Well, whoever is quoted got it right. What a nasty nest of snakes Rockwell has prepared. Is Rockwell the writer of the newsletters? The style does quite sound like him. We have our own nutters here (anti-immigrant, racist, and hateful), but fortunately they were largely drummed out of decent company with Enoch Powell.

It would have to be Rockwell (a former Paul ghostwriter), or at least someone Rockwell knows personally.

Chickens have a way of coming home to roost, and many of us saw this coming a long, long time ago. I just hope this serves as a wake-up call to libertarians who haven't yet recognized these people for what they are.

BTW, I thought that was you for sure, and I was proud! I'll bet you know who it was, and if so, be sure to thank him or her for me.

It was widely known in the libertarian community that Rockwell was the author of much of the material that has Paul in trouble now. My sources say the Economist is onto the story and called Rockwell fro a quote and he screamed "no comment" and hung up on them. Apparently he's willing to leave Paul hanging in the wind for his actions -- not that Paul is innocent mind you. He did work with Rockwell to produce this stuff and he was aware of it and it did go on for years.

The abusive style is pure Lew. He's not man enough to own up to it.

Ron Paul put his name on Lew's vile and disgusting claims. He did so for years and years. He doesn't get a pass on this. If he had discovered that a staff writer had turned out to be a bigot (that's a mild term for what has been exposed) and had written one piece under his name, then he could have fired him, written a disavowal, and no serious person would have held him responsible. _That isn't what happened._ Instead, Ron Paul continued to turn that material out year after year after year.

He doesn't get a pass on this. He put his name on it and he has to live with it. Unfortunately, so does everyone else who supported him. What he's done is terrible and inexcusable.

The problem is that the Rockwellians were like a giant boil on the libertarian movement. Various people tried to lance it but it kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally a publication big enough to matter lanced the boil which popped spewing puss all over the place. The problem for us libertarians is that the puss got all over us in the process and now we're trying to figure out how to get clean.

I note the Rockwellians are putting forth the argument that TNR was founded by a progressive (Croly) and that proves that was the reason they "set out" to harm Paul. In that case the Washington Post is a brillant libertarian newspaper since Felix Morley was the former editor. One recent TNR editor, Andrew Sullivan, was a Paul promoter on his blog right up until this incident. And the author of the piece is actually a libertarian -- of course Rockwell and crew redefine libertarianism so that one must be one of them. Yet we are seeing what they are very clearly and it isn't libertarian.

Yep. Whatever Lew Rockwell touches turns to crap. Is he going to admit that (among other things) he compared black people to "zoo animals," or is he going to continue to let his man just twist in the wind?

You were right about Rockwell, Tom. I just wish more people had listened.

I forgot something. Here's Rockwell's response to the evidence of racism and bigotry in the newsletters,

"http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/018420.html

January 08, 2008

The New 'Republic'
Posted by Lew Rockwell at January 8, 2008 02:04 PM
TNR has a long and checkered history of pro-fascism, pro-communism, and pro-new dealism. Founded to promote the rotten progessive movement of militarism, central banking, income taxation, centralization, and regulation of business, it naturally hates and fears the Ron Paul Revolution. The mag is also famous for having published a slew of entirely made-up articles by Stephen Glass, which it passed off as non-fiction. Through the 1950s it was an important magazine, of sigificant if baleful influence, but it long ago declined in circulation and significance, like all DC deadtree ops. Long close to Beltway libertarians, for whom its politically correct left-neoconism is fine and dandy, TNR once published a cover story literally comparing Ross Perot to Adolf Hitler when he was running for president. That is the publication's style--hysterical smears aimed at political enemies.
----
Maybe he didn't deny the authenticity of the quotations because he knows who wrote them. (So, Mr. Rockwell, come one -- admit that you wrote them. What have you got to lose now?)

Rockwell didn't even bother to argue that the quotes weren't genuine, or were taken out of context, or whatever. So he attacks the magazine, not what they published. (I noticed that he attacks the magazine for a cover comparing Ross Perot to Hitler, which does seem unfair, but doesn't mention that his favorite magazine, The American Conservative, just published a cover with Giuliani as Hitler. And even on the SAME PAGE of LRC Giuliani (not my favorite candidate, but that's not the same point) is called "Benito"!)

You're pathetic, Mr. Rockwell.

I agree men

Oh well. Beltway Libertarians can get back to being shills for neocons.

I like RP and I dislike PC, but these letters are way over the edge. This isn't politically incorrect, this is bullshit. If it's Rockwell, I'd be very disappointed and put off, because I like the site in general.

Surely, if RP talks about the FED, I can imagine he's right upto a point. But the whole conspiracy attitude just begins to blow me off. WTF, CFR? Trilateral commission? Bilderberg? Mossad? NAU? Come on.

I still think RP is a good, wise man, but his periphery seems filled with all kinds of fringe people. People with bad karma and dito smell. People, I don't want have anything to do with.

RP's positions on less government, less taxes, more personal freedom, less interventions are great. The rest, I don't care for. It even shames me a bit. I don't why, but everytime I trust some politician I feel betrayed afterwards.

This isn't about beltway libertarians. Beltway libertarians didn't ghostwrite Ron Paul's Newsletter. It's about the racists and bigots at the Mises Institute.

And I don't know personally whether Rockwell is to blame, but it wouldn't surprise me. In 1991, he published a piece in the LA Times and USA Today essentially defending the cops who beat Rodney King and calling for the banning of video cameras.

In the 1990s, Rockwell published the Rothbard Rockwell Report, a publication that upon reflection seems eerily similar to what's been published about the Ron Paul Report.

Someone: "The earth is round."

Lew: "You are just a neocon warmonger!"

Someone: "Well, the earth is still round."

Lew: "Fascist! Progressineocon! Bankster!"

Someone: "What the hell are you talking about!"

Lew: "PNAC! Bushco! Blackwater! Lincoln-Lover!"

It seems pretty clear that Rockwell has infiltrated his racist-collectivist minions into our midst. It's time to clean house. I have never given a dime to the Mises Institute people for just these reasons, but I've always wished that they would just go away. But they haven't. (I like Mises, but not in an obsessive way. He's an interesting writer and was very brave to stand up to the Nazis, Fascists, and Communists for all those years. It's a real shame that the Rockwellian racists decided to take the name of a great crusader for individual rights for their sick little Institute.)

It is indeed time to clean house. I've posted some thoughts at Liberty and Power:

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/46313.html

Rightwatch has weighed in, too. Not much new if you've read the other accounts, but informative nonetheless.

http://rightwatch.tblog.com/

I want to make three points that shine for me through the thick of this noxious affair:

1. Let's not forget that LRC (which, to be fair, is distinct from the Mises Institute; the former has given up 501(c)(3) status to promote Paul, and most LRC writers don't blog at mises.org) also publishes the writings of Patrick Buchanan, Joe Sobran, and Gary North--the first two monomaniacs with significant links to Holocaust denial, the last one a bona fide theocrat who either isn't even a libertarian or was just joshing about stoning gays and such.

2. I didn't know Kirchik was a libertarian, but TNR is one of the most libertarian-friendly mainstream magazines. They excerpted The Bell Curve; they opposed Pres. Clinton's healthcare reform; etc. To Rockwell and friends, however, if you have any influence with anyone the least bit powerful, you're a "beltway" figure who might as well be shaking hands with Henry Kissinger.

3. I saw many of the jaded commenters at Reason Hit & Run say that if libertarianism were a real political movement we would all support Paul, like the supporters of other candidates support their candidate through all sorts of revelations. I think that won't work, it's disingenuous, and it's wrong. Libertarians have to be good people before they can be good libertarians. That includes, when confronted with racism or any other evil, loudly and authentically denouncing it.

