?
AGN, you’re shifting ground. The question of whether it was “smart” to pull the posts is orthogonal to the question of whether it was morally good or bad.
I think it was the morally right thing to do, and shows some concern for Parks’ memory.
What I see from Tom Palmer is that whatever Lew Rockwell does, Mr. Palmer finds a reason to smear him, and nothing Rockwell ever does would change Palmer’s mind. It seems to be the obsession of a fanatic. We’re not talking about a preponderance of evidence that Palmer can cite against Rockwell. It’s mostly bald assertions, hearsay, and questionable inferences. Palmer responded to be above with an analogy about smoke and fire — my reading of these internecine squabbles is that Palmer is usually blowing smoke when it comes to Rockwell.
Among other things, I really don’t get Palmer’s implicit claim that Rockwell somehow proliferates racism by never publicly airing racist views.
I’d also like to point out that Rockwell doesn’t really make any objectionable remarks above, in my opinion — it is Huebert’s and DiLorenzo’s remarks that are objectionable. A charitable interpretation is that Rockwell pulled the objectionable posts, and then his own post because it referred to Huebert’s.
So if Rosa Parks, even if defiant at that moment, turns out to have been an opportunist, why can’t I say that both things are true? Sure, she did something corageous and worthy of praise. But at the same time, if there is evidence that she was an opportunist (which one has a right to do), it still doesn’t take away what she did. Both things are not mutually exclusive. And to call people racist for recognizing truth is illogical.
Gil, you just must be smarter than you’re letting on. Tom’s pointed out that Lew gives a forum for racism (which he mixes in with rational views, too) and that he drops the explicit racism when his writes (including Lew himself) get a little too far over the edge and a little too obvious. (You are implicitly nailing Huebert and DiLorenzo as racists, by the way.) What about the fruitcake Bob Wallace’s views, which Wallace made pretty explicit on STrike the Root? Do you think that Lew had no idea until Tom Palmer pointed it out that the guy is a flagrant racist? His columns disappeared off of lewrockwell.com only AFTER Tom ran a blog post about Wallace, although anyone who had read Wallace’s articles knew that he was crazy as a loon (as you might expect from people who write apologetic essays on the swastika).
And anyway, your remarks make little sense: “Whatever Lew Rockwell does, Mr. Palmer finds a reason to smear him”???? Tom only writes about Lew when Lew tips his hand and shows his racism, his sicko nostalgia for the old south, his anti-Americanism, and his basic opposition to core libertarian ideas, like individualism. Whatever else Lew does, Tom doesn’t write about it. Your statement seems to suggest that Lew doesn’t do much, if we were to assume that every statement by Tom commenting on Lew is a triggered by “Whatever Rockwell does”. Or maybe it’s not the case that Tom is moved to “smear” Lew (how do you smear someone by quoting him?) by “Whatever Rockwell does”, but that Tom only criticizes him when he makes racism as public as it is in the posts he cited.
You’re focusing on the fact that Tom remarked on how Lew pulled the posts. So what? Whether they were pulled or not, that’s not his main point. (It looks like Tom mentioned the fact that they were pulled only because he says he didn’t get to read them until his friend found them on the archives; he made screen shots to keep them from being yanked altogether like Bob Wallace’s postings were, not because he was making a big point out of them being pulled off Lew’s site. You’re using the issue as a dodge to avoid acknowledging that Rockwell’s remarks are ugly and the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who dreams of the revival of the Old South.
I just got in and am working on some other projects, but I’ll post a response later to Ms. Hellmer, Mr. Guillory, and Manuel. (For one thing, I’m giving some lectures at some universities in North Carolina tomorrow and I’ve got to do a bit of preparing.) But I’ll get back to this this evening.
Ah, once again we’re into the same debate: Tom presents obvious evidence of racism and a hearty few circle the wagon around Rockwell and his merry band of Confederates. What can you say of someone who approvingly posts an email on his own website that states, “While Jim Crow was abominable, I find the staged events of modern American ‘history’ even more disturbing.” Even more disturbing than Jim Crow? What can you say of someone who thinks the video cameras should have left the good ‘ole agents of the State alone to beat a black man [Rodney King]? What can you say of a man that allows individuals to post on his website that refusing to accept racist State action is “a stunt”?
It seems that most of you will deny Lew’s racism until the day he pulls you aside and says “I am a racist.” For the rest of us, however, he’s left a paper trail longer than Sam Alito’s.
Tom,
I do wish that Lew would provide a response to your concerns. Like you, this matter bothers me. I AM glad that he pulled the posts in question and suspect that this may have been a conscious realization that such statements were in error. I’m not psychic and I can’t read Lew’s mind. I just don’t know if there is some hidden agenda here, as I think you suspect, or if he is battling some old attitudes that he once held onto. Sometimes I think this of Hoppe as well.
I’ve worked with several thousand people on an in-depth level over the years in the process of mediation, and I’ve seen pretty much all sides of the racial divide, Tom. Been called “white devil,” “honky,” “nigger” and all sorts of other names (which are more foul than these) from all sorts of ethnic points of view, and I’ve seen many struggling with the process of changing their attitudes because they realize that there’s something wrong with their own beliefs.
Is it more effective to stridently object to racism or take the person aside and talk to them on a one-to-one basis? We probably need both and am glad to see you taking such an open part in the process, whether it’s on sexual bigotry or on racism. I agree with you on your concerns and wish you the best.
