I have only been a reader of Lewrockwell.com for only about 6 months. Was there a time when such radical viewpoints of the average writer wasn't "The United States is rotten to the core and beyond all redemtion"? In other words has this viewpoint evolved amongst the regular writers for Lewrockwell or has this sentiment been there for quite some time? Has the site got progressively more radical over time? For example, 10 years ago was the average article just criticizing policies and politicians without as radical or revolutionary an undertone behind it?
Dondoolee: I have only been a reader of Lewrockwell.com for only about 6 months. Was there a time when such radical viewpoints of the average writer wasn't "The United States is rotten to the core and beyond all redemtion"? In other words has this viewpoint evolved amongst the regular writers for Lewrockwell or has this sentiment been there for quite some time? Has the site got progressively more radical over time? For example, 10 years ago was the average article just criticizing policies and politicians without as radical or revolutionary an undertone behind it?
It might be Lew Rockwell's progression to become more radical, but the site always promoted anarcho-capitalism.
Some will disagree with me here, but LRC has become a bore of a site lately. Some of his bloggers are utterly rude and insulting, and the articles posted have been getting more and more bizarre - an article a couple weeks promoted the release of Leonard Peltier, an indian activist who murdered two FBI agents (ok maybe FBI agents are not angels, but that doesnt mean he can blow them away with impunity). I also love how Lew promotes the clownish Howard Zinn ("Mao was just a reformer").
Stephan Kinsella has been loving Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I'll wait until he gets to the chapter on the socialism.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
The blog goes through transitions through the months depending on current events. This blog was incredibly fun to follow during the election hoopla, but as all political diaries go, there are slow spots during the year. I tend to think LRC has gotten softer than the old Rothbard/Rockwell duo would have been. I doubt Rothbard would ever plug Peter Schiff, for example.
Daniel: Stephan Kinsella has been loving Zinn's A People's History of the United States. I'll wait until he gets to the chapter on the socialism.
Yeah I read it a few years ago. I found it to be nothing special - just the usual dopey left wing revisionism. Of course now it has spawned a whole series of 'People's History' books; I imagine they are just more Marxist revisionism.
sicsempertyrannis:an article a couple weeks promoted the release of Leonard Peltier, an indian activist who murdered two FBI agents
To be fair, the article in question promoted his release because of lack of evidence and the procedural farcity. Did you read the same article as me?
sicsempertyrannis:I also love how Lew promotes the clownish Howard Zinn
Again, to be fair, Lew only promoted the parts of Zinn which are consistent with libertarian interpretations of history. There is lots in Zinn that demonstrates the evils done by state power.
Dondoolee: Was there a time when such radical viewpoints of the average writer wasn't "The United States is rotten to the core and beyond all redemtion"?
Was there a time when such radical viewpoints of the average writer wasn't "The United States is rotten to the core and beyond all redemtion"?
That's a radical viewpoint? For a site who's slogan is anti-state?
The Lew Rockwell Column originally grew out of Triple-R (Rothbard-Rockwell Report). Tripple-R was way more radical than anything since it. Just read a few chapters from The Irrepressible Rothbard and you'll know what I mean. In particular, try Invade the World, Clintonian Ugly, "Date Rape" on Campus, or Never Say "Jap"!. Overall, Lew Rockwell has become less radical. He's 'extended rhetorical tolerance leftward' (in his own words). I'm not sure if he's gotten better at marketing or just gone soft.
sicsempertyrannis: I also love how Lew promotes the clownish Howard Zinn ("Mao was just a reformer").
I looked him up and watched one of his lectures. It was pretty good overall.
Dopey Gigglz: The blog goes through transitions through the months depending on current events. This blog was incredibly fun to follow during the election hoopla, but as all political diaries go, there are slow spots during the year. I tend to think LRC has gotten softer than the old Rothbard/Rockwell duo would have been. I doubt Rothbard would ever plug Peter Schiff, for example.
Stephen Forde: The Lew Rockwell Column originally grew out of Triple-R (Rothbard-Rockwell Report). Tripple-R was way more radical than anything since it. Just read a few chapters from The Irrepressible Rothbard and you'll know what I mean. In particular, try Invade the World, Clintonian Ugly, "Date Rape" on Campus, or Never Say "Jap"!. Overall, Lew Rockwell has become less radical. He's 'extended rhetorical tolerance leftward' (in his own words). I'm not sure if he's gotten better at marketing or just gone soft.
