Tom,

Thanks for the link. "Rightwatch" looks like it will be a very interesting blog.

BTW, do you have any suggestions for those of us who are interested in a reliable account of the contemporary history of the libertarian movement in the United States?

Thanks,
Lib Reader

Accusing the Rothbard people of being drug-dealers and males prostitutes? This is what Tom Palmer recommends for us to read? Amazing.

"BTW, do you have any suggestions for those of us who are interested in a reliable account of the contemporary history of the libertarian movement in the United States?"

I hear that Brian Doherty is working on one. But I don't know if it will be as anti-paleo as Dr. Palmer is.

Clement raises the issue of the veracity of a particular account. I happen to know that one to be true of at least one person involved in that circle, although it would certainly be unfair to tar others with that particular brush. What's amazing is how that person has morphed from one sort of a crackpot into a Buchananite/anti-immigration crackpot. But I admit that I don't know the author of the blog and I don't know what his or her take on all such matters is. I'm merely pointing to it as a place to discuss the state of libertarianism; no warranty is implied. (I should add further that the character of a person does not affect the truth or falsity of the substantive claims they make. Even claims of hypocrisy levelled against those who engage in character assassination are irrelevant to whether those claims have merit or not.)

In any case, I recommend people who don't like what the blogger at RightWatch writes to post comments on his or her site.

Anthony Gregory is correct about Brian Doherty's work, some chapters of which I have already read in draft form. It's very serious work and I am looking forward to its publication.

The RightWatch column merely says it is hypocritical for the Paleolibertarians to claim they are rescuing libertarianism from :�left libertarianism� when it was they who were the left libertarians from which we needed to be rescued.

Anyone who went to LP conventions knew that at least one of the people referred to but not named sold such material. And I believe the individual in quesiton on the prostitution issue actually used to run ads in something called the Bay Area Reporter. While all this may be surprising outside San Francisco it was not uncommon knowledge there at all. I�ve heard the same thing from several people over the years. And I think two people posted messages to the site saying they could confirm they had the same infornation.

The current posting discusses Thomas Woods, a favorite write for the Paleolibertarians, and his cofounding of something called the League of the South and what this group supports. He says that at least two LoS people write for Rockwell and other Rockweel favorites lecture at seminars the LoS puts on but those are named as it�s really only about Wood. Lots of links to the material in question so you can red it yoursefl and decide if he�s right, mostly right, partially right, or completely wrong.

Somebody did try to post the name of the person who was supposedly the prostitute andit was there briefly in a comments section but the site apparently deleted the comment.

"What's amazing is how that person has morphed from one sort of a crackpot into a Buchananite/anti-immigration crackpot." This is a reference to Raimondo no doubt, the only openly gay member of that circle who is close to Buchanan. Are you saying you have evidence he is or was a prostitute?

Tom Palmer is very wrong: I was not raising the question of the veracity of the account in "Rightwatch". I'm raising the question of just what sort of character Tom Palmer is. It's clear you're trying to smear your enemies, and this is a contemptible way to do it. You and your friends don't have a bit of evidence for your insinuations.

Not that you need any.

Clement and I seem to share one thing in common, which is that we don't know who the author of the RightWatch blog is. What he or she writes is her business. I posted a note saying that people may wish to read it. You can make up your own mind. As to who it was who was dealing drugs, selling sexual services, and celebrating the torching of police cars, I'll leave it to Clement to out him. That such people make common ground with a vicious anti-gay bigot such as Hans Herman Hoppe is remarkable; Hoppe goes out of his way to slime gay people in general and among his biggest boosters are found the people who have contributed to the ugly stereotypes that Hoppe exploits.

But setting aside the personal oddities of certain people in the Rockwell stable, you can find remarkable intellectual/ideological oddities, as well. Those are what I find disturbing. Racism, holocaust denial, anti-semitism, gay baiting, advocacy of murdering gay people by public stoning...that and more. Documentation can be found in "The Fever Swamp" (http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/cat_the_fever_swamp.php ) and there seems to be more on the blog that is the subject of this posting and these comments.

Translating Palmer's remarks: He has no evidence, and doesn't need any.

I once respected your work as a scholar, Mr. Palmer. No longer. You are truly a contemptible sneak, and seem to be contributing your share to those "ugly stereotypes" about gay people as gossipy, vicious, and bitchy.

Well, it's a shame that Clement is so upset about what someone else wrote on another web site. A character such as Justin Raimondo regularly refers to others as "butt boys" (charming, no?) and uses vicious anti-gay rhetoric quite regularly. Someone else, without naming Raimondo, mentions that the Rockwellites (including Raimondo, who goes out of his way to put quotation marks around the word marriage whenever the word gay is in front of it) are making hay out of waging war on alleged "left libertarianism," which, as the author of RightWatch points out, was once associated with....their great inspiration, Murray N. Rothbard. In the course of that he mentions some well known occasions when such allegedly "leftist" behavior was associated with and promoted by the Rothbard crowd (who ran the bookstore in San Francisco that was raided for drugs). The author of the blog was careful not to mention the name of the outspoken prostitute. Clement doesn't bother to worry about such matters. Maybe he should be more careful when he types comments on blogs. If he wishes to delete his singling out of one name, I'd be happy to do so. He can just send me an email or post a request.

The post on the other web site that so upsets Clement is one of several; it seems that most concern the creepy Confederate revivalism of the Lew Rockwell crowd. Frankly, that's much more disturbing. It's a shame that Clement seems undisturbed by that.

Clement: Get a grip. Palmer's not endorsing everything on someone else's blog. He pointed to it and stated 'no warranty is implied'. And he's not even making any claims that the guy you named was a prostitute -- you're the one who wrote about people 'being drug-dealers and males prostitutes,' all Palmer did was to mention that someone had gone from that kind of thing to being a Buchanan backer and immigrant basher. If YOU want to mention a name, is it Palmer's fault?

Anyway, that whole thing was one chapter on one blog and the purpose of that one chapter was to show how hypocritical the Rockwellers are, for blasting 'left libertarians' (have you ever heard Hoppe's rants against people he doesn't like?) when that was their own gig in the past, so that now they're campaigning to get rid of themselves.