Remember: in a libertarian society, one where welfare and healthcare and all other sorts of care aren't subsidized by the government, we the people will have to step in. Just as the Framers knew that a people blinded by disgust cannot effectively guard free speech, a fair trial, etc. (hence the Bill of Rights), a people blinded by racism will not freely pay for healthcare for black people. Non-libertarians oppose libertarianism first and foremost because they think people will be forgotten and exploited. The people they are concerned about should be the concern of all, *especially* libertarians, because we propose removing many of their chief means of support.

I'm more concerned that amidst the pejoratives there is nothing about the camel jockeys. He's not some arab sympathizer, is he? Or is it simply the reporter's selective bias?

Come on, Lew Rockwell! Fess up. Your guy is suffering because of your A) clear racism, and B) moral cowardice in just letting your guy take the heat.

I saw the CNN Wolf Blitzer interview with Ron Paul. I think that Paul tried his best, but the damage to his reputation has been done. I was glad to hear him say that he admires Rosa Parks. (His references to support from "the blacks" made me cringe a little.)

A little checking showed his closest advisors and most excited supporters are in fact not Rosa Parks admirers, as you showed at www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/026647.php
It seems obviously clear that Rockwell, Huebert, and the others hate and despise Parks. So who wrote those articles that Paul put his name on?

Why does it matter if Lew Rockwell outs himself? Everyone is hoping and praying that Rockwell fesses up, but even if he did, so what? Ron Paul allowed racist and bigoted bile to be published with his name above it for years. That's the nub. Are we so stupid as to believe Ron Paul had *no* idea? Do we really think he never once saw the newsletter? Or maybe he just missed all of the issues that screamed with a full-throated racist voice.

Ron Paul has chosen to ally himself with an unsavory group and allowed them to publish their screeds under his name with his explicit approval.

He can hail Rosa Parks all he wants today, but I think we need to be adults about this: It doesn't matter who wrote the letters.

So shove off you neocon warmongers. Who the f**ck do you think you are??

LRC has more news than all the CNN/BELTWAY/FAUX SNOOZE put together.

I know who can save the country and so do you!!!!!!

RonPaul2008!!

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/01/10/ron-paul-to-address-race-issues-on-cnn/#comment-427989

I agree that Rockwell's role in all of the ugliness doesn't absolve Ron Paul of responsibility for putting his name on such evil. That must weigh on his conscience.

Moving forward, I hope that the people who have been taken in by Rockwell and now find that they are in the company of "white nationalists" (and that's just the tip of the iceberg of evil that Rockwell has brought with him) will realize the mistake they've made and disassociate themselves from him, whether quietly or publicly. It pains me that Rockwell has disgraced the name of Ludwig von Mises, which will now be associated in the minds of many with false and pernicious beliefs that Mises did much during his lifetime to combat. And that is but one of Lew Rockwell's misdeeds. Decent people should not associate with him.

This just in!

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/01/11/ron-pauls-ugly-newsletters/

Lew Rockwell is no "white nationalist." If one is not a "nationalist" (a subset of "statist") one cannot be a "white nationalist" (a subset of "nationalist").

These smears are silly, and fail to recognize that Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell have both publicly stated that racism is a collectivist, wrongheaded, unlibertarian strain of thought.

Anyone who has actually attended a Mises Institute seminar or who has spent a significant amount of time there would know that racism is just as despised by the distinguished scholars associated with the Institute as it is in libertarianism generally.

The Confederacy, for the record, is not lauded by LvMI--only secession is. After all, Mark Thornton, a resident scholar at LvMI, has co-authored a great book on the stupidity and tyranny of Confederate economic policy (including their inflationary monetary policies and their protectionist, anti-market blockade on their own ports in order to bar luxury, non-military goods from being legal cargo).

Regardless of a particular group's faults, secession from an illegitimate state is always justified. Attacking Lincoln and his Unionists is by no means an endorsement of slavery, taxes, fiat money, or protectionism. That Lincoln was a tyrant does not imply that those fleeing his tyranny were angels.

I've been telling everyone I can about the white supremacists infesting the Paulestinian campaign for months now, predicting exactly the sort of expose that just came out.

I don't for an instant believe Paul was ignorant of the racist trash published in his name; I know people who worked with Rockwell & Blumert back then, who told me how they were disgusted by their racism.

However, let's assume that Paul's telling the truth (unlike any other politician), & that he really didn't know what was being done in his name. He was a decade younger then, and his newsletter publishing was a much smaller operation than the U.S. Government. If he miraculously got elected President, what would he let his underlings get away with? Who would he appoint to sensitive government positions with actual responsibility for policy- and decision-making? What job would Rockwell get?

As for the absence of anti-Arab bigotry in Paul/Rockwell's old newsletters, there's a simple explanation for that: White supremacists sympathize with Muslim supremacists, because they have ethnic supremacism and anti-Semitism in common. That's why the Rockwellians made out the Iraqi insurgents to be like freedom-fighters; all they had to do was recycle rhetoric from the Klan's "heroic" resistance to the Union's occupation of the South, with slight modifications.

The Paleos have been making much over the past several years that some neo-conservatives are ex-Communists. However, many paleos are ex-Fascists; or, worse, crypto/neo-Fascists. I don't know of a single neo-conservative today who's still supporting collective ownership of the means of production, but lots of paleos are still supporting white supremacy.

As for the fool who denied Rockwell's nationalism by claiming that nationalism is inherently statist & that Rockwell's an anarchist, nationalists only use anarchist rhetoric until they take power. As soon as they have the opportunity, they support massive state social-engineering projects - like building a massive government boondoggle of a fence along the US-Mexico border, paid for with stolen money and on property confiscated from private property owners via eminent domain.

Moral question: What is worse?

A) BEING a racist or anti-semite?

B) POSING or PRETENDING to be a racist or anti-semite, with the goal of scamming the real racists and anti-semites of money or seeking their political report?

Everyone who knows Ron Paul agrees he is clearly in category "B." People who know/knew Lew Rockwell or Rothbard are undecided if they are in category "A" or "B."

Either way -- the Rockwell/Rothbard faction based on the Leninist "Paleo Revolution" has finally met the fate it made for itself. The chickens came home to roost and their failure is now complete in a very public fashion. Too bad they took Dr. Paul "down with the ship," though he shares most of the blame.

Hopefully it doesn't take the whole history of (true) libertarians ideas along to the bottom of the sea.

@ A is A

Look you have a point, concerning the Rockwellians -- and Palmer was more right about them, than he was initially given credit for, during the past few years. The newsletters were clearly upsetting to me, disturbing even.

I really gave me some perspective on the split between libertarians and why. Incidently, for quite some time, I selected my interest on just a few Rockwellian writers, because most are not my interest anyway. F.e., I don't buy DiLorenzo's claims on the confederacy. Come on, let's get real. Maybe Lincoln wasn't the hero, he's made out to be, but a unionist war for economic tariffs alone? Bull.

I like the antiwar views, the gold stuff and Rothbard, the podcasts @ Mises on liberty issues, but the rest.. Sorry, not for me.

Mr. Clark,

I agree that racism is an "unlibertarian strain of thought." Two questions:

1. Why not go further and say that Holocaust denial and homophobia are, too? Because they're still popular among some LRC writers? Or do you mean to say that it's okay to overlook prejudice in one area if someone makes enough anti-war points?

2. More to the point of this post, given that racism--especially the kind that involves inarticulate rage at African-American "animals," defending Andy Rooney, and not knowing how to spell "Rooney"--is so clearly unlibertarian, do you find it plausible that DECADES' worth of Paul's newsletters were filled with this trash without Paul or any of his aides knowing? Isn't the more likely story that they knew many of the contributors were demented and chose to ignore it? Remember, one of the worst contributors said he hailed from the same Texas town Ron Paul lives in, Luke Jackson.