I do wish the LRC people the best and hope that Lew makes an open statement about this and clear the air. It’s too important to ignore, and this seems to be what he has done.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/
Well, it’s late. But here’s a quick response before I pack for my trip to speak in North Carolina:
In what sense was Ms. Parks “an opportunist”? That’s normally a term of abuse. What she did was just. It was the right thing to do. The late Sam Francis, whom Lew Rockwell admires so much, didn’t agree. But he was a racist, a segregationist, and an advocate of state violence against people because of their color; he was not a libertarian and not an individualist. Any libertarian would applaud Ms. Parks’s act. And any decent person would be impressed by her quiet dignity. Maybe that dignity was made stronger by a course in non-violence training. Then all the more reason to applaud the NAACP for promoting such training. We are all in their debt.
Ms. Hellmer refers to me as “vicious” for publicizing what Lew Rockwell and his cultists think. It’s evidently vicious to let people speak for themselves, but the vicious content of what they have to say (including the vulgar characterization of Ms. Parks by Tom DiLorenzo) is merely a matter of “attempting to de-construct the greatness of this historical moment by going after the memory of Rosa Parks.” Why “go after” her memory? What did she do other than to stand up for her rights as a free and equal person?
The hatred of black people that Lew Rockwell has propagated — the collectivism, the indifference to the rights of individuals, and the sheer ugliness — is a stain on the memory of the man whose name he appropriated for his association.
And let me just mention that people do judge one by the company one keeps. For Lew Rockwell, that company includes white supremacists, segregationists, and the rest of the fever swamp. True believers, as Dan notes above, will circle their wagons. I hope that others will pay attention to what Rockwell is promoting and ask themselves whether they want to be judged on the basis of that company.
I should mention that I appreciate Ken’s humility and thoughtfulness. And I approve of people shedding old prejudices. Ken notes, “I just don’t know if there is some hidden agenda here, as I think you suspect, or if he is battling some old attitudes that he once held onto.” I just don’t see any evidence of any battling of any old attitudes, as opposed to being coy about some attitudes that are very dear to Rockwell and Hoppe, but about which they know they have to be at least a little discreet. You don’t have to lift the rock up too far to see that what’s under there isn’t pretty. Who could be in doubt about the attitudes exhibited by the posts above?
Tom, you are absolutely right, just as her cause was right.
Tom didn’t respond to Ellennita Muetze Hellmer’s question, “As a libertarian, do you support these latter manifestations [i.e, state-enforced integration of the private sector] of the civil rights movement?” Tom asks “Why ‘go after’ her memory? What did [Parks] do other than to stand up for her rights as a free and equal person?” I took Hellmer’s point to be that Parks’s iconic status is not the result of her courageous stand against state-enforced segration, but her position as a spokesperson for the modern civil-rights movement, which is anything but libertarian.
This brings to mind a more general issue, on which I’d appreciate comments from any of you. Is libertarianism purely a political doctrine, i.e., a theory of what the state may or may not do, or does it describe a broader social sytem? Tom seems to think the latter; e.g., he denounces Rockwell for having “collectivist” views. Well, does collectivism per se have anything to do with libertarianism? Suppose I think that all Irish are evil or that tall people are morally superior to short people, but I don’t want the state to do anything against Irish or Shorts. Can I still be a libertarian? To be a libertarian, does one have to have a more generally “liberal” world view, emphasizing tolerance, modernity, reason, etc.? Or can the Amish or white supremacists or other non-liberals also be libertarians, as long as they favor a limited state or no state?
A quick note while I’m on the road (and about to meet people to head to a seminar at Duke University):
George F’s question certainly suggests an admission that the little cluster of kooks that Lew Rockwell has assembled is indeed racist. That’s interesting. George F. also wonders whether a “white supremacist” could be a libertarian (and oddly lumps such characters in with the Amish); how could a libertarian believe that any person or group could be “supreme”? And if you don’t believe in the moral equality of persons, how could you believe in their legal equality? I’ve always seen libertarianism as intimately bound up with moral individualism. (Certainly one of the key cult figures in the Rockwellian church, Murray Rothbard, asserted that. He was right.) If people don’t matter, why would you consider them as having rights? Why would one respect the rights of others? The view that George F. hints at doesn’t work. You don’t have to take the all-encompassing worldview of Ayn Rand to think that there are some connections between substantitive views of the person and political philosophy. If it’s just accidental, then you can’t even have a discussion, as views would be merely randomly connected with one another. There is a connection between moral individualism and libertarianism (one is a condition for the other) and a racist who rails against “the government” isn’t a libertarian on the grounds that he wants to overthrow the state. If you don’t believe in any moral or legal constraints on your own behavior (e.g., if you think that it’s ok to enslave people or to disregard their moral claims because you think that they are “inferior” and you are “supreme”), then you’re merely anti-government. And merely being “anti-government” doesn’t make you pro-liberty.
If Ellenita Muetze Hellmer doesn’t want to sit near black people, she should have that freedom. But don’t tear down the accomplishment of people who fought for the freedom not to be told where to sit under threat of truncheons, police dogs, and lynchings. What a nauseating example of a person so filled with nastiness and pure meanness that she has to tear down an example of a dignified stand for liberty. On the same grounds, the memories of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Lysander Spooner should be attacked (their “greatness de-constructed”) since, after all, they provided inspiration to people who later went on to support restrictions on the freedom to do bad things (prohibition of alcohol, compulsory jury duty, or even compulsory integration). What a warped and utterly nauseating view of how to treat courageous and honorable men and women.
Thanks, Tom, for the response in the first paragraph above. I think I understand your position better now. But I wish you would elaborate it more, because I don’t totally get it. Your examples are too easy — how can you respect individuals’ legal and political rights if you think it’s OK to enslave them? Fair enough. But what if I just don’t *like* members of particular groups — Irish or Short people or whatever — but favor leaving them alone? I don’t see how the view that all people have the right to life, libery, and property implies the view that all people are equally virtuous or talented or fun to be around.
