Was the Civil War about Slavery?

I've never called myself a libertarian, preferring the term "libertarioid," denoting that I have a strong belief in liberty, but that I take exception to several key-points frequently associated with modern American Libertarianism.

Issue Number One: The Civil War.

I came across this piece in The New Republic sometime over the course of the past few years. I'm not sure how I came to the piece, but I found a part of it to be very interesting:

As one prominent Washington libertarian told me, "There are too many libertarians in this country ... who, because they are attracted to the great books of Mises, ... find their way to the Mises Institute and then are told that a defense of the Confederacy is part of libertarian thought."

This may be a big part of why there's a bunch of BS revisionism being sold on the Civil War. The other reason I see (and the above may be an aspect of this) is that old-school republicans in the North and West gradually became democrats, and the democrats fell into an overabundance of anti-American hippie logic, while Southern democrats became the new republicans and the new guardians of American pride, albeit tinged with their old perspectives on the Civil War remaining largely intact. Between the "blame America first" left and the "my granddaddy was fighting for heritage" right, there remained, in the end, very few willing to support the "traditional" idea that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves.

Let me take a moment to make it clear that I'm not here to harass people who have been selling the revisionist version. I, too, have bought and sold the line that the Civil War was about economics and such more than slavery. That was, after all, the bill of goods I had been sold by my 8th grade history teacher from Missouri, and she was a great lady, and certainly not a racist. And it's certainly more attractive intellectually to regard this great bloodbath as being part of some huge tapestry of woes, wrongs, and abuses, in some cold, hard economic analysis, than to imagine that your forebears really incurred such a huge price in blood and treasure to free another man. When you strip away the ideology and look to the economics, it feels like you must truly be getting a sense of the reality behind it all; when something isn't about money, it's probably actually about money. Right?

Not really. At least, not in this case. The three things that led me to want to reassess my take on the whole matter were firstly the TNR article linked above, my having read Black Rednecks, White Liberals by Sowell, and most importantly, my recent visit to DC, and the overwhelming strength of convictions in the words of Lincoln inscribed on the walls of his memorial.

Okay, now let's get to the facts.

Firstly, what triggered the secession? Was it the passage of some new tariff that was murderous to Southern exports? Was it the announcement of a transcontinental railroad to be launched along a northern route rather than a southern route? No. It was the election of 1960 showing that Lincoln had won. The secession of the first seven states and the election of Jefferson Davis as the president of the Confederate States of America happened all between the election and the inauguration of Lincoln. The secession was not due to any acts under the lame-duck democrat James Buchanan. It was in response to the perception of Lincoln, and the new abuses the South perceived to be headed their way.

So who was Lincoln back in 1860? He'd had a stint in the Illinois House for a few terms, and then a single term in the US House representing Illinois' 7th district, ending in 1949. In this time, slavery had not played any significant role in his political career. After a 5 year hiatus from politics, during which time Lincoln acted as a lawyer, even arguing before the SCOTUS, Lincoln aimed to re-enter politics on the heels of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, due to the implications of the Act for "popular sovereignty" on the matter of slavery in western territories.

From this time, and continuing into the time of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln became a heavy-hitter major player on the matter of slavery. That was the matter at the center of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and the idea with which Lincoln would be associated in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

N.B., Lincoln was a "moderate" (relative to his time and place) on this matter, making it clear time and again that his goal was not complete emancipation, and making it clear that while he found the institution abhorrent and wished that it had never been in the place, as it did exist, the most that he could see as a prudent goal to which to work was containment and cessation of any expansion of the institution. And so I say this: the secession was the result of the election, and triggered by the perception of those in the South that Lincoln would upset their agenda of expanding slavery. They feared that if they did not secede, they risked the nation growing in ways that constantly reduced the percentage of the nation committed to slavery, and therefore risking outright abolition at some point in the future when they became a solid minority. It was better, in their eyes, to break off, form a new constitution that guaranteed and protected the institution of slavery, and be done with it. Ergo, slavery was why they seceded.