Sorry, didn't read your post before I posted. Nice to know someone thinks the exact same thing though. Peter Schiff would get on just because he predicted the details of the crash better than anyone else. He's a better prognosticator (thymologist) than any Austrian economist.
Dopey Gigglz:The blog goes through transitions through the months depending on current events. This blog was incredibly fun to follow during the election hoopla, but as all political diaries go, there are slow spots during the year. I tend to think LRC has gotten softer than the old Rothbard/Rockwell duo would have been. I doubt Rothbard would ever plug Peter Schiff, for example.
Why not?
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
My favorite part of LewRockwell.com are the grooming tips.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stephen Forde: sicsempertyrannis: I also love how Lew promotes the clownish Howard Zinn ("Mao was just a reformer"). I looked him up and watched one of his lectures. It was pretty good overall.
He might make a decent point every now then, but hes nothing but a Marxist apologist. If hes honest about the US's wars, why cant he be honest about his heroes Mao and the Spanish anarchists being totalitarians? It destroys his credibility in my opinion. It reminds me of how Chomsky can really rip US foreign policy, but when it comes to Pol Pot..well, he's was really not such a bad guy.
Stranger: My favorite part of LewRockwell.com are the grooming tips.
I get the impression Lew wishes fedoras would come back in style.
I. Ryan: Dopey Gigglz:The blog goes through transitions through the months depending on current events. This blog was incredibly fun to follow during the election hoopla, but as all political diaries go, there are slow spots during the year. I tend to think LRC has gotten softer than the old Rothbard/Rockwell duo would have been. I doubt Rothbard would ever plug Peter Schiff, for example. Why not?
Yeah Rothbard had no problem with some politicians for strategic reasons. I am sure he would have gladly promoted Paul, Schiff and many others.
sicsempertyrannis: Stephen Forde: sicsempertyrannis: I also love how Lew promotes the clownish Howard Zinn ("Mao was just a reformer"). I looked him up and watched one of his lectures. It was pretty good overall. He might make a decent point every now then, but hes nothing but a Marxist apologist. If hes honest about the US's wars, why cant he be honest about his heroes Mao and the Spanish anarchists being totalitarians? It destroys his credibility in my opinion. It reminds me of how Chomsky can really rip US foreign policy, but when it comes to Pol Pot..well, he's was really not such a bad guy.
Nobody's ever 100% right about everything. Just because you disagree with people on some issues, it doesn't mean you can't learn anything from them. Narrow-minded in my opinion.
It isn't a point I'm willing to die for, and certainly Rockwell knows what Rothbard would do much better than I, but Rothbard was always very slow to back someone running for office. Not impossible, but unlikely.
But I think the bigger point is not with specific politicians, but with the attitude in general. Libertarians tend to get egg on their collective (heh, suck it Randians) faces when they get behind a candidate. See CATO with Guliani, Young Americans for Liberty with Mark Sanford, Reason with everyone. Rothbard would have- and as far as I know, did- backed Ron Paul, but he is a once in a lifetime candidate.
Stephen Forde:Nobody's ever 100% right about everything. Just because you disagree with people on some issues, it doesn't mean you can't learn anything from them. Narrow-minded in my opinion.
Howard Zinn is a great gateway for many young people into anti-nationalist thinking. He's wrong about a lot of things, but you can't help but applaud his articulate dismantling of imperialism. For a lot of us it was our first exposure to this kind of thinking (namely, that "America can do no wrong" is false) and that he has been able to break into the mainstream is a little exciting.
Zinn may make some good criticisms of US imperialism, but then so does Fidel Castro.
It doesn't change the fact that both are totalitarians.
And what's your point? We all agree that his nod to leftist wackos is wrong. But his scholarship on early America is top-notch. You can ignore it at your own loss.