So lighten up. If Palmer links to a blog and says it's interesting, it doesn't implicate him in everything on it, especially when he says there's no warranty. And you oughta be ashamed for suggesting that Palm'ers sexuality is somehow tied up in his disgust at the attacks on gay people, black people, and everyone else who the bigots and racists at Lew Rockwell Central hate.

Rolling around in the slime with you is not my idea of a good time, Mr. Palmer, so I'll be brief. I expressed disgust that you pointed to "Rightwatch," which accuses Eric Garis and Justin Raimondo of engaging in illegal activities: drug dealing and prostitution. You answered:

" I happen to know that one to be true of at least one person involved in that circle, although it would certainly be unfair to tar others with that particular brush. What's amazing is how that person has morphed ... into a Buchananite/anti-immigration crackpot."

You then go on to write:

"Hoppe goes out of his way to slime gay people in general and among his biggest boosters are found the people who have contributed to the ugly stereotypes that Hoppe exploits."

Since Raimondo is widely known as a supporter of Mr. Buchanan, and a friend of Hoppe's, you can only be saying that Raimondo either is or was a prostitute. When confronted, you try to slither out of it.

You, sir, are a coward. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least that you are the anonymous writer of "Rightwatch." You need to get a life.

The last posting http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=rightwatch&static=1969699097 is the kind of thing Palmer's written on himself, anyway, the really weird pro-Confederacy blatherings of Rockwell writers. Someone posted in a comment on that blog the now missing essay by current Rockwell house intellectual Thomas Woods, which he had removed from the racist web site where he had originally posted it. So the commenter found it and shared it with us. Here's the interesting qutoation from Woods:

'So the War Between the States, far from a conflict over mere material interests, was for the South a struggle against an atheistic individualism and an unrelenting rationalism in politics and religion, in favor of a Christian understanding of authority, social order and theology itself. The intelligent Left knows this, and even the incurably stupid, like Carol Moseley-Braun, must at least sense it. For all their ignorant blather about slavery and civil rights, what truly enrages most liberals about the Confederate Battle Flag is its message of defiance. They see in it the remnants of a traditional society determined to resist cultural and political homogenization, and refusing to be steamrolled by the forces of progress.'

Get it? Carol Mosley-Braun is....black...and therefore full of 'ignorant blather about slavery and civil rights'. That does pretty clearly suggest that slavery wasn't so bad and civil rights not so good. I'm with Palmer on that; that's really disturbing.

To "Mainstream Libertarian": Your argument makes no sense. From what I can see, Antiwar.com, which Raimondo runs, appeals to the Left. They run Chomsky, Seymour Hersh, editorials from The Nation, and the Guardian. So your stated reason for "exposing" him is completely off base. You and your friend Palmer are just vindictive: you're using your supposed ideological opposition to pursue a personal vendetta.

I repeat: get a life. Your own nastiness discredits you.

And Mr. (or Miss) Mainstream is a racist himself, as is clearly shown by his "defense" of Carol Mosely Braun. Yes, she is black, and she is indisputably stupid. Only a racist like yourself would posit cause and effect. You are projecting your own racism onto Woods. The problem is, you're too stupid to even know it.

You need to take a big breath, Clement. I quoted Woods, the 'former' member of the League of the South, as calling her 'incurably stupid'. Do you wonder why a racist would single her out and refer to her allegedly 'ignorant blather about slavery and civil rights'? I made no connection between her intellect (I've no idea how smart she is, in any case) and her race; Woods suggested it and also said that talking about slavery was 'ignorant blather'. There's no need to project racism on Woods; his essay is full of it, which is quite likely why he asked that it be taken off of the racist web site where he had first posted it. It's truly absurd on your part to say that if a person mentions the racism of another, that makes the mentioner a racist. You should breathe very slowly....try to breathe into a paper bag and maybe you'll manage to calm down.

The only person making a connection between Braun's undisputed stupidity and her blackness is you, Mainstream. Woods made no such connection. You're so full of yourself that you're projecting your own prejudices onto people you want to smear as "racist."

RightWatch seems to be doing a good enough job telling the history of the libertarian movement in the 70s as he saw it. I wasn't there so I can't comment on the validity of most of his claims. Yet they intuitively make sense.

I will also say that the Confederate revivalist stuff RightWatch is blogging on can be substantiated should one dig through Mises.org or LRC even superficially. Anyone who can put two and two together can see the Confederate apologist undertones in some of their writings.

This discussion here, however, has taken an unsavory tone. Clement has single handedly attacked Tom Palmer's character, integrity, tact, and sexuality while ignoring Mainstream's attempts at refutation. Good job Clement, you have successfully created what students of rhetoric call a "Straw Man."

Yes he has debated the issue somewhat. But as he said himself "I'm raising the question of just what sort of character Tom Palmer is." (And if Clement were to just take a look at RightWatch for a minute he would see that the style is too distinct and consistent to have been written by Dr. Palmer. No one is that adept at disguising their writing.)

All in all it seems like RightWatch's posts can only be taken with a grain of salt. We assume he was there while the RC and SLS were forming yet we can't say for sure due to his condition of anonymity. Even then, it's all a bit subjective. What we can do, however, is look at it as one perspective on the split between what the blogger characterizes as the Cato and Rothbard (after the LP primary) crowds. That doesn't mean at all that he's stating is fact, and I don't think he declares it as such at all. Personal experience is always a bit tainted.

Regardless of how inflammatory or outrageous the blog may appear to some (read Clement) that is no reason to make personal attacks on the blogger or the commenter who tries to defend said blogger's character while *still* focusing on the issue at hand.

It isn't the discussion, but the accusations themselves, that are "unsavory." Palmer has impugned his own character and integrity, and has become so unhinged by his obsessive hatred for his alleged enemies that he has abandoned even the pretense of tact. That is the only "issue" that Palmer is focusing on.

I don't see Palmer attacking his "enemies" (only small minds resort to defining others as their "enemies") in his post at all. On the contrary he's pointing out frightening tendencies in the libertarian movement. That's not pointing out his enemies that's showing an concern.

And speaking of tact, he's not the one naming names. You are. He's not calling others "snippy...bitchy," you are. Whether or not you disagree with his thoughts on some elements of the modern libertarian movement, you should realize that YOU are the one making unsavory accusations.