The fact is, Ron Paul sounds a lot more passionate when he's talking about the Fed (though his constant references to "printing" money are a telling sign he doesn't know much about the subject) than when he's talking about racists who *contributed to his newsletter, the one named after him*. That reflects a bizarre perspective on human affairs in 2008 America--almost an unlibertarian one.

Mr. Clark's defense is sadly weak. Many people have indeed attended Mises Institute conferences and reported back on racism, hatred of gay people, and so on, not to mention the pathetically low standards of intellectual discourse (including raspberries, hoots, or cheers from "faculty" when certain economists are named; absurd mis-statements of the views of other thinkers and schools; bizarre mischaracterizations of centrally important theories, and so forth). Then add in involvement of key "faculty" with the League of the South, with Junge Freiheit, and on and on. It's all on display at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Clarks' attempted logical defense of Lew Rockwell is even sadder and shows no understanding of the meaning of the term "nationalism." The trash that Rockwell has invited to associate with the name of Ludwig von Mises are, indeed, enemies of freedom. Start with Gary North, who favors imposing Old Testament law and executing homosexuals and who writes regularly on LewRockwell.com. That's the tip of the iceberg.

Decent people should cut any and all relations they may ever have had with such people.

Tell me, "L.R.," which is more reprehensible - "defending Andy Rooney, and not knowing how to spell 'Rooney'" or referring to "the same Texas town Ron Paul lives in," and not knowing how to spell Lake Jackson (hint: it's NOT "Luke Jackson")?

Just curious.

JR

"DECADES' worth of Paul's newsletters. . . "

It was not decades. It was five months of actually ugly, racist comments. The TNR article makes it seem like decades by putting together the bad stuff with stuff that's questionable or un-PC and lumping it all together as the same thing.

Mr. Riggenbach,

I surrender in the face of your masterful demolition of my argument. I am no match for your careful grasp of essentials.

"The TNR article makes it seem like decades by putting together the bad stuff with stuff that's questionable or un-PC and lumping it all together as the same thing."

It *is* the same thing, actually - un-PC. That's what this is all about.

JR

Anon,

Those "five months" were not consecutive. Racism seems to have been a resident theme. You make no mention of the equally ugly homophobia the article exposes ("Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.").

Every newsletter article quoted in the article seems to fit into one of the following groups:

1. Bona fide, explicit "ugliness."

2. Black helicopter-style conspiratorialism (including "bristling references to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations", favorite targets of antisemites).

3. Militia mongering. I tend to think that bunches of people preparing for war in rural Michigan aren't much help to libertarianism.

The non-Fort Detrick AIDS stuff may be an exception, but given the more explicit homophobia, I'm not inclined to give the newsletter the benefit of the doubt on that account.

"I surrender in the face of your masterful demolition of my argument. I am no match for your careful grasp of essentials."

Tell me, "L.R.," what *are* the "essentials" of your argument that it is somehow reprehensible to defend Andy Rooney without knowing how to spell his name? Which of them did I miss?

Or did you imagine that you were making some other argument?

JR

Mr. Riggenbach,

"It *is* the same thing, actually - un-PC. That's what this is all about."

"One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that 'Welfaria,' 'Zooville,' 'Rapetown,' 'Dirtburg,' and 'Lazyopolis' were better alternatives".

That's "un-PC"?

Bigots and paranoids shouldn't be able to hide behind the "un-PC" blanket. Some things are "un-PC" for a good reason.

Mr. Riggenbach,

Stop being disingenuous. The Rooney comment in question was grossly homophobic.

And come to think of it, all the AIDS stuff belongs in the same boat. AIDS experts knew by the early '90s the virus wasn't transmissible by kissing. That's just rationalized hatred of gay people.

LR:

Prejudice can be "wrong" in the factual and moral sense but not be unjust. A systematic libertarian must break the practice of judging people in collective terms in order to better understand the world. That doesn't mean that a particular thought pattern can be unjust, of course.

Some of his aides (like the people working on the newsletter) knew about it. I believe that Ron didn't. It was a newsletter. Do you think that Lew knows every single word that goes out in every Mises Institute publication? Does Charles Koch know every word that goes out under his masthead?

Monetary fraud by the Fed in collusion with Washington finances all manner of government evils. So yes, I think it is quite appropriate to be more worried about that gargantuan, organized machine of fraud than it is to be worried about racist thoughts. This stuff was brought out to distract. That is quite obvious. Statism is the disease. Racism without coercion is only immoral, not unjust. Defunding the state will be far more effective in the fight for liberty than attacking principled libertarians for people that worked for their organization fifteen years ago.

"L.R.," ever on the alert for anything that might enrage him or make him feel the bracing, invigorating power surge of indignation, quotes a recent article in The New Republic on a newsletter published many years ago by Ron Paul:

"One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that 'Welfaria,' 'Zooville,' 'Rapetown,' 'Dirtburg,' and 'Lazyopolis' were better alternatives."

Then, his indignstion honed to a fine, fine edge by now, "L.R." inquires, "That's 'un-PC'?"

Yes, it is, "L.R." It's very un-PC.

JR

"A systematic libertarian must break the practice of judging people in collective terms in order to better understand the world."

Fair enough. So what is the so called Mises Institute doing when it publishes Holocaust-denier Joe Sobran, white racialist Sam Francis, Christian Reconstuctionist Gary North, and Hans Herman Hoppe, who might simply be called a bigot and a loon.

Jeff -- you are far better than the people you are defedning. But you know that much of this is very true.

As bad as the racism was the anti-gay statements were far worse. And those were published over a period of four years. You can't pretend this problem was limited to one or two issues. It went on for years. And it carried on into the Rothbard-Rockwell Report as well. And it carried on with Lew to the types of people he associates with and promotes as real libertarians: racists like Hoppe, Francis and Sobran. Disgusting.

JSTR: Is it your position that one must be right on everything to be right about anything?

Are you a proponent of a scholarly version of "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump"? I believe that scholarship should be a matter of examining theoretical and factual claims in another's propositions. If someone is doing good work in one area, it is by no means certain that his other work will be good. Wagner was an anti-semite, but surely his music can still be considered and appreciated on its own merits. (I do not mean by the above to concede that any of those mentioned are anti-semites, although I have never read anything by Sam Francis and wouldn't presume to know anything about wwhat he believed or who he would have hated.)

All history is subject to revision if evidence with which to do the revising becomes available. I have personally never seriously questioned the Holocaust and the usual numbers of casualties presented. Hitler was a terrible tyrant, and national socialism bore terrible, terrible fruits. Even in light of that fact, saying that no one is allowed to review historical documents in order to fact-check popular accounts of historically significant events must be seen for what it is: anti-intellectual dogmatism.

Resorting to just blatant, unfounded namecalling to attack Hans Hoppe shows your total lack of knowledge on this topic. By all means, object to something substantive. Calling someone a "loon" is hardly grown-up talk, now is it?

(FWIW, I am actually not particularly enamored of any of those individuals listed above. While Hoppe has been heavily involved in LvMI activities, I have never even seen any of the others, and am unaware of their participation in Mises Institute events. Hoppe is a theoretician of note, but the others are primarily popular writers. As such, they have written essays on a wide range of topics, with widely varying success.)

Hoppe is a theoretician of note?!?! What note would that be?

That group is a nest of racists. And too many people have looked the other way for too long.

The "defenses" of the Ron Paul newsletters from Riggenbach are the most laughable non-defenses I've read in a long time.

Dick Clark: " I have never read anything by Sam Francis and wouldn't presume to know anything about wwhat he believed or who he would have hated."

Ten seconds of Google searching found that this is what Lew Rockwell's buddy believed: "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races." (http://cofcc.org/?page_id=60) Hey, no racism there! (Hmmm.... opposing "all efforts to mix the races of mankind" would mean opposing interracial marriage, which is....racism, not to mention a violation of freedom, right?)