You find my Amish example puzzling, but I simply meant that the Amish are not liberals, in the modern sense. I don’t think they believe in multiculturalism and and diversity and all that. They think their way of life and their genetic and cultural heritage is *morally superior*, but they don’t enforce their ways on anyone (even their own children). Are they libertarians?
Finally, you take it as self-evident that “anti-government” is different than “pro-liberty.” The point of my post was that it is not self-evident. It’s fine to call certain views “vile,” “creepy,” “disgusting,” or whatever, but I think you should be careful calling them “non-libertarian.”
Sorry, don’t mean to monopolize the discussion, but I didn’t express myself as clearly as I meant to. Here’s what I was trying to say:
Tom, you imply that the quotes from DiLorzneo, Rockwell, etc. are equivalent to, or logically imply, the views that (1) people are not “morally equal”; (2) “people don’t matter,” and therefore don’t necessarily “have rights”; (3) “you don’t believe in any moral or legal constraints on your own behavior”; and (4) “it’s ok to enslave people or to disregard their moral claims because you think that they are ‘inferior’ and you are ‘supreme’. I realize you were typing quickly and I’m not trying to be pedantic. But did you really mean that? I think you’re making a huge leap from bigotry to the idea that other people have no moral status whatsoever.
Wouldn’t most 19th century abolitionists be considered “racist” by today’s standards? They certainly believed that blacks deserved the same legal rights as whites. But they weren’t racial egalitarians.
A few clarifications. I never said that you were viscous, I said that your attack was. And it was your attack; I don’t recall Lew Rockwell ever referring to his web-site as “Racial Collectivism Central.” There is no need to personally attack me as well. Spewing nasty and unfounded opinions about someone that you don’t agree with rather than answering their questions suggests that you have subjectively lost whatever argument you are engaged in, but don’t have the character to admit it.
I also did not say that Rosa Park’s greatness should be de-constructed, but the greatness of that historical moment that symbolically began when she refused to give up her seat on that bus. I even said that, as a person she did the right thing. However, the movement that she is celebrated for “mothering” (in the words of the media now) has nothing to do with liberty. Title II of the Civil Rights Act and the Warren Court Decisions that prohibited discrimination in private establishments enslaved the owners of those establishments. This was not a great moment for liberty. While I am glad to see the Jim Crow Laws gone (and I think that there are a few more that need to follow), I think that the rest of what was accomplished violently by the Civil Rights Movement could have been accomplished effectively by boycotts and the like. For example, I have informed my alma mater that I will be less generous with my alumni contributions until they stop discriminating against the partners of homosexual faculty and staff. I have also refused to buy any of Hans Herman-Hoppe’s books or attend any more of his lectures because I do not want to support the bigotry that he spews. This is real passive resistance, and most libertarians think that it is effective (something about a market…). Are you of the opinion that there are positive rights that should be violently enforced by the state? Such as the right to sit on a bus?
Now, you may say that it is in poor taste to attack someone right after they die, but I know that you don’t think that because you attacked Sam Francis right after he died (an attack that I agreed with). But you didn’t accuse Rockwell of bad taste, you said that he was a racist that no decent person should associate with, and you had little reason to do so. If DiLorenzo and the like exhibited bad taste by making fun of Rosa Parks, the underlying sentiment may not necessarily a hatred of black people, but a resentment of the violence of the Civil Rights Movement, a movement represented by Rosa Parks. How about answering my question then: why do you hold her up as being so heroic? Is it only because the bus that she sat on was owned by a government monopoly, or because you support violent integration?
I am surprised at how some people refuse to see the facts. The Declaration of Independence referred to a “long train of abuse” by King Geoge. Why? Because it was not an indictment of England over one abuse here or another there but over a long series of such incidents.
The case against Rockwell and Co. is not based on one incident of racism here or another there. It is based on a “long train” of such incidents. White supremecists are invited to write for Rockwell and speak at Mises Institute seminars. Representatives of racist groups work closely with Rockwell and Co and in return the Rockwellians endorse their return to the Confederacy.
I see nothing that Rosa Parks did that was wrong. Whether she was part of a movement or not is immaterial. That movement, in what it did at that time, was right and moral. Whether it got off base later is another matter. And I certainly don’t judge it based on the later actions of others. I doubt Rosa Parks was a libertarian. So what! What she did on that bus was libertarian.
I will also point out to the dunces who think the sit in at Woolworth’s was unlibertarian that they need to recognize that the real perpetrater in the case was the State. Woolworth’s didn’t have a choice about segregating. Maybe the sit in would have been better at the state capitol. But in the freer North such segregation was not common and not mandated by law. But even so, what the f… does that have to do with Rosa Parks refusing to give her seat to a white man as mandated by state law! There is plenty of evidence to show the bus companies did not instigate those policies and actually opposed them.
To snipe at Rosa Parks upon her death is actually rather tasteless. But racists are tasteless people. Sure, if this were the only incident of its kind I would ignore it. But a long train of racism exists particularly with the ranting of Hans Herman Hoppe and others. Admit the fact that the Mises Institute (pity poor Mises for this) is run by extremists who bring the entire libertarian movement into disrepute. And that disrepute is made worse when naive individuals try to defend such bigotry.
We all appreciate this string of ad hominems, really we do. Some of us were trying to address substance, though, not just express our value judgments.
“I will also point out to the dunces who think the sit in at Woolworth’s was unlibertarian that they need to recognize that the real perpetrater in the case was the State.” Nonsense. You think that in the absence of the State, ebony and ivory would live together in perfect harmony? The State is responsible for all-white country clubs, the rarity of interracial marriages, the fact that the racial distribution of certain occupations doesn’t match the racial distribution of the general population? The “civil rights” movement is all about fighting the state, is it? Ridiculous.