Clement = True Believer

He drank the coolaid of L. Ron Rothbard and his disciples.

Sad to watch.

Well, I'm not the author of the RightWatch blog. I don't claim responsibility for whatever is written there. And I don't think that accusations of illegal behavior that doesn't harm others is important or even all that interesting; it's only of marginal interest when it is relevant to charges of hypocrisy, such as those that the RightWatch author makes about the Rockwell "Rothardian" crowd setting out to undermine "left libertarianism" (an odd term, but set that aside) when some of their biggest boosters were the most active promoters of such anomic behavior. More interesting than how certain people financed themselves over twenty years ago is the creepy racist associations they've formed in the meantime. (And not to be given the heeby jeebies by the quotation "Mainstream Libertarian" put up from Thomas Woods is odd, since Woods' essay is certainly collectivist and anti-libertarian to the core, and to accuse "Mainstream Libertarian" of racism for pointing out the racism of Woods' comments is really clutching at straws.)

As someone who was around, at least from the early 80s, I can say that the "unsavory" charges are true and that the Raimondo group really embarrassed libertarians by running a seedy bookstore in San Francisco that was later raided by the cops for illegal activities. Yes, that was a long time ago. No, it didn't change their way of doing business. They've invented new ways to embarrass libertarianism by associating with a bunch of goobers who want to refight the Civil War. I'm as antiwar as anyone, but I wouldn't touch antiwar.com with an 11 foot pole. They keep on giving the cause a bad name.

While on the subject of goobers and embarassments to libertarianism,I am wondering if anyone can verify if it is the
same goober T. Fleming that we all know and love, that wrote the companion book to the pbs Liberty! series, and if so
how the heck did he ever get that job...I had noticed a reference to the series in the work of another goober...
M Badnarik's little
constitution book (which is most revealing as to where he gets his intellectual inspirations), and had thought it strange
that such an "establishment" thing (plus PBS of all things)would be referenced by him...I couldn't figure out why this was the case
particularly in light of his favorable citation of Sobran, obsession with Waco, and strange, alternative medicine kick...(yeah, after paging
through his book, I am sooo happy that he got the LP nomination), later I saw that Thomas Fleming had authored the Liberty! book, and
everthing came together..

The name Thomas Fleming is shared by at least two people; one is the editor of "Chronicles," where Raimondo and the gang do their yearning for the Confederacy and a return to the days when people knew their places, and the other is a distinguished popular historian and the author of the book amerrepublic mentions. Two different people. (If you google the name, you'll find other people who have that name, including an illustrator, a reporter, and so on.)

thanks for the info and at least a little relief, although my heavy disappointment with Badnarik remains...

What exactly is an "obsession with Waco"? It seems to me a particularly important incident in recent U.S. history, and one worthy of thinking about.

As someone who lived in SF, but wasn't an active in libertarian circles, I missed this story. This wouldn't have been a bookstore/mailbox rental on Market St., a few blocks from the Castro, would it? I bought my first copy of _Machinery of Freedom_ there.

I don't understand this whole "Antiwar.com gives the antiwar movement a bad name" line of reasoning. Antiwar.com is by far the best war and foreign policy news resource on the web. Every day, tens of thousands of antiwar people from all across the spectrum and from around the world are presented with a libertarian perspective on the war as the health of the state. The site isn't sectarian, and it publishes and links to lefties, conservatives, and libertarians, including the Cato Institute's stuff, as well.

You might not like some of its columnists. But I have yet to see anything online that has done more good for the antiwar movement, and for libertarianism within that movement.

Anthony may be right that a lot of people see it and that it has links to news articles. But the blog they publish is often in bad taste, is full of invective that doens't convince, and is a real turnoff for lots of people. They don't wrie in letters of congratulation, so you don't hear from them. But believe me, it's a big turnoff. That and the Raimondo columns, which are generally unhinged. Dr. Palmer was right in pointing out that the columns on Ukraine were among the worst. Is it a part of hte antiwar movement to make fun of people for being poisoned? (Scott Horton made fun of the "great Yushchenko impression" by the Emperor on Star Wars. What a joker! http://www.antiwar.com/blog/comments.php?id=P2117_0_1_45. That whole obsession is revolting.) There's antiwar, and there's "antiwar.com. It seems to me that they're not the same thing.

Antiwar.com in and of itself doesn't give anything a bad name. The site is in large part an aggregation of stories, articles, and links from all over the web (their splash page links to MSNBC, The Telegraph, the CBC, and others). However, the "voice," you might say, of Antiwar.com is much shriller. The Antiwar.com blog and "Behind the Headlines" are rambling pieces that frequently indict "neocons" as the source of all problems without specifically targeting issues or problems.

Yes they are a good source for information. Information that can be found elsewhere. But they're so busy ranting and raving that you can't consider them a serious place for analysis or insight of and into foreign policy. The only thing that site has done for libertarianism and the antiwar movement is characterize us as isolationists, raving lunatics, and superficial reactionaries who don't examine the depth of a policy issue.

Clement is wrong about RightWatch accusing specific people of crimes. It named no names. Only he has done that and only he has linked specific people to the actions. RightWatch said the names were not important since it wasn't going after them for that just illustrating how Rothbardians were promoting the ideas that Rothbardians are now attacking.

SFLib confirms RightWatch's report. A couple of other SF libertarians did the same on the site. It has also been claimed (either here or there I don't remember where I read it) that only one Radical Caucus person was gay. Not true. There were several. This was San Francisco people! The others were not as well known but they were there.

Now it is said that it unsavory for RightWatch to mention the counter cultural actions of some Rothbardians. Yet the Paleolibertarians accuse the entire libertarian movement of those actions and that isn't unsavory? I don't understand why it is terrible to say a small group (names not given on those things) who were Rothbardians did this but it's okay for the Paleolibs to say this about a huge number of people.

Who are "the paleolibs"? Is this some sort of official guild into which only licensed people can gain entry? Is it just LRC and the Mises Institute? Is it anyone Rothbard hung out with? And is their alleged accusing of "the entire libertarian movement" of "counter cultural actions" something that's really a major problem right now? Where is the evidence of this?