Come on, Dick Clark, you can do better than to claim that you don't know what Lew Rockwell's buddy Sam Francis believes.

You could try to be a man, admit that you hang out with racist trash, and either embrace it or reject them.

I agree with Tom: "And that is but one of Lew Rockwell's misdeeds. Decent people should not associate with him."

It remains to be seen if Ron Paul will continue to associate with him.

When the candidate's articles, books and fan club base emanate from the home of the Fever Swamp, what does that say about the candidate's commitment to the Constitution, peace and liberty?

Small government's such a nice idea, but then you never know when you may need the National Guard.

I agree with the others here that this has hurt the libertarian cause. But I'm not sure how many of you are reaching beyond your inner circle, Beltway or other kinds, to address the concerns of people who want liberty not only from intrusive government but government-corporate rule, and want to enjoy not an ever-higher standard of living but a decent quality of life-- which environmental degradation and other "It Can't Happen Here" corpo problems make difficult.

Can anyone here offer any compelling reasons to read your economic tracts rather than the ones on Post-Autistic Economics?

Anonymous
(because I don't want some of the vicious, smart-aleck, smug, contemptuous-of-humanity miserable hypocrites at Lew Rockwell . com to know who I am)

I learned the hard way about the racism at the LvMI. I will post here anonymously because I don't want my name associated with the ideas they sell "under the table" at LvMI. And believe me, you go for the economics and then you get the "other stuff."

I can't believe Clark is still trying to push out clouds of smoke to cover up the goings on there. This event has made a lot of people see you more clearly for what you are.

I learned the hard way about the racism at the LvMI. I will post here anonymously because I don't want my name associated with the ideas they sell "under the table" at LvMI. And believe me, you go for the economics and then you get the "other stuff."

I can't believe Clark is still trying to push out clouds of smoke to cover up the goings on there. This event has made a lot of people see you more clearly for what you are.

This just in from The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/01/the_rockwell_files.cfm

I am not pushing out clouds of anything. I went to almost every seminar held at LvMI between 2001 and 2006, and I worked at the Institute from 2004 until January of this year. I never heard a single racist comment from any faculty member or staff member in the whole time I was there. For these supposed "former students," how about ponying up some details, instead of just saying "take it from me"?

This is character assassination of the worst kind. Palmer has had a beef with Rothbardians ever since he was exposed as duplicitous in the Libertarian Forum so many years ago. He must be a racist himself, of course, since he "associated" with those in the "fever swamp." This is just slander (which shouldn't be a crime or a tort, but which shows one's own lack of class).

Manuel, I have never read anything by Sam Francis. The only reason I have any idea who he is at all is because of all the times I have had to clean up vandalism at the [[Lew Rockwell]] article on Wikipedia.

While the others aren't my favorites, I have read enough of their work to have an educated opinion on the matter. I cannot say that I have ever read anything by Sam Francis, and I never heard his name spoken once at the Mises Institute.

Thanks for the clarifications, Mr. Clark. You can't defend the Ron Paul newsletters, at least not openly. You can't defend Lew Rockwell, who used to call himself a "racialist." You can't remember reading all of the praise of Sam Francis at LewRockwell.com. So you instead poison the well by claiming that I was exposed as "duplicitous" "so many years ago" in an obscure newsletter. I think that the better term is "matured," since I was denounced for deciding as a young man that (for reasons quite different from the sickness recently exposed, which was not present back then) I did not agree with things I had written as a teen. Some duplicity -- changing one's mind, unless as a result of a command from a cult leader, is a sign of duplicity. What a sad little man you are, Mr. Clark.

The fact is that neither you nor your other racist-enabler colleagues can defend Lew Rockwell's collectivism. It's time for you to slink back into your little hole.

Some of the not-yet-deleted praise of Sam Francis at LewRockwell.com:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gottfried/gottfried51.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/wilson-brian7.html
(There used to be more, but .... they were dropped down the memory hole, as were the columns of Bob Wallace, including his several defenses on LewRockwell.com of public displays of the swastika.)

The circle widens, as you can quickly find an acolyte of Lew Rockwell's (and participant and lecturer at recent LvMI events), Marcus Epstein, with his obit to KKK admirer Sam Francis:
http://www.marcusepstein.com/

Other favorites include Joe Sobran, thrown out of National Review for his anti-Semitism, and a very big fan of Sam Francis. And Paul Gottfried, writer for Junge Freiheit and big fan of Sam Francis.

But Mr. Clark...you knew nothing...heard nothing....saw nothing. Now that's duplicity!

Dr. Palmer, I don't appreciate your calling me a liar. My reports of what I saw and heard--or rather didn't see or hear--are entirely truthful. I value truth more than image, and if I believed that my efforts had gone to support a racist cause, I would not be a part of it. If indeed I had been witness to such activities, I would have written the expose myself. I walked away from an ROTC scholarship after Basic Camp at Ft. Knox on principle, and I know that I have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for people that I know to be innocent of the vile charges levied against them.

As for Marcus Epstein, I don't believe you will find him at Mises events. While Marcus and I are on good terms, I can tell you that he was widely reckoned by the other fellows to not be a libertarian. I am not sure whether he considers himself a libertarian, but I do not--he is a paleo-con in my view. Dr. Palmer, are you prepared to assume responsibility for the views of every student who has passed through Cato University? How about all the research fellows/interns/etc.?

Do you say that it is an article of faith for libertarians to refuse to publish or discuss anything written by anyone with distasteful opinions or personal preferences. I think that we should get no work done for the cause of liberty if we held to that standard. I am interested in educating people about liberty, and in engendering open, uncensored discussion--what subjects are off-limits to official libertarians, sir?

As to Sobran's departure from NR: Dr. Palmer, how much faith do you put in Norman Podheretz, the source of those accusations? According to Wikipedia, "Buckley disagreed with Podhoretz's accusation, noting that he "deemed Joe Sobran's six columns contextually anti-Semitic. By this I mean that if he had been talking, let us say, about the lobbying interests of the Arabs or of the Chinese, he would not have raised eyebrows as an anti-Arab or an anti-Chinese." (Source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n24_v43/ai_11810753/)

With that said, I have never seen Joe Sobran, and I worked all the seminars. Lew may publish him on LRC, but in my capacity as a Mises Institute employee I never heard him mentioned, except when Lew noted that he was very ill at one point. I'm pretty sure that Sobran only spoke at Center for Libertarian Studies and LewRockwell.com events, although perhaps Sobran spoke at LvMI at some much earlier date.

Dr. Palmer, do I understand you to be saying that certain inflammatory and distasteful displays ought to be outlawed? I hope I am misreading you here.

Those old Libertarian Forum newsletters are entertaining, if only because they scream insanity on every page. Rothbard really did lose it there in his later years (and probably well before that).

In fact, reading through them again, I'm convinced that these smears against Ron Paul don't come from the shadowy "neocons," but from the Kochtupus/Craniac "machine" that's been trying to purge Rothbard's ghost from the movement for decades now. It's so clear...

It's really sad to see apparently intelligent people clutch at straws to retain their membership in a cult.

Mr. Clark accuses me of "duplicity" and then weepily complains because I allegedly called him a "liar." Mr. Clark should learn how to use a dictionary. (I do not believe that Mr. Clark had no idea of what Samuel Francis believed; he admits that he was familiar with the name as a Wikipedia editor.)