He seems to be baiting people who are into evolutionary biology and also atheists. I get that he's religious, but can't he at least understand that epistemology, reason, and consistent methodology are important and not just libertarian "conclusions." I mean, AE is about methodology and disagreement with other methodologies of even libertarianism. I don't see why the big-tent (to the point of absurdity) mentality regarding reason and empiricism. Today's article calls atheists "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" (I suppose Christian fundamentalists like Gary North and evangelicals of all stripes are also bad?) and makes a straw man about atheists knowing everything in the universe. Simply eye-rolling rhetoric.
I see why people want a more civil discussion. I do, too. But I don't think we get to that point by suppressing either side of the aisle. Nor out of blatant disrespect while demanding "tolerance" (launching a grenade and then running for the hills). And it's not, I suspect hatred, but the suppression of discourse that has gone on for too long. Too often people want these ridiculous intellectual armistices. If that is the case, we have to share a tent with the David Ickes, the communists, and the white nationalist groups. Marching through the streets to stop the wars. But we can't say why we do. Just do it!
Dondoolee:I have only been a reader of Lewrockwell.com for only about 6 months. Was there a time when such radical viewpoints of the average writer wasn't "The United States is rotten to the core and beyond all redemtion"? In other words has this viewpoint evolved amongst the regular writers for Lewrockwell or has this sentiment been there for quite some time? Has the site got progressively more radical over time? For example, 10 years ago was the average article just criticizing policies and politicians without as radical or revolutionary an undertone behind it?
The trend hasn't been so much moving toward anti-statism (LRC has always been pretty radical in that regard, IIRC) as it has been moving away from paleoism.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
John Ess: He seems to be baiting people who are into evolutionary biology and also atheists. I get that he's religious, but can't he at least understand that epistemology, reason, and consistent methodology are important and not just libertarian "conclusions." I mean, AE is about methodology and disagreement with other methodologies of even libertarianism. I don't see why the big-tent (to the point of absurdity) mentality regarding reason and empiricism. Today's article calls atheists "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" (I suppose Christian fundamentalists like Gary North and evangelicals of all stripes are also bad?) and makes a straw man about atheists knowing everything in the universe. Simply eye-rolling rhetoric.
I haven't followed the site regularly for a while, but I've seen some of the anti-evolution stuff. That is rather embarrassing, unless you're just trying to bring in the evangelicals.
John Ess:Today's article calls atheists "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" (I suppose Christian fundamentalists like Gary North and evangelicals of all stripes are also bad?) and makes a straw man about atheists knowing everything in the universe.
You are misrepresenting the article, which mentions atheists and agnostics in general before going on to say "Then there are the fundamentalist atheists who unequivocally declare that there is no God(s) and therefore claim access to all the knowledge of the universe (the only way one could make such a claim). These individuals are generally intolerant of any sort of religious or spiritual beliefs" (emphasis added)
It is obvious that the article is not baiting athiests or evolutionary biologists in general. Why must you present it as such? The article was a call for toleration of religion and lack of religion, to quote: "What is important is a physical, not spiritual reality – your exhibited behavior toward and your social interactions with others"
As I see it, you are setting up the stawman. what "suppressoin of discourse" are you talking about?
I'm sure he has plenty of good scholarship and revisionism on early America. The thing is, he only opposes bad stuff when America doing it. He has referred to Maoist China as a "people's state," and denied that Castro is a dictator.
I disagree. He sees everything from a Marxist POV and promotes socialism. He chastizes the 19th century robber barons for using the state, yet calls for Obama to nationalize healthcare. His economics is even worse.
Dopey Gigglz: Stephen Forde:Nobody's ever 100% right about everything. Just because you disagree with people on some issues, it doesn't mean you can't learn anything from them. Narrow-minded in my opinion. Howard Zinn is a great gateway for many young people into anti-nationalist thinking. He's wrong about a lot of things, but you can't help but applaud his articulate dismantling of imperialism. For a lot of us it was our first exposure to this kind of thinking (namely, that "America can do no wrong" is false) and that he has been able to break into the mainstream is a little exciting.
He's a terrible gateway because the young people go from conservative statism to liberal statism. In other words, they go from fascists to socialists.
What's with the consistent misreading of lewrockwell.com articles?
sicsempertyrannis insinuates that a article advocates the release of a murderer when the article clearly argued that Peltier was innocent.
John Ess takes an attack on non-tolerant athiests as an attack on atheists in general.