Get real, Real. The “civil rights” movement is not just non-libertarian. It’s anti-libertarian. If you want to join up, fine. But don’t accuse the rest of us of being ugly racists because we oppose these statists.
So, Get Real. Are you saying that, because the segregation was enforced by law, what Rosa Parks did was heroic? And in areas where it wasn’t enforced by law but by the private sector, you would not have supported similar action (for an example, see the 1964 Supreme Court case Heart of Atlanta Motel v the U.S.)? Is it only because you don’t think that the government should force segregation? Now Tom’s gonna start saying that you hate black people too.
I hate to say it, but it sounds like you might agree with Lew Rockwell (“None of this means Mrs. Parks wasn’t brave to refuse to be humiliated by the government, and to face jail instead”) and J.H. Huebert (“Sure, government-imposed segregation is bad…and resisting arbitrary government rules is good”)on this point.
This is amazing. Tom brings to light some of the down and ugly racism delivered up by Lew Rockwell, and *he’s* the one who’s committed a faux pas? Not one of the slavish defenders of Lew Rockwell is willing to openly defend the truly vile and mean racism that Rockwell spews out, so they do whatever they can to cloud the issue.
Here’s my bottom line on those creeps. Even if you could hold such evil views and still be committed to the non-aggression axiom, who would want to make common cause with a bunch of scumbags who would judge other people’s souls on the basis of their skin color? They’re disgusting examples of old-fashioned collectivism and a gigantic embarrassment. They’re a turn off to normal people. As was pointed out above by one of their defenders, they are attractive to fringies generally, but not to the intellectually and morally serious people who make a difference.
I figured them out some time ago and wouldn’t go near that nest of Confederate-flag waving kooks if you paid me a million dollars.
Well, if this is simply a shouting match about which libertarians are nasty or on the fringe or a turnoff to normal people, I don’t care to participate, not only because people like AGN strike me as grossly misinformed, but because the whole thing is, well, boring. I really don’t care that much if Mr. X is or isn’t a “racist” (whatever that term means nowadays).
Anyway, AGN seems to agree with me, against Tom, that Rockwell et al. can be called libertarians, even if he finds them personally noxious. That was simply my point, that Tom associates “libertarian” with a slew of social, moral, and cultural values that have little to do with libertarianism per se.
Here’s one for Tom: imagine a religiously conservative Jew or Muslim or Christian building owner who refuses to rent to homosexuals or unmarried heterosexual couples. Is this an un-libertarian position? What about a Catholic priest who opposes the ordination of women? Or an Orthodox Jew who opposes his daugher’s marriage to a Gentile? Or a Southern redneck who doesn’t want black neighbors? Can these people not be consistent libertarians because they have politically incorrect views on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or whatever? If so, it would be helpful for you to clarify what you think a libertarian is.
I never claimed that political theory exists in a vacuum, that a person’s political philosophy is “accidental” (as Tom puts it). If Tom thinks this is what I meant, I must be a very poor communicator. But how you get from Rothbard’s concept of self-ownership, and the subsequent position that all individuals have certain political, moral, and legal rights, to the view that private discrimination is evil is completely beyond me.
George F. shouldn’t be so quick to find alleged allies. Yes, you can believe in “liberty” on the grounds that government agents are aliens and you get secret radio broadcasts from God calling on you to resist them. But people who believe that are mere accidental libertarians, not people who have a grip on reality. Racists also don’t have a grip on reality if they think that “races” are natural kinds that just shouldn’t mix, or that some are morally better than others.
So, is Lew a libertarian? Let’s see…Are people libertarians if they endorsed the secession of South Carolina, which was, as Tom has pointed out, was undertaken for the explicit purpose of retaining slavery? Are they libertarians if they are indifferent to the subjugation, oppression, and violence toward black people during the era of Jim Crow and segregation? Are they libertarians if they endorse having the police beat people up, and use state violence against people with no restraints, checks-and-balances, or other limits on their power? If you answer no to the above, then Lew Rockwell is no libertarian.
And you don’t get from self-ownership to “the view that private discrimination is evil”. You get from rationality to the view that we own ourselves and also to the view that racism is evil. (And it escaped me on the first reading, but a friend pointed out that George F. has shifted the ground — again — from the ugly racism of the Rockwellians to a focus on the legality of “private discrimination”, which wasn’t Tom’s point at all. Shift and twist all you want, but you can’t rescue Lew and his gang of kooks from people knowing that they are racists.)
AGN, yes, WE GET IT. You think Rockwell et al. are racist kooks, and I’m sure that was Tom’s original point. Anyone who’s read Tom’s blog for more than a week knows he despises Rockwell, Hoppe, Sobran, Francis, and Genghis Kahn (not necessarily in that order). WE ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS. Going over it for the nth time is boring, boring, boring, so yes, I took the opportunity to “shift the ground” (I thought I was pretty explicit about changing the subject) to a more general discussion among Tom and his readers about the relationship between libertarianism and social and cultural views. You seem to have little interest in this, except to blather on, Randian-style, about what “rationality” requires.
Is anyone else interested in my topic? If not I’ll gladly shut up.
George F. It seems to me that “racist” (in the way that some of Lew Rockwell’s associates are accused of being) and “collectivist” need to be disentangled in order to properly answer your question. I have noticed that Tom Palmer seems to compound the two terms in order to accuse Lew Rockwell of a thought crime both against minorities and against libertarians.