Certainly, here is where a lot of you are stiffening your backs and resisting. Surely, I have swallowed the propaganda, and the secession was all about states' rights, tariffs, and northern tyranny. Certainly, some of these things were aggravating factors, but that doesn't change the fact that the secession did not happen in the wake of some tariff or such. So let's see what the folks in the South at the time had to say:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

(Emphasis added)

http://civilwarcauses.org/toombs.htm

~Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the CSA

Savannah, GA March 21, 1861

Of course, some people would take exception to the "cherry picking" involved in looking at the mere VP of the CSA—a man claimed by some to be anything but representative; a radicalized former Whig of the same Henry Clay flavor that Lincoln held, until the radical republicans snatched the rug out from beneath him. They would point instead to the first inaugural address of Jefferson Davis, which makes no mention of slavery—of course, this newly picked cherry doesn't function as a list of grievances in any sense, and the word "tariff" doesn't appear, either. To the extent that he speaks of unencumbered trade, that could as easily be applied to slavery as to duties in that day and age. The next cherry they (at etymonline.com, as linked above) denounce having been ignored is the speech given by Robert Toombs, the treasury secretary of the CSA. In that speech, it is claimed, he "outlines how anti-slavery agitation in the North was exploited by political powers there to disguise economic motives." Funny, my reading sees almost the opposite. He details that free-trade abolitionists became protectionist abolitionists, but also that protectionist non-abolitionists became abolitionists. This shows that the North shored up itself as protectionist abolitionists, perhaps, but it does not, as the author suggests, show that it was a single, one-directional trump. The bigger problem is that Toombs lays this consolidation against free trade at the feet of Morrill and his tariff bill. Big problem, that—the bill passed the House in May of 1860 (and didn't precipitate a secession), and only after the South seceded was the senate able to get the bill passed and on the desk of the lame-duck democrat Buchanan, who signed it into law shortly before Lincoln's inauguration and well after secession was already a reality.

More to the point is this bit from the cited piece by Toombs:

Some excellent citizens and able men in Georgia say the election of any man constitutionally is no cause for a dissolution of the Union. That position is calculated only to mislead, and not to enlighten. It is not the issue. I say the election of Lincoln, with all of its surroundings, is sufficient. What is the significance of his election? It is the indorsement [sic], by the non-slaveholding States, of all those acts of aggression upon our rights by all these States, legislatures, governors, judges, and people. He is elected by the perpetrators of these wrongs with the purpose and intent to aid and support them in wrongdoing…

Since the promotion of Mr. Lincoln's party, all of them speak with one voice, and speak trumpet-tongued their fixed purpose to outlaw four thousand millions of our property in the Territories, and to put it under the ban of the empire in the States where it exists. They declare their purpose to war against slavery until there shall not be a slave in America, and until the African is elevated to a social and political equality with the white man. Lincoln indorses them and their principles, and in his own speeches declares the conflict irrepressible and enduring, until slavery is everywhere abolished.

(Emphasis added)

http://civilwarcauses.org/toombs.htm

~Robert Toombs, Nov. 13, 1860

Here, in trying to get away from a "false" assertion that slavery was the cause of the secession, the author (I presume to be Douglas Harper) asserts that the CSA VP was an outlier, and that Toombs is a better gauge. While Toombs' piece might not have the racist rhetoric of Stephens, the matter remains even more clearly stated: the secession—and by extension the Civil War itself—was about slavery first and foremost, if not exclusively. Toombs makes this point even more clearly in this piece (scroll down to Toombs), where he details 5 demands made by the South upon the Federal government, and all five are very clearly about slavery—not tariffs.

But let's get past that, if we must, to find the one truly solid objective source we can point to in the whole matter: the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Here's a good link from a Canadian guy that runs the COTCSA against the comparable parts of the COTUS. What do we see here about free trade? Well, true to the declarations of A. H. Stephens, it includes protections against protectionism, and anything that might allow congress to favor one industry over another by means of tariffs or publicly funded improvements:

Article I, Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power —

(1) To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.