Then he makes the usual move: if you criticize someone as a hateful racist, they say you want to "censor" them. If you say that David Irving is a Nazi (quite true), then they say you favor jailing him (not true). Joe Sobran is an anti-Semite. "Taki" is an anti-Semite. They are prominent parts of the Lew Rockwell circle. No, pointing that out does not mean that I favor jailing them. It is a mark of desperation on the part of former Ludwig von Mises Institute librarian Dick Clark to shift the issue from pointing out racism and anti-Semitism to defending free speech. Yes, yes, yes....I favor free speech for anti-Semites and racists. But the fact that Mr. Clark feels that he has to raise the issue of censorship is a sure sign that he knows that he has lost. His colleagues include undeniable racists and anti-Semites. Maybe he is neither a racist nor an anti-Smite. But he cannot credibly deny the plain fact that he has been associated with them through Lew Rockwell, which is why he raised some disagreements from obscure newsletters of nearly thirty years ago, accused me of "duplicity," accused me of accusing him of being a "liar," and then suggested that by pointing out that his associates are racists I am "saying that certain inflammatory and distasteful displays ought to be outlawed." That is a classic "red herring," drawn across the trail to lead one away from the fox. And the coup de grace.....Clark tacitly admits that his associates have indeed engaged in "certain inflammatory and distasteful displays," that is to say, they are racists. Q.E.D.

No, Dr. Palmer, I never admitted any such thing about "certain inflammatory and distasteful displays" and I suspect you know it. although I admit it might be a failure on my part to fully elucidate the thought I was trying to express. The phrase you quote was in reference to your comment about the Wallace articles (which I have not read). Since that was out of sequence, I understand how you might not have understood my intent, and I regret the miscommunication. At no time did I ever see any "symbols of hate" outside of library materials (it _is_ okay to have historical texts referencing major events in the last 100 years, right?) and the Institute's extensive collection of Soviet propaganda posters.

I still maintain, as a matter of first-hand experience, that I never witnessed any evidence of any racist sentiment or doctrine by Mises Institute faculty or staff. I regularly attended lectures, personally logged each book donated to the library by patrons, and was very familiar with the Rothbard and Mises archives (the Mises archives do not represent a majority of that scholar's papers, which are mostly at Grove City and elsewhere if I remember correctly). I worked with the Mises staff every day, and I never detected any sentiment of racism. Sentiments of Catholicism (and Protestantism), disdain for all manner of monopoly government, and excitement about future book projects and incoming visiting scholars were the ones I witnessed.

I cannot speak as to the condition of anyone's heart. I don't presume to have first-hand knowledge of anyone's thoughts. All I can report are my own experiences, and I can honestly say that my words here have been truthful. I've run on the LP ticket twice (much to my non-profit employer's chagrin, I might add), and people can check my platform, which I composed for my 2006 AL House campaign, for any deviations from plumb-line libertarianism. (http://citizenclark.com/?q=platform) I was sold on libertarianism by Bob Murphy, who convinced me that reckless, collateral damage in war still constituted an unlawful taking of human life. I worked with the LP from then on, and I think the people I have worked with over the six years since will attest to my libertarian credentials. I am not and I never have been a racist. I still vividly remember my mother's sharp words when I was poring over an atlas as a child, still learning to read, and mispronounced the name of the Niger River. I harbor no sympathy for racism or racists. I also harbor no sympathy for people who recklessly defame others with half-truths and guilt-by-association claptrap.

I raised the LF article to point out that the personal and often less than civil disagreements between Cato and LvMI folks go back long before you (and socialists like Chip Berlet at SPLC) started accusing the Mises Institute of being institutionally racist. I personally think that you do a lot of good when you aren't libeling fellow libertarians. My con law class is discussing the Heller case right now, and I commend you for your part in that noble effort. Sharon Harris has given me some of your video lectures in the past, and I take her endorsements quite seriously. Whatever other good work you have done, though, I cannot stand by while you accuse hundreds of Mises fellows, faculty (mostly adjunct), and staff of racism of which they are not guilty.

For someone who spends so much time in the belly of the beast, though, it seems laughable for you to insist upon such a broad social quarantine for true-blue libertarians.

To add to the fire, more evidence of racist overtones from Mises Institute people, beyond what Tom Palmer has documented...

Three different friends of mine attended LvMI conferences -- every one left early because they encountered racist ideas and became disgusted.

In the early 1990s I attended a joint conference of the LvMI & Rockford Institute held in Princeton. In a closing address, RI director Thomas Flemming spoke on how it was foolish to try to build a political system on the rights of the individual -- only white christian males are fit to rule, definitely not blacks or women. Rothbard, who had just spoken on how the "paleo-lib paleo-con" dialogue had taken things to a higher & better plane, sat in silence, looking very embarassed. So did the rest of the Mises crew, with one exception. Tom DiLorenzo -- he was new to LvMI then, and hadn't yet gone into his Cuckoo-for-Confederates phase, I think -- got up and said he believed in individual rights. But Rockwell looked pleased with Flemming's point.

Finally, at a private dinner during (but outside of) the Mt. Pelerin meetings in Vancouver B.C. I heard Walter Block announce Charles Murray's "Bell Curve" was coming out (it hadn't been made public to that point). Block expressed delight that it would prove blacks were inferior and that this would mean the government would stop wasting money trying to educate "those people." His hatred for blacks was quite obvious.

I don't think any old insensitive comment is racism, BTW, and don't think many of the RP newsletter comments qualify as racism, although they are stupid comments. The homophobia is quite obvious, though.

Dick Clark,

It's all well and good that you never heard anything racist during your tenure at the Mises Institute. But as your rightly pointed out, let's not dwell on he said she said accusations from those who thought they witnessed something at a Mises Institute seminar.

How about instead we look at the actual writings of some of these people. Here, we have Lew Rockwell defending the beating of Rodney King in an article dripping with racism, Lew Rockwell writing racist and homophobic diatribes in Ron Paul's newsletter, and Lew Rockwell hosting a website that allows the bile of racists and bigots.

This is a point Tom and dozens of commentators on this website have been making and making and making for years. Last week, the whole world found out what's under Lew Rockwell's rock. If the vast majority of the US finds Lew Rockwell's writings racist, don't you think there's an outside chance that they actually are?

I'm really getting irritated, and a bit ashamed, by reading all this. Thank God, I didn't have to find out the hard way, like some of the above had to.

@Dick Clarke

Sobran may be a fine writer, but some of his views are not just anti-PC, they are stupid and vicious --- that's not just some opinion. He's simply morally wrong for associating with holocaust deniers. Indeed, Boaz is right "shame on them".

@Tom Palmer

All in all, I do think RP has not been bad for libertarianism --- this stuff will stick though. On him, not the movement. He did spread ideas to young people and injected some straight talk into the Republican party. At least he broadened debate.

You were always skeptical --- or you felt some downright bad karma --- of the Rockwellians, so that makes you okay in my book. Maybe sometimes a bit too harsh, but in the end you were more right then wrong.

However, the Reason-guys jumped on the "rEVOLution" boat, for as long as it suited them. They didn't have a problem with the paleo-libs untill a week ago. That I do mind, they were unprincipled, hypocrites and proved my suspicions that they really don't give a fig about anything --- as long as they can't benefit too.

I'm a libertarian and for that, I will not look at LRC anymore. If you hammer the Rockwellians for their silent approval right-wing fringe, hammer these Reason-pricks too. You know, I'm right on this one. You (apparently) knew, why not them too?

Mr. Palmer:

Have you been to the LVMI?

I never saw or felt anything like that at the LVMI. The spirit was great and no thinker was mischaracterized (not Mises on unemployment, contra Palmer, not Coase on social cost, contra Palmer, etc). There were people from Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia and other countries where our ethnicity is Spanish-Indian and trust me, we do know how to spot incorrect attitudes on that area. But nothing even resembling that ever ocurred.

I don't like the tone/spirit in those singled-out newsletter texts a bit, yes, because I don't know -literally- if that's the way to go, but the LVMI? Come on. I consider MU2003 the greatest intellectual experience in my life and have been student of three very prestigious institutions in Latin America (and couple important ones in the US too for short courses).