Anthony: The paleolibs are self-described. They also call themselves Rothbardians. They really exist, and pointing that out isn't just an Evil Neocon(TM) Plot.

Anti-War.com is great! I love how they include every bit of statist propagana... as long as it is anti-United States.

Anthony, you're wasting your time arguing with someone who calls his blog "Stalinist Orange." Let the Stalinist Oranges stick with Palmer and his "don't withdraw from Iraq" position, while they claim that Antiwar.com (!) is somehow "discrediting" the antiwar movement.

Raimondo was right about Ukraine: the socialist policies of Yushchenko are no improvement, and now Ukraine is entering NATO. Which was the whole point of the "Orange Revolution" to begin with. And we haven't heard much about the "poisoning" of Yushchenko, have we -- since th election, that is. That's one "investigation" that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

We're supposed to accept government propaganda as holy writ -- in the name of "libertarianism." What rubbish.

Now that everyone and their mother is calling for American withdrawal from Iraq, including Walter "French fries" Jones, I wonder if Palmer will finally join the rest of us -- and endorse the position he condemnded as "extremist" when advocated by antiwar.com.

Go back to writing santimonious posts about "the girl without a face," Palmer: or didn't that generate enough traffic? You're a pompous fraud -- and you know it.

"SFLib confirms RightWatch's report."

Yeah, right. An anonymous accuser "confirms" the anonymous assertions of "Rightwatch." It's the same neoconnish level of "proof" that "confirmed" the existence of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction." What a joke.

Smearing Justin Raimondo -- it's almost a full time job for David Horowitz, Stephen Schwartz, and Tom Palmer. Now there's a real Axis of Evil.

Clement, one of the earlier commentators was right; you need to calm down. Making fun of charitable assistance to a girl who was born with a terrible deformity doesn't reflect very well on you. (Did you ever send money to help pay for her ongoing surgery, as I and a number of other people did? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-12-14-baby-no-face_x.htm http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=28372 )

By the way, I don't favor a "don't withdraw from Iraq" position. Unlike various neoconservatives who really do hope for an American empire, I don't want an open-ended commitment. I also don't think that the "out right goddamned now" position is tenable, as I am convinced that it would lead to far worse consequences than withdrawal after the new government there is given a fighting chance; reasonable people will differ on when we should get out, but it's hard to argue for the "rush pell mell for the exits" approach. The arguments for not going to war are not precisely the same as the arguments for withdrawal of all forces starting in one hour; the situation is different and requires a weighing of the consequences. Even those who called for withdrawal called for setting a timetable, not for sending an email cutting off the pay for all soldiers serving in theater.

And as for dragging in anyone's name, that was your doing, Clement (a handle as anonymous as those of other commentators here). What certain characters did a long time ago is of no concern to me, except as support for RightWatch's claim that the Rockwellites are trying to rewrite history. People who engaged in all kinds of reckless behavior are now best friends with the vicious anti-gay bigot Hans Hermann Hoppe, who makes crazy assertions about others on the basis of such behavior; that's remarkable.

In any case, my posting pointed to a blog that you might find of interest. You evidently did, Clement. So go ahead and post some comments there.

And by all means, it's still a relatively free country, so you can keep the company of theocrat advocates of public stoning of gay people (Gary North, the kook pseudo-economist at lewrockwell.com who predicted the end of civilization due to "Y2K"), knuckle dragging Confederate revivalists (Lew Rockwell and many of his acolytes), holocaust deniers (Joe Sobran), advocates of killing American servicemen (Mike Rogers), and all the rest. Just please don't soil the good name of libertarianism or of a great thinker and friend of liberty such as Ludwig von Mises.

"Anthony, you're wasting your time arguing with someone who calls his blog "Stalinist Orange." Let the Stalinist Oranges stick with Palmer and his "don't withdraw from Iraq" position, while they claim that Antiwar.com (!) is somehow "discrediting" the antiwar movement."

Bravo, Clement! I swear keep going on this way and you'll have covered every logical fallacy in the book. I'll just check "ad hominem" off the list.

No one is making fun of charitable assistance. What's funny is how you veer from santimony to viciousness so easily. From "Oh, please help this poor faceless girl" in one post, you quickly degenerate into your obsessive hatreds: Rockwell, Raimondo, Hoppe, etc. What's telling is that the "nice" posts are spirit-less and dull: you only get your juices flowing, apparently, when you're hating somebody.

By coincidence, among the several comments I found on my site this morning (When I usually clean off the spam-comments and trackbacks for gambling, porno, and pharmacy sites) were the one immediately above and one from Vincent Hoogendyk of the Netherlands, who commented on a posting on Hans-Herman Hoppe, who was the proximate cause of the posting on another web site (RightWatch) that so exercised Clement that he insisted on personally naming the people who were not named in it. Here's Mr. Hoogdendyk's remark:

"Mr. Palmer,

Found your blog after Googling for Hoppe, who recently gave a lecture here in the Netherlands. I thought his ideas were scary and very authoritarian/anti-liberty. And it seems you are one of his only critics from a libertarian point of view."

If my late night hobby of blogging seems to be more "juicy" when I refer to the collectivism, anti-Semitism, racism, bigotry, irresponsibility, and general cultishness surrounding the three closely allied persons referenced above, it's because Mr. Hoogendyk's response is hardly unique. Since I've invested a great deal of my time and effort into expanding the influence of libertarian ideas, I may have a personal stake in not having all of the work of so many people flushed down the toilet by the likes of Messrs. Raimondo, Hoppe, and Rockwell. It's not merely a matter of disagreement; I have close friends with whom I disagree on many matters of passionate interest. The cult around lewrockwell.com represents a malicious attempt to sneak ugly, collectivist, anti-libertarian ideas into libertarianism. Perhaps I am more passionate about that than about other matters, even those that matter greatly to me, such as promoting charities I find worthy or writing about my favorite books.

"obsession" can be looked up in any english dictionary, "with" is one of those
prepositions..there are only 6 or so of them..hope this helps....anyway i'll remove that from
my statement and replace it with "conspiracy mongering over the OK city bombing as a
a result of his dilettante analysis of debris patterns around the building"..again
I wish to thank the LP for giving him the nomination

"And as for dragging in anyone's name, that was your doing."