(2) To borrow money on the credit of the Confederate States.

(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.

However, I have a difficult time in seeing this as a strong devotion to what we would call free trade, as they decided to also to tack on an exception that congress can tax exports with a 2/3 majority (forbidden in the US Constitution), while also removing the bars in the COTUS that prohibit the imposition of duties on interstate commerce. They made it possible in the CSA to tax interstate commerce. In the CSA, Georgia could levy taxes against cotton Tennesseans sought to move to the coast to reach international markets. This is not exactly the move of people dedicated to unencumbered trade, in my book.

There were also some fiscal constraints imposed, such as the need to detail appropriations exactly, and the introduction of the line-item veto. That's interesting academically, but I don't see where anyone is arguing that any such thing was central to secession.

But what does it have to say on slavery? Quite a bit.

• In the 3/5ths clause, "…all other persons…" in the US constitution becomes "…slaves…" in the CSA constitution.

• Slavery importation, along with any immigration from blacks of any status, is clearly prohibited. Prior restraints in the US version were open-ended, but made no invocation of race whatsoever.

• "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed" becomes "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." The right to own slaves—negro slaves, mind you—makes it in well before any "Bill of Rights" rights.

• "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States" becomes "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

• "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due" becomes "No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs, or to whom such service or labor may be due."

• Finally, and most importantly, the CSA introduces the following: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States." (Emphasis added)

It's clear that the new Constitution sought to address certain abuses by northern manufacturers over southern agriculture in trade laws. But it's also clear that the new document sought to expressly solidify, strengthen, and perpetuate for all times not merely involuntary servitude, but specifically race-based slavery that was never even mentioned in the original version. Hence, what we have here is not merely a "preservation of heritage," but an absolutely new codification of slavery prescribed entirely on the basis of race. Words like "negro" and "African," found nowhere in the previous constitution, pop up again and again to affirm beyond all doubt that this new republic was to be based directly in racism, with racism codified in the very core foundations of the confederacy.

Now the final hobgoblin to nail down is the idea of States' Rights. Was the Civil War about States' Rights? Actually, I'd have to say it was, to very large extent. Yet contrary to the prevailing dialogue on States' Rights, I would suggest that the bulk of all such concerns were held by the Northern federalists.

If one takes the time to read through some of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one will find time and again that Lincoln invokes the matter of state sovereignty, as there were events in the 1850s that posed a new great threat. First among these was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the decision that Kansas should be allowed slaves. Lincoln notes that the original work done in the US to ban slavery from federally-held non-state territories came from Jefferson, who was both a Virginian and a slave owner. As such, it's clear that in that time that such prohibitions by the Federal government on territories were seen as within the scope of its powers. But with the new idea of popular sovereignty on the matter, Kansas, with 1,500 registered voters, managed to become a slave state in an election which collected 6,000 ballots.

This does not, in and of itself, present a problem to States' Rights. However, a true threat emerged in 1857 with the Dred Scott ruling. In that, the notion of popular sovereignty became abused to work down to a personal level. In the words of Lincoln,

Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sovereignty! What is Popular Sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have Slavery or not have it, as they see fit, in the territories? I will state—and I have an able man to watch me—my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty, as now applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to have slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. I do not mean that if this vast concourse of people were in a Territory of the United States, any one of them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of keeping that one man from holding them.

First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, 1858

Popular sovereignty, brought to the forefront in the Kansas debate, coupled with the SOCTUS ruling to make it impossible for any state to outlaw slavery entirely. It was due to this that Lincoln sought to protect States' Rights.

More to the point, let's come back to that constitution of the CSA. With all of their new amendments, what new codification of the sovereignty of states did they delineate? The right of one state to impose a duty on tonnage upon the ships of another state. What States' Rights did they remove? The right of any state to prohibit to any degree the now sacred right of Free White Men to own African slaves.