Do I have a problem with Gary North's supposed views on the Old Testament? yes. Has he written something in the like at LRC or advocated it to the best of my knowledge? No. So it's basically none of my business as far as I am concerned. The same with secession: it is something that Mises considered valid and if I understand correctly it was also part of the general political mindset in the first decades of the colonies.

The LVMI and LRC are clear with me. I hope this stuff does not grow and shadow all the great achievements in the minds of semi-informed people, period. I would like to see other think-tanks provide as much information and as good information as the LVMI does. One can survey Mises.org for hours and find only quality texts and nothing to be suspicious about at all. The books, the articles and the journals are a very important source.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

Mr. Riggenbach,

You seem to think that taking offense at offensive and shameful "comments" is just righteous indignation.

Do you think the problems of prejudice in this country have been solved? Do you think the newsletter comments help the cause of understanding and sympathizing with people who are denigrated, explicitly called less than human, because of the color of their skin, or whom they go to bed with? Or would you prefer to roll your eyes at those who attempt to talk about these issues, perhaps mumble something about affirmative action breeding resentment, and go about your merry way?

There are people who'd like to take this opportunity to examine issues of race and sexuality through a libertarian lens; and there are those who disdainfully mock them. The latter group deserves no more respect than whoever wrote the newsletter in the first place: one group planted seeds of hate, the other refuses to do anything to uproot the gnarled, deathly sapling that has sprung up.

Someone posted an interesting aphorism at a conservative blog a couple weeks ago: "Libertarianism is applied autism." You are Exhibit A.

"Jeff -- you are far better than the people you are defedning. But you know that much of this is very true."

I'm not sure if this comment is directed at me, since I have no idea who wrote it, but if it is, let me say that I *don't* "know" that "much of this is very true."

"As bad as the racism was the anti-gay statements were far worse. And those were published over a period of four years. You can't pretend this problem was limited to one or two issues. It went on for years. And it carried on into the Rothbard-Rockwell Report as well. And it carried on with Lew to the types of people he associates with and promotes as real libertarians: racists like Hoppe, Francis and Sobran. Disgusting."

I've never seen Lew claim that either Francis or Sobran was a libertarian. As far as I can tell, he merely felt that some of what they wrote was worth reading. This is not the same as saying that they're libertarians.

JR

"Manuel V" (it's kinda funny, isn't it, how almost no one is willing to use his or her full and identifiable name when posting here?) writes:

"The 'defenses' of the Ron Paul newsletters from Riggenbach are the most laughable non-defenses I've read in a long time."

Perhaps that's because they were never meant as or offered as "defenses" of anything. They were merely comments on certain of the comments offered by others. Perhaps a remedial reading course would make it easier for you to realize obvious points like this.

JR

To Juan Fdo. C.:

You seem like a decent person. You have been involved with very bad company. Here's what Constantino Diaz-Duran noted about LvMI leading "light" Hans Herman Hoppe:
I was having lunch with Mr. Hoppe, when he made that comment about Indians being "allowed" to go into the same restaurants as whites. I and two other students at Francisco Marroquin University had the "honor" of taking him to Antigua that day. We were at a restaurant where the servers wore typical Guatemalan outfits, and he was surprised when he saw a native couple come in and actually sit at a table. On the drive back to Guatemala City, we started talking about the Cato Institute, but he quickly dismissed the work of the whole insitute by simply remarking on Mr. Palmer's "embassy."
Posted by: Constantino Diaz-Duran at September 27, 2004 1:04 PM
http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/014584.php

Consider how eagerly Hoppe, Rockwell, and Co. would act to keep you and people "like you" out of the country. Then ask yourself if you have been keeping good company.

I urge you to think about it.

Fairly curdling with righteous indignation, "L.R." intones:

"Do you think the problems of prejudice in this country have been solved?"

No. Nor do I think they can be.

"There are people who'd like to take this opportunity to examine issues of race and sexuality through a libertarian lens; and there are those who disdainfully mock them.The latter group deserves no more respect than whoever wrote the newsletter in the first place: one group planted seeds of hate, the other refuses to do anything to uproot the gnarled, deathly sapling that has sprung up."

Unlike you, "L.R.," I don't enjoy getting myself all worked up into a fit of righteous indignation over something - other people's attitudes - which I can do nothing about. I prefer to direct my attention to problems I can actually have some effect on. Happy "uprooting."

JR

I went to a Mises Institute conference in '01, as I was graduating from college. I should have known better, but I had never even heard of them (until then, my libertarian involvement had been through IHS and similar organizations). But this place was named after von Mises, so I thought it would be a good time.

And it was, for the most part. Many of the attendees were good people, and smart, and I even learned quite a bit from some of the lectures (or, at least, they made me think about the material, which is more than many of my college classes did). It was a worthwhile experience, if only because it allowed me to spend a week discussing libertarianism and Austrian economics with other people my age who were interested in the same stuff (which is a rare experience at the University of Florida).

However, very early on it was clear that something creepy was going on. The very first night one of the speakers made reference to the fact that many people called LvMI a "cult," but that they really just thought Mises was the greatest social scientist of the 20th century. The "cult" language set off some alarms. Then someone made the odd claim that the Nobel committee had awarded Hayek his Prize only to spite Mises, who really deserved it, because Hayek was a compromises and not a radical like Mises. Again, alarms, and after the sessions were over a few of us who had noticed the oddities shared our trepidation about the rest of the conference.

Most of the lectures I attended were fairly straightforward talks about Austrian theory (about which I was too ignorant to know whether the talks were mistaken or misrepresented).

However, I remember an absolutely awful talk on the Coase Theorem (by Hoppe, I think), which a good portion of the attendees with whom I associated just laughed off as ridiculous. In fact, I'm fairly certain it was the consensus that, despite talking about it for an hour or so, Hoppe didn't really understand what the Coase Theorem was.

Later, Hoppe called the Chicago School "worse than Communists" and Gary Becker an "intellectual criminal." Then he made the claim that Mises was a de facto anarchist because in a passage from "Liberalism" he endorses secession all the way down to the level of the individual. Serious alarms; I ignored him the rest of the week, as, thankfully, did most of the attendees.

As I recall, I didn't go to any history lectures, or anything on the civil war, Lincoln, or slavery. That might be why I was spared the worst LvMI has to offer (besides Hoppe, of course).

By the end of the week, most of us were reasonably satisfied with the conference (I was unaware at the time that Hoppe was the main man at that place).

Unfortunately, and without thinking ahead, a few of us decided to come up with the most glowing endorsement of the conference we could think of; first as an inside joke, and second because a handful of us had attended conferences before, and given feedback, but had never been chosen in promotional materials (I think LvMI used all of them this time). After the conference, I read up a lot more on LvMI and its "scholars," began reading LRC (9/11 was about a month after the conference) and was seriously disappointed I had endorsed anything associated with that place. If given the opportunity to retract it, I would.

Any young libertarians looking for legitimate conferences should look to IHS, Cato, and FEE (I'm told; I never attended one unfortunately), and ignore LvMI completely.

Isn't Dick Clark someone who should be angry at Lew Rockwell (and Ron Paul)? Clark says he's not a bigot, and he never met any, but...somehow, someone wrote really nasty and racist things for Ron Paul's newsletters, racists spoke at Lew Rockwell's conferences and wrote for Lew Rockwell, and .... well, doggonit, Dick Clark just never saw it! If I were he and if he is being truthful, I'd be mad as hell at Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul.

Riggenshlock spends his entire life in denial of anything that conflicts with any of his myriad prejudices. For instance, he still denies that James J. Martin was a Holocaust Denier, despite the fact that he was on the advisory board of the Institute for Historical Review, a regular speaker at IHR conferences, and wrote a whole book to argue that the whole notion of "genocide" was a Communist/Zionist fraud: "The Man Who Invented Genocide."

As for Clark's failure to detect any racism at LvMI, there are two explanations for this:

1) Paleos are crypto-racists, not open about it. They only reveal their "inner doctrine" those they think receptive to it, and try to keep it under wraps the rest of the time.