I seem to remember that Murray Rothbard said that a disparity in ability between different races needs to be emphasized in order to calm the left’s claim that government intervention is necessary to correct the racial distribution of labor. Rothbard then (I think its Rothbard, please correct me if I’m wrong) seems be believe in a degree of genetic determinism, and could thus be called a “racist.” From my experience, this is a view of race (and gender) that is expressed by SOME people associated with the Mises Institute. It is also expressed by some conservatives, namely Charles Murray.
I disagree with this view, but whatever.
However, it isn’t necessarily collectivist. After all, one could easily judge each person individually yet still hold stereotypical views about a group that are based on certain observable patterns and beliefs about genetics. There is nothing in the former view that necessarily negates the notion of individualism (no social constructivism, etc). Now, there are people who take the view of genetic determination a bit further, and then do not abandon collectivism. Hans Herman-Hoppe, in my opinion, commits this error. He advocates border control and the exclusion of certain groups from society–certainly a collectivist point of view. I think that he thinks that certain groups who share phenomenological traits also share undesirable character traits. Of course, I could be wrong, it is something that he has only IMPLICITLY stated in my presence, and I don’t want to fly off the handle. However, the view that border control is necessary to keep out certain “undesirable” groups is certainly not a libertarian stand. One could use his same logic (that the government is the legitimate keeper of the land for now) to advocate all kinds of economic, political, and civil interventions, and thus abandon libertarianism altogether. His racism, then, is so deep that it leads him to completely negate the libertarian ideas that he has devoted his entire life to promoting. His view of border control, as far as I can tell, is shared by almost no one else who claims libertarianism.
I see a couple of people who are angry at Tom Palmer for pointing out that Lew Rockwell is a racist (and who could really deny that, after the long paper trail he has left?), but they don’t seem worked up about the racism that Palmer exposed. Thinking that moral character or moral standing is determined by race is a form of collectivism, because it says that group membership is more important than individual actions or character.
George F. asks (apparently with Rockwell, DiLorenzo, & Co in mind): “Suppose I think that all Irish are evil or that tall people are morally superior to short people, but I don’t want the state to do anything against Irish or Shorts. Can I still be a libertarian?” If so, you’re a creep and a bad ally (and more likely an enemy) to libertarians. You might not support coercion (although why not use it against people who are inherently “evil,” as the Irish in the case are supposed to be), but that doesn’t mean that you’re a rational person, a decent person, or a useful ally for people who do favor liberty. I wouldn’t join a march organized by creeps in white hoods just because it’s against, say, racial quotas. The creeps in the white hoods are opposed to racial preferences that harm their group, yeah, but they’re not in favor of liberty and they’re sure not the kind of people I would make common cause with. Isn’t that pretty obvious? David Duke (the KKK leader) is against “affirmative action,” but that isn’t a good reason to make common cause with him and there are lots of good reasons to stay completely clear of him. The pathetic defenses of racism in some of the posts above are just that: pathetic.
After a long day, it’s not easy to follow all of the claims and counter claims above. But I’ll pick out a few. First, Ellennita Muetze Hellmer seems not to understand some of the central issues. First, Charles Murray is not a racist; he did statistical research and generated controversy over the question of to what extent the observed variation in intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, could be accounted for by genetic inheritance; a few pages of his co-authored book looked at the role in explaining observed variation of race. The statistical studies he and his co-author undertook indicated that race accounted for some of the observed variation. But they also took pains to insist that they were not racial collectivists, derived no moral consequences from their statistical studies, and so on. And never, ever, would Charles Murray denigrate a person for seeking to get rid of racial oppression, nor would he suggest that any group is evil or that any people are morally superior to others (on the basis of some inherited characteristics), to take up the hypothetical examples that George F. raised.
George F. has shifted the topic to something that is quite different from the one I raised. If someone prefers be a roommate with a Catholic or a Jew or who refuses to rent a room in a motel to an unmarried couple, that’s his or her right. Whether the decision is rational or not, it’s that person’s right to do it. But would George F. join DiLorenzo and Huebert in mocking a lady for standing up for her right not to be forced to give up her seat because of her color? Is he willing to defend that? Would he admire a person who would? Would he honestly think that such people are “good allies” for liberty?
I agree with AGN that you don’t have to derive all of your values from some simple libertarian principle; what a barren world of values that would be. The value of having property in one’s person should be derived from some rationally defensible foundation, if one undertakes to defend it. Moreover, some values don’t sit very well in the same boat with libertarian values (e.g., thinking that all the Irish are evil; it’s quite unlikely that such a person would also think that they have equal rights). Moreover, trash like that make poor allies. I wouldn’t march with an al Qaeda contingent against the war with Iraq, and I wouldn’t march with David Duke or similar trash against racial quotas . Their values are not compatible with mine at any level. And in any case, such stupidity would merely undermine the values I do hold. It’s actually important to me that injustice be eliminated, or at least reduced. But hey, that’s just me.
Samuel, all you’ve offered is a string of non-sequiturs. “The creeps in the white hoods are opposed to racial preferences that harm their group, yeah, but they’re not in favor of liberty and they’re sure not the kind of people I would make common cause with.” So Kweisi Mfume, Jesse Jackson, and Charles Rangel are in favor of liberty? These are your allies — men who advocate coercion to enforce racial equality?
It seems like the participants in this conversation are so far apart in basic values that no fruitful dialogue is possible. Samuel, hard as it may be for you to believe, some of us don’t think that “racism” is the major problem of our time. Some of us hold liberty, and not political correctness, as our highest political value. Some of us greatly admire, say, Lord Acton (who supported South Carolina’s secession, making him per se evil in Tom’s opinion) or H.L. Mencken (whose views on blacks and, especially, Jews would definitely be classified as racist by your standards). (Of course, neither Acton, nor Mencken, nor Rockwell hold the absurd view that “moral character or moral standing is determined by race” or that “group membership is more important than individual actions or character.” For God’s sake, try to be more precise when you’re slinging mud.) I guess we politically incorrect libertarians are all evil, so there’s no use wasting your time and ours trying to work together for liberty. Too bad.