The Confederacy is as the Confederacy does. It might have made some protections for industries manipulating federal law, but it did not, to any real extent, work to clarify or strengthen the rights of states. What it did do most clearly and consistently was systematically ensure that all states in the confederacy are and would remain slave-holding states; the new constitution clarified that this was not merely any system of involuntary servitude, but it was specifically a racist system of imposition of white dominance over African black subservience; and it ultimately did little more than burden-shifting, preventing the confederate government from covering costs of public works by instead allowing states to levy duties against one another.

When the too-often quoted Lew Rockwell says "The Confederate Constitution did, however, make possible the gradual elimination of slavery, a process that would have been made easier had the North not so severely restricted the movements of former slaves," HE IS ABSOLUTELY LYING. The Confederate Constitution "made possible" the elimination of slavery about as well as the COTUS "made possible" the imposition of a single state church, or cruel and unusual punishment—that is to say, technically, since the constitution left room for changing the constitution, we can ignore the bill of rights altogether. That's ridiculous, and we all know it. READ THE DOCUMENT. It clearly places protections on slavery equal to (if not greater than) our protections of free speech, due process, or the right of assembly. His conjecture about Northern aggression having prolonged it is pulled straight from his backside, and ought to be sent back where it came from with interest. Secession was precipitated by a) fears that the demographics of slavery in a democracy would eventually crowd out the slave holders, forcing federal restrictions that would come, and b) fears of states like Missouri being bordered on three sides by free states, allowing easy escape for fugitive slaves, a matter which could ultimately begin to reverse the economic viability of slave labor.

A quick last note on tariffs: looking at the overall rates, one can see that total duty rates were at historic lows directly before the War, and even with the tariffs passed in the wake of the evacuation of southern senators from the US congress, they did not reach the same height as they were at their worst in the late 1820s (precipitating the Nullification Crisis, which declared the tariffs to be nullified within the state, but the matter did not result in states passing motions to secede from the union entirely) . It's also fairly safe to assume that the huge spike in the tariffs seen to shoot up at the beginning of the Civil War was at least in part (if not largely) fueled by the enormous need for revenue the war itself precipitated, especially with the South no longer paying duties.

After this much, I'm sure a great many people would like to see me drop this and move on (of the 3 people that didn't "tl;dr" this article on principle), but there are a few more things to address about the secession than merely its causes.

The next matter to be discussed is the legality of the secession. It seems to be trendy in libertarian circles these days to regard the South's secession as being within their legal rights, and as such, the moves Abe made to suppress insurrection become de facto Northern Aggression.

First, let's look at the American Revolution and contrast it to the Civil War. Now it has been pointed out—incorrectly, in my view—that the war was not truly a Civil War, as was, say, the English Civil War, because there was no power struggle over the control of the federal/central government. It was a failed war for independence. It has also been argued—wrongly, in my view—that this was a "war between the states." That this was a war between the states is incorrect. It was a war between a federal power and a local state collective, much as the Revolution was the US states vs. Parliament and the king, rather than merely the states vs. England. The difference is important.

And this importance becomes clear when you look at how the actual hostilities began.

As should be known to all who went to school in the US, the hostilities began when the South demanded that Federal forces evacuate Ft. Sumter, and ultimately fired upon them.

Did they fire on Ohio, or Massachusetts? No. They fired on a federal institution.

Was it rightfully their land? No. Let's read the constitution:

Article I, Section 8:

Congress shall have power… To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

(Emphasis added)

So congress would have purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state of S. Carolina. If the South was simply pulling out of the union, and leaving the constitutional government otherwise intact, they would still have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to lay claim—particularly by force—to Ft. Sumter.