2) Clark's ability to detect racism seems limited, judging by his inability to find any in Joseph Sobran, who has also been a speaker at the Institute for Historical Review and was fired from National Review for his anti-Semitism.

Finally, the essential point is that the leadership of LvMI promotes racists & anti-Semites. Whether they call those racists & anti-Semites "libertarian" or not is entirely irrelevant.

As I put it to a friend who'd already realized Rockwell was racist without my help, the Left often claims that libertarianism is just a rationalization for the power & privilege of straight white males, and the Rockwellians are doing their best to make that come true.

The Mises Institute has the appearance of credibility, but in fact is a haven for racists and anti-Semites. I attended a conference in 1997 which concluded with Hoppe standing up and telling the whole group that when the revolution came, we should be ready. It was a very odd way to finish a conference, to say the least. I mostly hung around with people my age - recent college graduates - but I did get the impression that some of the older participants who were donors were southern secessionist types.

As a principle, I'm in favor of secession. But it's a sociological fact that southern secessionist/neo-confederates are just racists trying to claim a patina of intellectual respectability.

What puzzles me most is why people like Pete Boettke and Jeremy Shearmur, people I respect, continue to allow their names to be used on the MIses Institute's website as adjunct faculty: www.mises.org/faculty.aspx

"What puzzles me most is why people like Pete Boettke and Jeremy Shearmur, people I respect, continue to allow their names to be used on the MIses Institute's website as adjunct faculty. . . ."

Who knows? Maybe it has something to do with their having recognized the fundamentally asinine quality of guilt by association. This quality eludes creatures of the ilk of Tim Starr, but it doesn't elude everyone.

JR

It could also be that if you spoke at an event twenty years ago, they list you on their "faculty" and it's very, very difficult to get your name off, as a number of people have noted. Here is the email I got several years ago from a "faculty member" whom I informed of his membership:

"I did not know that I am listed as adjunct faculty at the Mises Institute. I was summarily fired in 1987 when I said, at the Mises University at Stanford that year, that I didn't think Austrian Economics had a future unless it makes common cause with neoclassical types like Buchanan and Alchian. I was told I would never teach at the Mises Institute again.

I will have my name removed."

It took months of emails and calls to get his name removed from the list. Most people wouldn't bother.

Here's the word from Ron Paul's former Chief of Staff, who joins Wendy McElroy and others in pointing the finger at LEW ROCKWELL

Dear Lew,

You have now had three opportunities –1996, 2001, and 2008 — to prove that you are a friend of Ron Paul and freedom, and you have failed to do so each time.

This week, for the third time, the puerile, racist, and completely un-Pauline comments that all informed people say you have caused to appear in Ron’s newsletters over the course of several years have become an issue in his campaign. This time the stakes are even higher than before. He is seeking nationwide office, the Republican nomination for President, and his campaign is attracting millions of supporters, not tens of thousands.

Three times you have failed to come forward and admit responsibility for and complicity in the scandals. You have allowed Ron to twist slowly in the wind. Because of your silence, Ron has been forced to issue repeated statements of denial, to answer repeated questions in multiple interviews, and to be embarrassed on national television. Your callous disregard for both Ron and his millions of supporters is unconscionable.

If you were Dr. Paul’s friend, or a friend of freedom, as you pretend to be, by now you would have stepped forward, assumed responsibility for those asinine and harmful comments, resigned from any connection to Ron or his campaign, and relieved Ron of the burden of having to repeatedly deny the charges of racism. But you have not done so, and so the scandal continues to detract from Ron’s message.

You know as well as I do that Ron does not have a racist bone in his body, yet those racist remarks went out under his name, not yours. Pretty clever. But now it’s time to man up, Lew. Admit your role, and exonerate Ron. You should have done it years ago.

John Robbins, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff
Dr. Ron Paul, 1981-1985

Here's another commentary:

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2008/01/skunks-and-their-tactics.html

The people at the Mises Institute, who were closely tied to the Ron Paul newsletters that have so many people sick to their stomachs are stooping to a new low. These people have no shame.

Read on....

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2008/01/skunks-and-their-tactics.html

On a Fox News interview, in reaction to a Christmas campaign advert of Mike Huckabee that appeared to depict a cross in the background, Ron Paul quoted Sinclair Lewis, "When fascism comes to America, it will be cloaked in a flag and carrying a cross".

Reading about Lew Rockwell and some of these distasteful elements brought to mind the sentiment behind that statement. 'Liberty' as a veil and an excuse for the most vile, intolerant perspectives...

The thought occurs to me that a third axis on the Nolan chart revealing cultural attitudes/prejudice as detached from government would be a nice way of distinguishing between Libertarians - which after all, only share a view on the role of government in human affairs. (So you'd have economic, social and cultural/civil liberal axes...)

Riggenshlock has no problem with guilt by association when it comes to those associated with the Republican Party (except his pals Raimondo & Garris, who get a pass from him despite their having been heavily involved in Republican Party activism for more than a decade). He has no problem calling both my grandfathers "hired killers for the State" just because they helped liberate the world from Nazism & Japanese Militarism by being combat soldiers in the US Army during WWII (one in France & Germany, the other in Burma).

Regarding Tom's comments above concerning Mises Institute "faculty," check this out:

http://misesadjunct.blogspot.com/

Based on some email traffic I've seen from friends, I think the "misesadjunct" letter is having some impact. I wouldn't be surprised if some prominent folks who are listed as "adjunct faculty" do indeed ask to have their names removed. Whether or not it happens, or how quickly, remains to be seen.

And Tom is quite right about how people got listed there: pretty much if you ever did anything with the Institute, you were listed as an adjunct scholar. I remain proud to say I've never appeared on that list.

The evidence of racism etc on the part of MI-associated folks, both in writing and in person, is quite clear. I've seen it myself. The fact that people associated with the Institute deny it, either:

a. is a lie

b. indicates they have a different definition of racism than most people

c. or they are willfully blind to the sentiments of people they presumably respect along other dimensions

or some combination thereof.

My own belief is b. People I consider to be racists might honestly say they aren't because they have a different definition of racism than I do. My experience in online "discussions" with a couple of prominent MI folks suggest that's precisely what is going on. It's clever because they aren't lying when they say either they or others aren't racists. It takes some work to get at what they think constitutes "racism" to realize what's going on.

In any case, I strongly second Tom's call for libertarians who are rightly troubled by the newsletters and the MI more generally to disassociate themselves with the paleo crowd.

After all, they are the ones constantly defending the idea of "freedom of association." I suggest we take them up on the principle and decide that we'd rather not associate with them.

Sigh. In case anybody else hasn't noticed, a malignant little piece of shit named "Tim Starr" has attached itself to this board, whining and sniveling about issues (if you want to dignify them by calling them that) which have nothing whatever to do with the topic under consideration in this thread and nothing whatever to do with anything that's discussed here. It ("Tim Starr") follows me around the internet, making a pest of itself wherever I go, making asinine, unsubstantiated, and self-evidently ridiculous claims. For example, the fact that its sainted grandfathers were in fact hired by the State to kill people has nothing whatever to do with the concept of "guilt by association," but it "Tim Starr") is far too stupid to grasp this elementary fact.

JR

I just noticed one of my friends is listed as a LvMI andjunct faculty member, a guy who has denounced them publicly. I also noticed that Peter Boettke has been delisted as a member; I expect my friend is going to ask for a similar honor.

So if libertarianism is going to turn into a game of thought police about guilt by association, when are people like Tom Palmer going to disassociate themselves from publications like National Review? This publication has consistently called for the murder of untold millions, not to mention a serious discussion about nuking of all places, Mecca. Also, Kathryn Jean Lopez the other day sought to exlude McCain from their version of conservatism, because McCain doesn't support waterboarding [the one thing McCain gets right]. Meanwhile, a multitude of Cato authors have continually published pieces in National Review, including Tom Palmer.