You don't have the courage to name the person you are trying to smear. But by referring to a blog that smears a prominent follower of Rothbard as a prostitute and mentions "Italian Stallion" as an identifier, it's obvious: what other person associated with Rothbard has an Italian last name? Unless you mean Ralph Raico -- and I don't think even you are deluded enough to imply that.

Yes, you tell your (tiny) fan club: go over here and look at this collection of unsupported assertions and outright smears. But you won't take any responsibility for their veracity. Now THAT is cowardice of the slimiest sort.

And then you try to wriggle out of your opposition to withdrawal from Iraq -- an almost impossible task, since you reiterate it ceaselessly in your blog. First, you say, we must "destroy" the insurgents -- only then can we withdraw. Exactly the neoconservative position. Naturally, you don't endorse the "Homeward Bound" resolution introduced by Ron Paul and others. But, again, you don't have the courage of your convictions. You hide, sneak around the implications of what you say, and try to worm out of it when confronted. Indirection and innuendo -- that's the Palmer Method.

In response to Clement's strange allegations about Ukraine and the Orange Revolution -- it is simply factually wrong that Yuschenko is pursuing socialist policies.

E.g. see http://www.ukrainianjournal.com/index.php?w=article&id=924

Also, the investigation into the poisoning of Yuschenko is ongoing. The fact that it isn't reported in the American press doesn't mean it has gone away.

See http://www.ukrainianjournal.com/index.php?w=article&id=929

The phony "investigation" into the "poisoning" is trying to prove this:

ââ?¬Å?Once we have an experimental base, how exactly the poisoning acts and how it affects miceââ?¬Â¦ weââ?¬â?¢ll be able to sayââ?¬Â¦ this poison had reached [Yushchenkoââ?¬â?¢s] body, letââ?¬â?¢s say, two hours before the first symptoms had appeared,ââ?¬Â

What a cock-and-bull story. Dioxin takes at least three days to display any symptoms:

Dr. Arnold Schecter, one of the world's leading dioxin experts at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas, said he believes the symptoms surfaced too quickly for the dinner to have been the source of the poison.

http://blog.kievukraine.info/2005/02/unanswered-questions-swirl-months.html

"In medicine, there's always the exception, but dioxin usually takes at least three days to produce symptoms," he said. "Frankly, the timing of getting sick the next day would point away from the dinner [with Ukrainian security agents]."

As for your "proof" that Ukraine isn't going socialist: more rubbish from the Tom Palmer Fan Club. I don't think a "declaration" supposedly promising to refrain from nationalizing the assets of their political enemies makes the Yushchenko team "free market." A regime that imposes PRICE CONTROLS on petroleum and meat is not, by any stretch of the imagination, pro-freedom.

Back the drawing board, Charlie.

Clement. You're so consumed by anger you're flailing. Do you regret having asociated Mr. Raimondo with illegal-but-consensual behavior? I doubt that many would have connected so many dots, especially since the remark concerned several illegal acts, not merely one. I pointed to a web site that contains useful discussion of important issues, one blog posting (http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=rightwatch&static=1969698289 )of which was about the hypocrisy of certain people rewriting their own history and smearing a whole group of people (myself included, by the way, as Mr. Hoppe has stated in public on three continents that "Tom Palmer is nothing but the Ambassador of Homosexuality," which is nothing if not a truly bizarre smear) on the basis of the very kinds of anomic behavior that their core group eagerly promoted in former times, including drug dealing, promotion of drug use, and prostitution.

I happen to know that the claims are true. But what matters is not who-did-what-illegal-but-consensual-thing-twenty-years-ago, but that there's both hypocrisy and a strange rewriting of their own history. That was one blog post of a number, the others of which were about what does in fact exercise me but seems not to concern you: collectivism, racism, and near insanity infiltrating libertarianism inside a Trojan Horse bearing the name of the great Ludwig von Mises. That is very disturbing.

And, really, before you tell us that you know more about dermatology and the efects of poisoning than hosts of world experts, be a bit more careful. I know precious little about dermatology or the effects of dioxin. Same with Raimondo and his crew of smear artists, who nonetheless mocked a man for his extreme disfigurement and agonizingly painful ailment, and made jokes about "bad sushi" and accusations that it must really have been a sudden onset of alcoholism, and worse. If I read *anything* that they write, I check the sources, because the standard they set is not whether there is evidence, but whether it smears someone they perceive as "pro-US" or supports someone they perceive as "anti-US," regardless of any evidence of the truth or falsity of the claim. (The government of the United States of America, after all, defeated the Confederate States of America, and that crime taints any and every policy stance it may take for the rest of time.) Now, regarding the problems of a regime that was ruled by gangsters who gave state assets to the son-in-law of the president in the days that it looked like his gang would be ousted....it's hard to know just what the best policy is. If Bush and the GOP Congress were to "privatize" Amtrak by illegally rigging the game to give it to the president's son-in-law just before the GOP was to be swept from office, some people might say that that privatization should be revisited. There are costs to doing so, just as there are costs to failing to do so. I discussed the issue and pointed to some sources (and generated some comments) here:
http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/021169.php
But is the question of the best means of addressing flawed privatizations all that relevant to the fact that Raimondo and his gang openly side with every gangster regime of the former USSR (unless they are perceived as US backed, as in the case of the evil regime of Uzbekistan), including the Lukashenko dictatorship in Belarus? They aren't non-interventionists; they want the side perceived as hostile to the US government to win in every case, no matter how gangsterish or evil they may be (note Raimondo's enthusiasm for crushing the Chechens, who have been killed in their hundreds of thousands to prevent independence). That is bizarre. That is disturbing. That is why keeping an eye on such wackos is important and why I pointed to the RightWatch blog as worth watching. (By the way, don't count on any comments being available at lewrockwell.com or antiwar.com. They've got no obligation to provide that to others, but it means that they allow none to dissent in any fashion from the wild accusations, strange smears, and distortions in which so many of them traffic.)

It is absolutely ridiculous and even crazy that you really are accusing Raimondo of being a prostitute. I've known Justin fairly well over the years, including back in the late seventies, and I can definitely say it's a fanstasy on your part. It's not surprising that you would lie: what's weird is that you would choose such a crazy lie. You need to retrac that one.