George F. should be more careful. Samuel C. made no mention of claiming Charles Rangel as an ally. George F. should take up a primer in logic. The statement “David Duke is not an ally” does not imply “Charles Rangel is an ally.” Samuel C. didn’t make that obvious error and George F. seems too smart to be guilty of such an obvious fallacy. So, what explains George F.’s attempt to impute that belief to Samuel C., and, by implication, to me and other critics of his “politically incorrect” views? The tactic reminds me of the squid, a creature which, upon sensing danger, squirts out clouds and clouds of ink to confuse the creature pursuing it, in the hope that it can escape while the pursuer is confused. And it’s noteworthy that George F. insists on calling himself “politically incorrect,” but there has been no “political correctness” in any of the comments made by me or anyone else above. No one should be censored for “hate speech,” for example. And no one has argued (certainly not me) that we should make bigotry illegal. I just don’t think that we should embrace it. And I think we should recognize it when we see it. People who revel in nasty bigotry on the grounds that it’s “politically incorrect” show neither judgement nor maturity nor seriousness of purpose.
Mr. Guillory above (way up above) mentioned that it’s common among “fringe” groups to be contrary about everything: “the sort of banter that political fringe groups such as ours are wont to engage in — questioning the received historical narrative, investigating conspiracies (even conspiracies against the state!), and questioning sacred cows.” It reminds me of the time in the early 1980s when I saw Edith Efron defend her book on how we were scaring ourselves to death with fears about carcinogens. An enthusiasatic questioner praised her and went on to say that cigarettes and cigars also weren’t dangerous and didn’t cause cancer. Efron took him to task, showing that the data showed without any room for doubt that smoking was a major risk factor for lung cancer and that it undercut rational approaches to risk assessment to make such wacky claims, merely because they were contrary to received wisdom. Such people would embrace the flat earth thesis simpy because it’s not taught in school anymore. It reflects a personality type that delights in being on the “fringe.” Leave me out. I want to live in a world of freedom and justice. That means I want my views to become a part of the mainstream (as, to a substantial degree, in the modern world they are), not that I want them to stay on some little fringe. For all those who want to be on the fringe — and to make sure that it stays a mere fringe — Lew Rockwell is your man.
To be precise, I did not accuse Charles Murray of saying that “any group is evil or that any people are morally superior to others.” I actually used him as an example of someone with racist (racialist?) views that may not necessarily conflict with libertarian ideals. However–just for the record–didn’t he write another book claiming that all great achievements have come from Western Europe? He has also published several articles of interest, namely: “The Advantages of Social Apartheid,” and another that embraces genetic determinism, as he defends Lawrence Summers by pointing out that women really are inferior to men in certain intellectual areas. But I’m not slinging mud; I find his work interesting.
Samuel C.–NO ONE is wearing white hoods here. You need to read Tom Palmer’s answer to George F. posted above and apply it to your own reasoning. At worst, some people made fun of Rosa Parks, but were quick to point out that she still did something good (Lew Rockwell, in fact, seemed to be the most forthcoming with praise). I only question how great it really was, and how sacred her image should be from a libertarian viewpoint. Obviously, she is the Jesus Christ of 1955 as far as Tom Palmer is concerned.
Even if you don’t want to be allies with certain people, I see little reason to reach as far as some have to smear Rockwell. It seems rather childish. A search for “Tom G. Palmer” on lewrockwell.com and mises.org comes back with a few citations to his article, and a document describing him as a libertarian philosopher who has done a lot of good work in Eastern Europe. And yes, I’ve heard the Hans Hoppe stories; at least he doesn’t publish the nasty things he says on the internet over and over and over again.
To be precise, I did not accuse Charles Murray of saying that “any group is evil or that any people are morally superior to others.” I actually used him as an example of someone with racist (racialist?) views that may not necessarily conflict with libertarian ideals. However–just for the record–didn’t he write another book claiming that all great achievements have come from Western Europe? He also published “The Advantages of Social Apartheid,” and another recent article that embraces genetic determinism. But I’m not slinging mud; I find his work interesting.
Samuel C.–NO ONE is wearing white hoods here. You need to read Tom Palmer’s answer to George F. posted above and apply it to your own reasoning. At worst, some people made fun of Rosa Parks, but were quick to point out that she still did something good (Lew Rockwell, in fact, seemed to be the most forthcoming with praise). I only question how great it really was, and how sacred her image should be from a libertarian viewpoint. Obviously, she is the Jesus Christ of 1955 as far as Tom Palmer is concerned.
I see little reason to reach as far as some have to smear Rockwell. Is it something personal? A search for “Tom G. Palmer” on lewrockwell.com and mises.org comes back with a few citations to his articles, and a document describing him as a libertarian philosopher who has done a lot of good work in Eastern Europe. And yes, Tom, I’ve heard the Hans Hoppe stories; at least he doesn’t publish the nasty things he says on the internet over and over and over again, publicly urging people to end whatever associations one has with you everytime you mention being gay.
That was me above. Sorry for accidentally posting twice.
Tom, you know my views about this general conflict so I won’t rehash them. But calling Ellennita, of all people, a “nauseating example of a person … filled with nastiness and pure meanness” and insinuating that she “doesn’t want to sit near black people” is massively unfair and baseless — and, to anyone who knows her, surreal. Whatever your criticisms of others, how on earth do they apply to HER?