Cork and sicsempertyrannis take a posting of one portion of Howard Zinn as somehow "promoting" Zinn, as if quoting the work of a non-libertarian historian somehow translates to advocacy of his ideology. I don't understand this criticism, can we no longer cite the good works of non-libertarians or is that somehow promoting statism?
What's up with this?
mitcjm: What's with the consistent misreading of lewrockwell.com articles? sicsempertyrannis insinuates that a article advocates the release of a murderer when the article clearly argued that Peltier was innocent. John Ess takes an attack on non-tolerant athiests as an attack on atheists in general. Cork and sicsempertyrannis take a posting of one portion of Howard Zinn as somehow "promoting" Zinn, as if quoting the work of a non-libertarian historian somehow translates to advocacy of his ideology. I don't understand this criticism, can we no longer cite the good works of non-libertarians or is that somehow promoting statism? What's up with this?
If Peltier is innocent (he isnt), then so is Mumia. He himself doesnt deny he fired at the FBI agents (who were serving a warrant for an actual crime, not drug charges or other such nonsense).
OK, maybe I overstated his 'promotion' of Zinn (for the record, it wasnt just one). But like I said, he's a hypocrite, and a pretty bad one. He falls into the trap of exposing right wing/centrist statism, but he flat out denies commie statism. Denying Mao or Stalin's crimes ought to be considered the left wing version of Holocaust Denial. In the past, any time LRC used a notable point that Chomsky makes they've pointed out Chomsky's blatant hypocrisy.
Rooster: John Ess: He seems to be baiting people who are into evolutionary biology and also atheists. I get that he's religious, but can't he at least understand that epistemology, reason, and consistent methodology are important and not just libertarian "conclusions." I mean, AE is about methodology and disagreement with other methodologies of even libertarianism. I don't see why the big-tent (to the point of absurdity) mentality regarding reason and empiricism. Today's article calls atheists "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" (I suppose Christian fundamentalists like Gary North and evangelicals of all stripes are also bad?) and makes a straw man about atheists knowing everything in the universe. Simply eye-rolling rhetoric. I haven't followed the site regularly for a while, but I've seen some of the anti-evolution stuff. That is rather embarrassing, unless you're just trying to bring in the evangelicals.
Do libertarians have to believe in evolution? I wasnt aware we had dogma over it.
sicsempertyrannis:Do libertarians have to believe in evolution? I wasnt aware we had dogma over it.
Forget libertarians, it may seem harsh to the deniers, but any educated person should believe in evolution if you are willing to accept any facts about the world at all. You can call it dogma and say it's "just a theory" but that is just displaying your ignorance about science.
sicsempertyrannis,
You seemed to insinuate that the article was advocating the release of a murderer and that this reflected poorly on lewrockwell.com. However, the article advocated his release because, to quote: "Mr. Peltier has served 33 years in federal confinement for a crime I believe he did not commit. The preponderance of evidence supports my belief." The author then goes on to support his belief with evidence.
Is it somehow wrong to advocate for the release of a person you think to be innocent? Should we just accept that all persons convicted by the government are guilty?
I just don't understand how such an article can reflect poorly on lewrockwell.com. If you have a beef with the evidence presented in the article, that's another issue, but recognize that the author was advocating the release of someone he believes to be innocent, and that this belief can be rationally supported by evidence.
mitcjm: Is it somehow wrong to advocate for the release of a person you think to be innocent? Should we just accept that all persons convicted by the government are guilty?
In itself, no. But I thought LRC was a weird place to post it. There are alot of morons who are gullible enough to believe Mumia is innocent, why not print those as well?
Of course its his site and he cant put whatever he wants there. But it made me realize how far the site has come.
Of course it's fine to cite non-libertarians when they're good on something. It is also fine for me to give my opinion that Zinn is a totalitarian (calling him a non-libertarian would probably be the understatement of the year). I'll take Rothbard's Conceived in Liberty over Zinn's commie junk any day of the week.
sicsempertyrannis:There are alot of morons who are gullible enough to believe Mumia is innocent, why not print those as well?
Why not? If there is evidence out there to support such a claim, why not print it? Or have you analysed all such evidence so extensively that anyone who comes to an opposite conclusion is a moron?
sicsempertyrannis:But it made me realize how far the site has come.