You "happen to know the claims are true"? You couldn't know any such thing, since the accusation is not true. That you don't say what the source of your certainty is speaks volumes about your own veracity. You're a liar, plain and simple.

Retract the charge -- or prove it.

You should also consider retracting your odd attachment to the Yushchenko "revolution" and the myth of his "poisoning." The chief medical officer of the Rudolfineraus clinic where Yushchenko went for treatment was threatened with violence by Yushchenko's thugs when he said in public that there was no evidence of deliberate poisoning:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/27/wukr27.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/03/27/ixportal.html

Aside from the question of "re-privatization," the imposition of price controls in any form pretty much rule out the "orange revolutionaries" as free-market types. What I don't get, however, is why you can't or won't admit this. After all, everybody is wrong at some time in their lives: especially about speculative matters such as this. Why not admit it? After all, it's no big deal -- unless agreeing that perhaps Raimondo and others were right is too much for your brittle ego to bear.

Ok, let's raise issues of evidence. I saw him and his colleagues with illegal substances and know that they trafficked in them. So what? I don't really care, except that now their guru HH Hoppe insists that such behavior is characteristic of others. I also heard from his own filthy mouth (and just read what he writes on blog postings to get a mild sense of what that is like) boasts of sexual activities that were not the sort of which his friend Hoppe would approve. Ask him whether he considered himself an "outlaw" and what that meant to him. Again, so what? I honestly am not concerned, as you are, about his sordid past or about the drug busts of the office in which he was involved or the glorification of the burning of police cars or any of the rest of his bizarre past. I do care about what you won't address -- the crazy racism and knuckle-dragging Confederate Revivalism, immigrant-bashing, and the like in which that crowd revels. If you want to dig up old skeletons and drag your colleague's name through the mud, go ahead. I want nothing more to do with anyone's sordid and unpleasant past of decades ago. What you wish to trumpet about is your business. But you really ought to do it somewhere else.

That is also true of your strange obsession with real or imagined policy failings in Ukraine. I have made my views on the wisdom of reprivatization public known (I think in general it's a mistake). We will have to see whether they take the right path or the wrong one. But what I favored was an end to the rule of vicious gangsters in Ukraine and I did not believe the absurd claims (contradicted by countless other actual observers of the election) that it was Yushchenko and not Yanukovitch who stole the election. The "British Helsinki Human Rights Group" to which Raimondo is so closely connected is a front for pro-authoritarian rule in the former USSR, as many people have shown (see the links at: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/016326.php .

And really, your sense of evidence is remarkably weak. One person says there is no evidence of "deliberate" poisoning of someone, so you conclude that it is impossible that he was poisoned at all. Others argue that there was poison in his system (not sushi, as the antiwar.com bloggers wrote), show blood tests, and ask how that much dioxin might get into the blood of someone who was likely to unseat the thugs in power. Hmmmmm.... Maybe he *was* poisoned. Maybe. I'm no expert on dermatology or blood toxins, so I'll wait for the experts. But not you.

Not being from the US I'm just curious about what numbers we are talking about in terms of the libertarian "movement" and these paleos. Very roughly of course, what % of all political activists would be (self-described is perhaps the best measure) libertarians in the US and what % of this group would be these paleos?

Well, like Clement (and like Tom), I've known Justin since the late '70s. I was there every day from June 1978 to January 1981 in the Libertarian Review offices (next door to the SLS offices and down the block from the Cato Institute offices), and I know damned well that the sex and drug allegations being disputed here are true. Justin used to brag in the office about his "Italian Stallion" ad and the part-time income it provided him.

I agree with Tom that whatever victimless crimes he and other members of the Radical Caucus may have committed thirty years ago is unimportant. I don't agree with him about LewRockwell.com and AntiWar.com, which I think are two of the best libertarian sites on the Internet. His efforts (and those of a handful of others) to make a mountain out of a molehill in connection with Lew's staunch anti-Lincolnism and Justin's hatred of the U.S. war machine do not impress me.

JR

LB's question is hard to answer; there's little (perhaps no) hard data on such matters. As an educated conjecture, I'd say that only a tiny minority of self-identified libertarians (and I do meet a lot, especially through college lecture tours, teaching at seminars, and the like) would identify with the views of the "paleos." It's sometimes such an odd mix that it would be hard to work out on one's own the "logic" that might connect them all together, in any case. What I find worrying is that the name of a great and intellectually powerful champion of classical liberalism (not of hard-core libertarianism, and certainly not of kooky Rockwellism), Ludwig von Mises, is used to attract people to that witch's brew of opinions.

I disagree with Mr. Riggenbach's evaluation of the two websites in question (obviously), but I can verify that what he says is true. Clement insists on bringing up bits of history that most people would rather not know about. Sometimes it's best not to be too insistent in defense of the reputation of another.

As someone who had heard the same things from the horse's mouth, here's another confirmation of what Jeff has written and Clement was foolish enough to blurt out, except that I don't want my name used for the simple reason that I still live here. If you have ever seen Raimondo all worked up in a tizzy, you would definitely not want him coming after you, either. If he only embarrassed himself, I could care less. It's the ideas he puts out that suffer from his big mouth and from his buddy-buddy relationship with bigots like Pat Buchanan and Hans-Herman Hoppe (the one who's been repeatedly censured -- maybe unjustly, but apparently for cause, nonetheless -- for bigoted remarks) and with the goober brigade.

Polling has shown that about 2% of Americans self-identify as "libertarian." That is, when asked if they are conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc., they choose libertarian.

Polling also shows that 1/2 of 1% are Libertarian Party partisans. That is, when asked if they are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or whatever, they say "Libertarian."

Among libertarians, there are many disputes as to what counts as being a libertarian. Many libertarians would claim that at least some of those who say that they are "libertarian" really aren't. It is at least possible that some of those who claim to be "libertarians" are "civil libertarians" and more social democrat than libertarian.

According to some of the more inclusive views as what it means to be a libertarian, about 20% of the U.S. population is libertarian. According to that approach, no more than 10% of that number knows that they are libertarian.

That 20% number is people who think goverment should be smaller and don't believe government should promote traditional moral values.