I defer to your personal knowledge, Rod. I do object strongly to someone attempting to “de-construct the greatness of this historical moment by going after the memory of Rosa Parks.” If that isn’t nauseating, I don’t know what is.
While I’m definitely a fan of Rosa Parks — see my comment here: http://praxeology.net/molinarinews.htm#2-november-05 — I don’t think being skeptical of Rosa Parks is automatically an indication of racism.
Tom, I have to strenuously object to your characterizations of Ellennita’s comments; it’s abundantly clear that rather than address her honest curiosity about your position on civil disobedience in public versus private settings, you’d much prefer take her words wildly out of context to avoid a rather unpleasant but quite obvious contradiction in your own worldview.
Just as a refresher, Ms. Hellmer’s ACTUAL comments, with some context, are below:
“In my mind, [Parks] is in league with the people who refused to move from the Woolworth’s lunch counter, and with the people who applauded several Warren Court decisions that made it illegal for business owners to discriminate against patrons. As a libertarian, do you support these latter manifestations of the civil rights movement? If another group of libertarians are attempting to de-construct the greatness of this historical moment by going after the memory of Rosa Parks (by questioning the mainstream wisdom about her heroic legacy), why would you so viciously attack them? Is it because the bus that she rode was tax-subsidized, or because you think that forced integration was a good thing? Or is it because you really hate Lew Rockwell that much yet have such a difficult time finding a reason to do so?”
Question for George (aka. Mr. Kool Aid):
Do you support the racist views of Acton or Mencken?
I find the views of both men on race to be vile and irrational. Do you? They certailnly did admiral things, but their views on race were despicable.
But regardless, Lew is not a Acton or Mencken. He is a vile creep, a cultist Movementarian whose loyaty is to the Rothbardian Cadre and their sick racist buddies.
If anarchotopia broke out tommorow (yeah right), I would use my 12-gauge shotgun to protect my property from Lew Rockwell Kultists. Their ilk would not be welcome on my property. And if they tried to kick off a black women off my bus (assuming the bus was my personal property) they would be escorted out the door (by whaterver force was appropiate under the NAP).
Just a fair warning.
But keep spewing your hate, it makes you and your kind more visable.
George F. would make a horrible poker player, as he shows his ugly, bigoted “tells” for the world to see.
He uses the Amish as a counter-example. But to be “Amish” is not based on skin color or physical traits — it is chosen belief, a religious notion, a philosophical path.
But George F. talks about segragating “black” and “white” people, which is to judge people purely on their physical attributes and skin pigmentation (and not one’s chosen beliefs or philosphical outlook) which, as pointed out by Von Mises himself, is collectivist.
So maybe George F. and Lew Rockwell are “anti-state” collectivists, just as Sam Francis, Neo-Confederates and Neo-Nazis are anti-government statists. So what? They are still not individualists, and therefor NO FRIEND OF MINE, despite George F.’s crude “Jedi Mind Tricks” to prove otherwise.
Now are George F. or Lew Rockwell racist or bigots or just pretending to be racist in order to make allies with racists to achieve a political end? Does it matter?
Thanks and Kudos to Dr. Palmer for honoring the memory of Rosa Parks, a true American Hero.
The carping from the LRC crowd and some posters here are, at best, misguided; at worst, unconscionable.
Ellennita Hellmer asks, “Why is this act of civil disobedience so heroic?” It’s amazing this question even needs answering. Of course Rosa Parks’ action was brave — one dictionary definition of “heroic.”
Segregation had been in effect for 78 years. In that time, there had been sporadic protests, but African-Americans largely complied. It seems unreasonable to suggest that after all that time, when finally a woman refused to play along, that this was not an exceptional gesture. Rosa Parks acted spontaneously and alone: the three blacks sitting next to her gave up their seats, yet she remained steadfast.
Her action was effective. It fueled a movement that eliminated Jim Crow and legal segregation.
Her action promoted freedom. Integration vastly improved individual rights and opportunities for millions of people.
Her action inspired thousands of people, another definition of “heroic.”
Perhaps best of all, her action was peaceful. It’s remarkable how self-styled libertarians, who ought to be sympathetic to the non-initiation principle, can down-play effective, peaceful actions of people when they happen to harbor irrational dislike of those people.
Ellennita Hellmer looks for perfection not only in the person, Rosa Parks, but in the organization and movement with which she is associated.
It’s true that the civil rights movement later led to results that restricted freedom, rather than enhancing it. This does not detract from Rosa Parks’ accomplishment. I don’t know see how it could.
George F. wishes to conflate libertarians who support the rights of a bigot’s preferences with that same bigot. As has already been pointed out, even if such a bigot proclaims liberty-sounding sympathies, it is doubtful that those should be consistent and heartfelt. For instance, is it likely that such a bigot would support, let alone actively work towards, a change that resulted in a pareto-improvement that only benefitted the group the bigot had antipathies towards?
The LRC quotes are mean-spirited, but the comments by the anonymous “CR” are hypocritical to boot. Finding the so-called “staged events” more disturbing than the Jim Crow laws is unfathomable. Moreover, referring to “lies” about the Rosa Parks events is itself a lie. How is the traditional version of events a lie? This kind of vexatious rubbish is a good example to George F of why some of us prefer a solid distance to these types.
Mr. Hein has stated my own views more eloquently than I did.
Before signing off, I’ll address the complaints registered by Rod and by Phillip. I’ve never met Ms. Hellmer, so I’ve no other means to evaluate her views than what she wrote. Perhaps she’s a decent and good person who simply didn’t express herself very clearly. Quite possible. But what she did write (which Phillip quotes above) doesn’t express a sentiment that I find attractive or even compatible with libertarianism:
“As a libertarian, do you support these latter manifestations of the civil rights movement? If another group of libertarians are attempting to de-construct the greatness of this historical moment by going after the memory of Rosa Parks (by questioning the mainstream wisdom about her heroic legacy), why would you so viciously attack them? Is it because the bus that she rode was tax-subsidized, or because you think that forced integration was a good thing?”