So I guess the company that Palmer and such folks keep shows their association with advocates of mass murder, anti-Muslim bigots, and torturers. So when, out of PC purity, is Tom Palmer going to condemn anathema, any and all publication with National Review? Oh, that's right, my Harrison Bergeron handicap is telling me that mass murder and torture are politically correct. Carry on.

I love good hypocrisy.

Riggenshlock's paranoia is showing, as I posted to this comments thread before he did. If anything, he follows me around the net, just to apply his double-standard to me--by which his Republican pals like Raimondo & Garris get exempted from the vitriol he heaps upon all others associated with Republicans.

According to his CV Palmer has also published with the New York Times, the Washington Post, some Arab papers, Reason, the Freeman, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, the Spectator, Liberty, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, and loads of other publications, National Review among them. No rational person would think that he endorses whatever appears in those journals. But its not about what other people wrote, but about what he wrote, and he didn't write racist rants. It seems clear enough that Lew Rockwell did and put someone else's name (Ron Paul's) on it. I suspect that even 'Thought Police' can see the difference.

I don't think the Thought Police can see the difference or they wouldn't keep up with one lame tu quoque diversion after the next. Expecting any other kind of response at this point is probably whistling Dixie.

I've seen articles by CATO people regularly in The American Conservative and Chronicles, both paleocon magazines. Rather good articles too. I do hope Palmer isn't planning to have those fine writers purged from CATO for associating with those wicked paleos!

How thick can someone be? Lew Rockwell didn't write in a magazine that published objectionable things by other writers. HE WROTE racist smears. HE PROMOTES racism. Ron Paul's name APPEARED AS THE AUTHOR of wicked racist smears.

Other people should disassociate themselves from racists, i.e., Lew Rockwell.

What is so difficult to understand about that?

Well, Lew Rockwell has done articles for American Conservative too.

But Palmer was also blasting folks like Taki (co-founder of American Conservative) and Sam Francis and Paul Gottfried (both contributors to AC). I'm guessing he thinks libertarians should not associate with them too as they are 'racist'. Yet, as anybody who reads AC knows, CATO writers (not Palmer mind) are frequently in that magazine.

I noticed you defended Palmer for writing in National Review. Yet surely Palmer, who is a lot older than I am, knows that it is common knowledge that NR used to fling abuse at Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement very liberally.

M, you're clearly trying to confuse the issue. As Tom has demonstrated time and again, Lew Rockwell promotes racism. It's not about whether Rockwell wrote for a magazine that someone else wrote for. Can you defend what was in those Ron Paul newsletters, or not? Do you agree with the statements in those newsletters, or not? And if not, do you want to know who wrote them? Who promotes that kind of thinking? You know the answer as well as everyone else here.

This crap's been out there for some time, as the Daily Kos shows.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740

If it was some kind of a conspiratorial hit, it would have been done earlier, to get the smart people to back away earlier. I wish I'd known.

But we found out anyway. I'm kinda busted up about this, because I was really into Ron's campaign and couldn't figure out why some of the people I admire weren't. For now, I think I'll vote for Ron in California, but I've been really embarrassed with my friends and family.

For anyone interested, on my own blog I've posted a note on some of the extremely silly economic analyses done by LvMI.

It saddens me when people suggest that entire resources should be rejected because of the words of a minority that organization's membership. Ironically, this is precisely the line of thinking that leads some people to develop racist tendencies: because of a few bad eggs, they assume the entire basket is spoiled. The problem with this when applied to, say, a web site, is that you will eventually paint yourself into a corner, as your sense of indignity forces you to abandon site after site, until you've relegated yourself to a few echo chambers with others who are exactly like you. In other words: you become an Internet segregationist, as ridiculous as that sounds.

I'm relatively new to libertarianism and to political thinking in general. I value lewrockwell.com and mises.org as valuable resources that have expanded my understanding of individual rights, and the fact that true freedom includes economic freedom. I have none of the formal education or social status that many of you seem to enjoy, but I love to learn, and the Internet is my method of self-education. But now I see people vowing to disassociate themselves from these resources, and even suggesting that the rest of us follow suit or else forfeit our claim to decency? I'm sorry, but I must reject that as unsound logic.

Would Socrates reject an entire library because of a few unsound books by a few nonobjective writers? No, logic would tell him to analyze each book in that library based on its own merits. If a piece of writing is based solely on illogical, arbitrary hate, then it may be safely rejected. But what of the next piece? What if it is logically sound? Should I shoot the messenger before receiving his message? I think not. Perhaps I am in the minority there. If so, I find that terribly tragic.

Those of you who are calling for the rejection or these resources, either directly or allusively, are behaving illogically. You are engaging in collectivist, mob-like behavior. You differ from racists only in the severity of your goals and rhetoric. Feel free to paint yourselves into a corner, but don't expect thinking people to join you, and don't expect us to accept whatever labels you extend onto us by whatever indirect associations we may have with objectionable individuals.

Free association is now "collectivist, mob-like behavior"?

L. Ron Rothbard and Lyndon LaRockwell have done a textbook job of cult-building.

phoobaar: If I understand what you're saying, you've missed the point. This isn't an attack on the mises.org website, for pete's sakes. It includes many very nice classic texts. If that's all they did, I'd love them.

It's LvMI's *systematic* misrepresentation of people and ideas they don't like, their own incompetent economic and political analyses, and their *systematic* support for things anti-libertarian that arouses so much ire.

@A is A: No. Repeatedly suggesting that any person who wishes to present themselves as decent should disassociate themselves from certain groups is coercive use of a shameful straw man fallacy at best; collectivist and mob-like at worst. And I'm no cultist, I'm just free-thinking enough to take wisdom where I find it, no questions asked.

@Charles N. Steele: Why does it matter what else they may or may not do? You said yourself that they provide a valuable resource; what more needs to be said? Shouldn't I, as a thinking person, read the full content of a given text and judge its value based solely on the content therein (allowing for verification of sources, naturally)? Or should I scratch my chin and question the validity of everything an organization says or does for all eternity, because of an illogical extrapolation that the stink of a few rotten eggs has fouled the whole batch?

Put another way, should Robert Byrd be allowed to show his face on the Senate floor without being booed and hissed at? (Pretend he isn't one of the greatest enemies of the taxpayer in history before you answer that.) I confess to smiling when he waves his copy of the Cato pocket Constitution during his rants. (I own one, too! And I refer to it often! Call the FBI!) That doesn't mean I agree with everything he's ever said or done, but perhaps I agree with what he's saying at that very moment -- especially if he happens to be speaking truth.

Yes, phoobaar, the efforts of LvMI in putting Austrian classics in pdf for download is valuable. So what more need be said? How about...

The efforts of the LvMI to misrepresent good economists such as Coase and Hayek are contemptible. The incompetent attacks by the LvMI on neoclassical economics are an embarassment to the Austrian school. The version of libertarianism endorsed by the LvMI that supports C.S.A. and the like is bizarre and cranky. The willingness of the LvMI to make common cause with anti-libertarian racists and such is disgusting.

The sum of all that is that they discredit Austrian economics, and make it more difficult for those of us who try to promote the ideas of Mises, Hayek, Kirzner, etc. They discredit libertarianism, and make it more difficult for those of us who work to promote a freer world.

I certainly agree that you, and everyone else, should judge for themselves, on the basis of evidence. There's ample evidence that LvMI does great harm to two important (and quite distinct) sets of ideas: Austrian Economics, and libertarianism.

Finally, what's your point about owning a copy of the Declaration of Independence? You are making no sense that I can see.

phoobaar: Own up then, and put your (real) name as a LvMI supporter. That's your right, same as others who wish to not have their names affiliated.