For the general reader with interest in Ukraine: Just to be clear, I was refuting the apparent claim that the investigation of Yuschenko's poisoning wasn't moving along, not arguing that Yuschenko had definitely been poisoned at the dinner at Satsyuk's dacha.

Also, I was refuting the claim that Yuschenko is pursuing socialist policies. Timoshenko's price caps on Russian natural gas (a bad policy over which Yuschenko and Timoshenko clashed) do not constitute socialism.

Yuschenko is unquestionably pursuing liberal pro-market reform He's doing so in an environment filled with old soviet bureaucrats and corrupt "businessmen" who were cronies of the old regime -- powerful people who oppose change. He needs to hold together a coalition that includes populist allies (e.g. Timoshenko) who are more interested in ending the enormous corruption in the system than in promoting market reform.

All of these Orange Revolutionaries are prefereable to the Kuchma/Yanukovych mafia.

(Clement: please excuse me for getting off topic. I realize that this discussion is supposed to focus on uncivil attacks on Tom Palmer.)

Tom Palmer is an idiot

Someone just sent me this thread. If I can state for the record: I have never engaged in prostitution. It is a profession that requires the sort of discipline that I did not have at the tender age of 20-something, and is far too much like work to have any appeal for me.

Well, that settles it, right? Of course, maybe Justin shouldn't have boasted about his "business" enterprise, his advertisements, and his conquests so grossly and so publicly. Justin, you should tell Clement not to be so eager to out you the next time.

Back to the main issue, though: what happened to "libertarianism" that people like Hoppe and Rockwell want to take it over? They swing from far left (promoting burning police cars and prostitution and drug deals) to far right (so far right as to be cheerleaders for slavery defending Confederates!), each time ensuring that the rational part of the population will find them repulsive. They remind me of nothing more than the weird zombie cults on the far left and right, e.g., the LaRoucheies, complete with "cancellation of previous realities" when it suits them. They did lots of damage here in the Bay Area to our reputation. With the Internet, now they're taking it global.

The author (or authors) of RightWatch makes the same point as Palmer (the interesting issue isn't Raimondo's hobbies, but the relationship with "racists, bigots and the lunatic fringe of the Right) in his/her/their latest posting:

http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=rightwatch&static=1969700825
*
It seems that our posting on countercultural matters and the Paleolibertarians has erupted into a full out donnybrook on another web site. [link]

The one thing I find disturbing is that people are concentrating on the issues of prostitution and drugs. My point was not that at all but the double standards and false claims that the Rothbardians rescued us from such counter culturialists. They were the counter culturialists. I did not identify the Rothbardians by name unless it was documented material. Now I myself saw the things I described. I have spoken to numerous people who saw the same thing. I saw the ââ?¬Å?Italian Stallionââ?¬Â ad once as a friend of the advertiser showed it to me. Yet one Paleo defender kept insisting such comments, though not the primary focus of our blog, were false.

Others posted comments there and said they saw it. But since they didnââ?¬â?¢t identify themselves they were dismissed. The one noted: ââ?¬Å?If you have ever seen [deleted for our site] all worked up in a tizzy, you would definitely not want him coming after you, either.ââ?¬Â See this poster still lives near the person in question.

But the interesting comment came from Jeff Riggenbach who is someone I donââ?¬â?¢t always agree with but whom Iââ?¬â?¢ve always respected. Jeff notes that he worked from June 1978 to January 1982 in the Libertarian Review offices ââ?¬Å?(next door to the SLS offices and down the block from the Cato Institute offices), and I know damned well that the sex and drug allegations being disputed here are true. X [deleted for our site] used to brag in the office about his ââ?¬Ë?Italian Stallionââ?¬â?¢ ad and the part-time income it provided him.ââ?¬Â

I hope we have that out of the way. The comment I made on prostitution and drugs was not a key element of the discussion. I don�t think it should be the focus of our attention. It is not these things the hypocrisy of the Paleos that concerns me as much as the links to racists, bigots and the lunatic fringe of the Right. That is what I think is the issue. And that is what I�m concentrating on. As far as I�m concerned Mr. Stallion and the substance entrepreneurs are a non-issue compared to the advocates of the New Confederacy, theocrats and white supremacists. Concentrating on such consention actions between adults only diverts attention from the real issue -- which may be why some Paleo defenders keep naming names -- which is the Paleo links to very suspect ideologies.
*
Sounds like the right issues to me.

Oh, and "SFLib", I wouldn't worry about me "coming after" you. It's all in your fevered imagination, along with the charges you make. I suppose anonymity is your only protection against ridicule. I see "Rightwatch" is also anonymous, and no doubt for the same reason. I have never written anything that can be remotely described as "white supremacist," never mind theocratic or advocating a "New Confederacy," whatever that may mean. That Tom Palmer is making such accusations, or even giving them any credence on his website, is yet more evidence that he has allowed his weird personal vendetta to get in the way of his reasoning powers.

I believe that Rothbardians are extremists--anarcho-capitalism is a bit extreme. The reason for the wide swings involves an effort to form alliances with other sorts of extremists. The _key_ element of agreement they find with these folks is _hatred_ of the current U.S. government.

There is another "complication" regarding this "left libertarian" business.

Even during the seventies, Rothbard supported a "radical in content," "conservative in appearance" standard for LP candidates.

For example, in 1976, Roger McBride won the LP nomination. I have forgetten the name, but an openly gay man was slated to win the VP nod, but McBride nixed him. While McBride wasn't against homosexuals, he didn't think that was the right image for the ticket.

Anyway, there was a bunch of LP activists who had long hair, etc. Openly counter-cultural. They were very upset about this decision.

It has been many years, but I am pretty sure Rothbard supported the "conservative in appearance," "radical in content" approach.

So, no long hair, hippy-type, pinko fags, in spokesman positions. (I don't know that he Rothbard really insisted that gays in such positions be literally in the closet, but maybe as long as they aren't runing for office in San Francisco, their sexuality shouldn't be worn on their sleaves.)

The issue comes up from time to time. Like whether the prostitution activist (Amodovar or something) should be a political candidate. I think she contrasted "lifestyle libertarians" like herself, with "political libertarians."

Even in the heyday of the Rothbard-centered radical wing of the LP, Rothbard insisted that"political libertarianism" (if one were to call it that) was it!