So let’s examine what she wrote. First, I do not support “these latter manifestations of the civil rights movement,” but I do support equal rights and the elimination of Jim Crow laws. Second, the laws that Ms. Parks protested were unjust (it was not a case of “forced integration,” but of forced dis-integration of society, i.e., of forbidding freedom of association). Third, Ms. Hellmer describes truly vile descriptions of the actions of Ms. Parks and her “big fat, lazy ass” (to use Tom DiLorenzo’s vulgar phrasing) as “going after the memory of Rosa Parks,” but doesn’t find anything vicious about that. (Why not “go after the memory” of William Lloyd Garrison and Lysander Spooner since, after all, the later civil rights movement sometimes diverged from purely libertarian goals; should they, too, be slimed by a person of the character of Tom DiLorenzo?). Instead, what Hellmer finds a case of “viciously attacking” is simply bringing those racist remarks to light. So being a racist is not vicious, but bringing the evident racism of others to light *is* vicious. If that is not Ms. Hellmer’s own attitude, she should work on her expository skills. But if Rod Long knows her and says that she is not as her remarks would indicate, I’ll take his word for it.
Wow. I think I’ve been called more nasty names than anyone on this thread, though I’ve not expressed any personal views on race, gender, sexual orientation, or anything of the sort. I’m an evil racist creep because I’ve asked questions about the meaning of libertarianism?
The consensus on this thread seems to be that a “racist” could conceivably be consistently anti-state, but that such a person either (a) would not be a “true” or consistent libertarian or (b) might be a libertarian but would still be a creep that no decent person should have anything to do with. Well, at least now we’re getting somewhere.
A question for those of you dissing me. What exactly is a “racist”? I’m not being deliberately obtuse. Somebody asked me if I advocated the racist views of Acton and Mencken. I don’t recall Acton writing anything on race per se (correct me if I’m wrong), but he thought the Confederate cause was just. Was he a racist? Mencken had close Jewish friends (like his publisher Alfred Knopf) but thought Jews, on average, tended to be pushy and unpleasant. His greatest crime seems to be that he was pro-German, never wrote anything denouncing the Holocaust, and said things in his diary to the effect that “the Jews should not support US entry into WWII because this will make people more hostile to Jews.” Does this mean he had the hateful views people have been writing about above, as in thinking that Jews “have no rights,” are “morally inferior,” etc.? This seems like a non-sequitur to me.
Tom says Charles Murray’s views are not racist, but Murray’s critics strongly disagree. After all, Murray says the statistical evidence indicates that ability is not evenly distributed among racial groups. If this isn’t racist, than “racist” can only mean someone who says “I hate all members of group X” or “all members of group X are inferior to all members of group Y.” Who, of people being villified on this thread, have said anything like that? Yet, if someone (like Mencken) expresses the view “members of group X are more likely to possess trait A than members of group Y,” you call them vile racists.
Anyway, I’ll state this for the record about my own views. Someone who believes that ALL members of group X are necessarily inferior than members of group Y is a kook, and I would not want him as part of my libertarian coalition. But someone who says that more members of group X have some particular trait than members of group Y is potentially all right with me. For instance, someone who says “I’d prefer to encounter a group of elderly Caucasian ladies in a dark alley than a group of teenage black males” would not at all be a vile racist in my book, but rather a normal person with common sense. Those of you who wish to exclude such people from decent society are going to find your libertarian coalition to be very small indeed.
(BTW, my comment on the Amish was perfectly accurate. Being Amish is not *entirely* a matter of choice. Certain ethnic criteria are necessary, though not sufficient. The Amish do not accept Japanese converts, for example. Hence they are clearly “racist,” according to commonly accepted definitions.)
I fail to see the point of George F.’s remarks. Is he defending Tom DiLorenzo’s utterly ugly slurs on a dignified and bravy lady, or not? Is he defending the dismissal of Rosa Parks’s courage by J.H. Huebert, and his comparison of violently enforced segregation with being asked to pass the peas at Thanksgiving, or not? Would he have written such remarks? Does he consider the “staged events” that helped to get rid of Jim Crow “more disturbing” than Jim Crow, or not?
Oh, no, I consider Jim Crow more disturbing than the staged events that helped get rid of it. But it does bother me that few Americans know that these events were staged. (Someone made the analogy with the equally staged Scopes trial, which I think is a good one; does it not bother you that most people think Inherit the Wind is a documentary?)
I’m not “defending” the remarks cited above, only arguing (as have others in the early part of the thread) that the remarks are at worst tacky and in poor taste, but hardly rise (should I say “fall”?) to the level of “vile racism.” Look at some of the things you wrote. Rockwell promotes a “hatred of black people.” He’s a “collectivist” who’s “indifferent to the rights of individuals.” To me you attribute the position that “people don’t matter.” I simply don’t see how these characterizations follow at all from the posts of DiLorenzo or Huebert.
By the way, why is this an “either-or” comparison? Why do I have to choose between Jim Crow and Martin Luther King? Can’t I oppose Jim Crow and also point to the warts of those who fought it? I hate state-enforced segregation, but I also hate the preposterous characterization of Martin Luther King held by most people. Shouldn’t people know that MLK was a plagiarist, a Marxist, and a Kennedy-esque philanderer? If I spread the word on those things, does that mean I consider MLK’s character flaws “more disturbing” than state-enforced segreation? I guess I don’t think in terms of a ranking like that.