So, an article appears that argues an innocent man has been convicted and held in jail for thirty years. This article argues that government lies and corruption are the cause of the convicted man's plight. The article supports itself with evidence. This evidence is in the public record.
And this makes you realize "how far the site has come"? Why? Is the evidence presented outlandish? Is it inconceivable that government agents would lie? I'm having a hard time understanding your beef.
mitcjm: And this makes you realize "how far the site has come"? Why? Is the evidence presented outlandish? Is it inconceivable that government agents would lie? I'm having a hard time understanding your beef.
'..how far the site has come' meant that now LRC is promoting silly leftist cause-celebres.
mitcjm: John Ess:Today's article calls atheists "fundamentalists" and "evangelicals" (I suppose Christian fundamentalists like Gary North and evangelicals of all stripes are also bad?) and makes a straw man about atheists knowing everything in the universe. You are misrepresenting the article, which mentions atheists and agnostics in general before going on to say "Then there are the fundamentalist atheists who unequivocally declare that there is no God(s) and therefore claim access to all the knowledge of the universe (the only way one could make such a claim). These individuals are generally intolerant of any sort of religious or spiritual beliefs" (emphasis added) It is obvious that the article is not baiting athiests or evolutionary biologists in general. Why must you present it as such? The article was a call for toleration of religion and lack of religion, to quote: "What is important is a physical, not spiritual reality – your exhibited behavior toward and your social interactions with others" As I see it, you are setting up the stawman. what "suppressoin of discourse" are you talking about?
Atheism in general says there are no such thing as Gods. It is not "fundamentalist" atheism. All atheists, without exception, believe there is no such thing as God(s). It is a straw man to say that I claim to know everything about the universe. Or that any such thing is necessary to be an atheist. It is theists who make claims about the far reaches of space or time where God supposedly lives (if as we should suppose, He lives in the universe and atheism is a claim about that universe as is admitted by the article).
If all that matters is physical reality, then it matters how you arrive at anarchism. It also begs the question of why one should be religious at all if it has no consequence on anything. But it's why religious justifications are not valid. You don't see Thom Woods explaining the ABCT with the help of saints. And if he did, I would hope none would buy his book. Reason and empiricism have to be the only justifications of anarchistic views. If not, it is not reliable.
To some degree that extends to other things. For instance, if you hold reason and evidence as only conditional... then you shouldn't be criticizing the unreason of statists when they travel off into weird bouts of strange logic. Nor for that matter, the unreason of atheists (for instance, in Marxism, Obamaism, the endless slew of people on youtube, etc.).
sicsempertyrannis:'..how far the site has come' meant that now LRC is promoting silly leftist cause-celebres.
Because we all know that it's only leftists who care about the ruination of the life of an innocent person.
Unbelievable...
mitcjm: sicsempertyrannis:'..how far the site has come' meant that now LRC is promoting silly leftist cause-celebres. Because we all know that it's only leftists who care about the ruination of the life of an innocent person. Unbelievable...
This is the site that used to promote MLK/civil 'rights' and other anti-PC revisionism, now he censors or deletes it. And yes, I consider the Free Mumia movement and its Free Leonard Peltier cousin to be silly. So perhaps its just a matter of personal taste. LRC has become less controversial and more mainstream, almost modal libertarian.
Dont get me wrong, he still has a ton of great information and several great bloggers (William Anderson, William Grigg, and for the most part Kinsella) and Gary North and others regularly write interesting pieces. But I think its lost its uniqueness as an outlet for 'right wing' libertarians, and slowly started to resemble other centrist libertarian sites.
John Ess: It is a straw man to say that I claim to know everything about the universe.
Again, my point was that the author was not painting all atheists with the brush he paints "fundamentalist atheists" with. He was not referring to YOU or ME, he was referring to those atheists who claim "access to all the knowledge of the universe" and atheists who "claim that no one can be described as or declare himself an anarchist if he has a religious loyalty to a God(s)." These are the types he is referring to with the term "atheist fundamentalist" (I agree that his wording was a little imprecise, for as you say, atheism only refers to belief in God).
My point was that you portrayed the article as calling all atheists fundamentalists, which was a misreading or a misrepresentation.
p.s. I am also pretty much an atheist (more accurately an agnostic)