I recollect a dispute between Rothbard and one of the libertarian feminist writers. This woman was defending "psychological libertarianism" and contrasting it with "economic libertarianism." (I think those were the terms.) Anyway, psychological libertarianism was "free your mind, and the rest will follow." Well, I don't know about the rest following, but a sort of free thinking individualism was what libertarianism was really about. Rothbard insisted libertarianism was about the proper legal structure for society--laws based on self-ownership etc. Whether people were free thinking individualists or devoted Catholics, or whatever, had nothing to do with libertarianism.

As long as I was aware of Rothbard's thought, this was included. I think it came out in some of his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, too. This was all long before the paleo days.

So Rothbard definitely came out with this theory and "line" that libertarians were the true leftists, oppositite of conservatives with the socialists being in between.

He was all in favor of alliance with the New Left during the hight of opposition to the Vietnam War. (Exactly how many of those ex-S.D.S. anarchists came into "our" libertarian movement? Is that just a myth? Is "It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand," much more the real story of late sixties libertarianism?

During the "radical" faction days of the seventies, bludgening the libertarian movement into strict noninterventionism seemed to be the key goal. But maybe there was some effort to exorcise the "big businessman as hero" business.

I think what happened is that Rothbard's extreme libertarianism was just more appealing to people who were really, really alienated from society because of some "deviant" personal habit or characteristic. Obviously, not always.

Anyway, so while Evers, Raico, Grinder, and the like all appeared reasonably conservative and if they had any unconventional habits, they didn't advertise, when one looked at the rank-and-file of the libertarian movement, the counter-culture types tended to follow Rothbard.

They liked the "state is a bunch of crooks and criminals." Maybe they felt they fit in better at the Grateful Dead Concert if they were more peaceniks that the rest of the hippies. Hey, I don't just smoke pot and drop acid, I think all drugs should be legal!

Those that stuck to a more neo-objectivist line or else were some kind of quasi old-line Christian libertarian for FEE, always seemed more conventional. I remember Jeff Friedman complaining years ago that the LP was full of these rancher types from out west wearing Bolo ties.

During the seventies, Rothbard could domimate the LP (and maybe the libertarian movement.)

Then when he took the paleo turn, most of these folks didn't follow him in his effort to replace anti-communism on the right with isolationism. And so the new attack on "left-libertarians."

Now, on the right, who were actually inclined to move to isolationism? Who were showing a proper hatred of the state? Well, mostly right wing wackos. You know, neo-conferates hate that state in Washington. Not all opponents of a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy are anti-Israel, much less anti-Semitic. But the anti-semites generally take a dim view of Israel and any U.S. alliance with it. The fringe of the Christian right is scared to death of that statanic, secular regime in Washington that is trying to brainwash their children into thinking man evolved from apes, that gay sex is fine, and that there should be no traditional sex roles for men and women. Some of them hate the state.

Of course, with Republican control in Washington and the "Islamic threat" and the fact that God gave Palestine to the Jews, etc., etc., the Rothbardians are coming to give up on that strategic turn in the late eighties.

We will see the next twist. But it looks like they are heading back to the left. Correct?

So, no doubt those who fail to follow them will be subjected to some new sort of attack.

Bill Woolsey makes many valid points. In particular the desire of Murray Rothbard to make alliances with opponents of the U.S. government, regardless of the statism promoted by such opponents, on the left or the right.

I have fantasized about starting a new group of "Left Paleo-Libs" to combine the '60s Rothbard and the 90's Rothbard. The slogan would be "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Pat Buchanan's gonna win."

However, it is wrong to say that the "counter-culture" types in the Libertarian movement were most likely to follow Dr Rothbard. There was a time when Ed Crane, Cato, and the whole Koch funded LP machine was pushing Rothbard as "Mr Libertarian" and it was hard to dissent in such a climate.

Dissent from Rothbard's line in libertarian circles usually came about because Dr Rothbard would change his mind, and denounce people who had agreed with his previous strategy.

We need a new generation of libertarian scholars and intellectuals, and less dependence on the writings of the previous generation, who were operating in a context many of us would not recognize or understand.

If your a German and don't want Berlin to turn into Istanbul north, your a Nazi.

If your a Californian and are sick of the wages of working people being lowered by illegal immigration, your a racist.

If you want to see Russia wake up from its decade and a half of kow-towing to 'market forces' and rescue its beautiful culture and people from oblivian, you are 'soft on authoritarianism'.

If you are a Christian or just a member of Western Civilization and don't want to see an institution (marriage) transformed beyond all recognition by 'rights activists', you are a bigot.

If you know something about US history, and understand that Abraham Lincoln suspended rights and did in fact destroy the old Republic, in his zeal to do God's will in crushing slavery (abolished peacefully other countries, like Brazil, before the 19th century was out), you are a neo-Confederate.

If you notice that some Jewish groups use the Holocaust as a fund raiser, as a way of mobilizing their ethnicity for group goals, and as a way of extracting wealth from countries and corporations, you are an anti-Semite.

It that just about right, Mr. Palmer?

BTW, I would like quotes on where Sobran or Francis have *denied* the Holocaust.

Mr. Young.

First, it would be wise to learn how to spell before you pose as a defender of western civilization.

Second, I'm not aware that anyone has ever said that Sam Francis had denied the holocaust. He was merely the editor of a racist publication of the KKK-friendly "Council of Conservative Citizens," the successor to the "Council of Concerned Citizens," which was known in the South as the Klan in suits. Visit their web site and read all of the articles about black people. Then try to deny that they are racists.

Third, for links to evidence of holocaust denial, visit this page: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/022289.php#comments. Mr. Sobran says he doesn't "deny" the holocaust -- he just can't affirm that it happened, either, since he doesn't read German and doesn't "know chemistry." As another commenter pointed out, that's the same as saying that you don't deny that Pearl Harbor was attacked, but you can't affirm it, either, since you don't read Japanese and don't know how the Zero fighter plane was engineered. Sobran made his remarks, of course, at a conference of holocaust deniers (the Institute for Hitorical Review).

I'd recommend, in addition to learning grammar and spelling, that you learn some logic, some history, and some economics. Then return to the questions you posed above.