The law of the land, the supreme, highest law, is not the president, nor the congress. It is the constitution. By the constitution, the federal government had sole authority over the fort, and S. Carolina could not by any stretch of the imagination have any legal authority over a fort sold by the consent of the legislature to the federal government. An assault on the fort was by definition an assault on the legal authority of the constitution, and hence, an assault on the law of the land. Successful control being wrestled by force over any fort that had been granted by the legal dictates of the constitution to the constitutional federal government is an attack on the sovereignty of the constitution itself. Had they sought to negotiate a re-purchase of all lands previously legally ceded to the federal government, and had the legislature of the US decided to grant a repurchase of the forts and other federal holdings back to the states from which they were purchased, one might be able to make that argument. That didn't happen. The confederates raised arms against the constitutional authority over federal lands. Ergo, it was an insurrection seeking to invalidate and destroy the government of the United States. That's a Civil War. That they didn't seek to control 100% of the lands in the US is irrelevant, because the supreme law of 100% of the US was under attack.

Next, was the Union voluntary? Let's follow the trail of legitimate sovereignty. The constitution begins "We the people of the United States." Where does the legal body known as the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution derive its power? From the Articles of Confederation:

The Articles of Confederation

Nov. 15, 1777

To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting.

Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

I.

The Stile [sic] of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America".

(Emphasis added)

Further down in the same document, the idea is reiterated:

XIII.

Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.

(Emphasis added)

Check it for yourself, if you care to. Noting the final, italicized line, what this tells us is that every part of the Articles of Confederation that was not explicitly countermanded by the US Constitution—such as the composition of the congress—remained perpetually in effect, even in the wake of the signing of the constitution.

Any right that S. Carolina had to secede was forfeit at the moment that the state legislature ratified the articles of confederation. That act created a perpetual entity known as The United States of America, and it was under the authority of that initial act of union that the subsequent Constitution was comprised. And even in that later Constitution, it explicitly states:

VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

That makes explicit that the Constitutional government was a continuance of the Confederation, and that nothing explicitly countermanded by the Constitution from the previous government formed under the articles remained valid. Let's look at the rest of that penultimate article:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

(Emphasis added)

Given that requirement to uphold the Constitution, the attack of Ft. Sumter, along with the violation of the perpetuity of the Union, it becomes clear: SECESSIONISTS WERE LEGALLY GUILTY OF HIGH TREASON.

Bringing it back to the American Revolution, though—wasn't that also high treason? Yes, it was. Isn't it disingenuous to start making a stink about high treason in the case of the Civil War but not the Revolution? No, it isn't. Ultimately, this comes down to the final question: was the moral imperative on the side of the Union or the Confederacy?

This is at the center of the Revolution. You had in that situation a series of serious grievances; taxation without representation was the most prominent. You had at that time a supreme authority that did not derive its power by the consent of the people; you cannot say the same in the Civil War. The legislatures of the several states had representation, and they had by their own will ratified the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

We have the good fortune in the case of the Revolution that Jefferson put down to paper an explicit list of grievances against the king. It's worth reading again, if you have a moment to spare. Of course, had the confederates made a similar declaration at their time of attempted secession, I would have been able to save a great deal of time in my opening salvo. As it stands, the best I have found is that which I linked above (search for Toombs to find the speech in question). This comes from Robert Toombs, who I would point out is the man that I was directed to read by an apologist that complained about Stephens' piece not being sufficiently representative. It lays out five distinct demands on the Union, and every single one is about slavery.

I would submit the following: as the codified law of the land was, in both the Civil War and the Revolution clearly violated, each act of treason would appeal to natural law in order to claim righteousness.

If you compare the abuses of the King as described by Jefferson to the abuses of the Union described by Toombs, you will see clearly that the moral weight was on the side of Jefferson, but not Toombs (unless you're a soulless bastard who would actually condone slavery). If you look at the USA Constitution as of 1860 and compare it to the CSA Constitution, you will see again, that the moral weight is against that document which would specifically preclude any state from prohibiting slavery. The case is most clearly undeniable when you declare the US Constitution as of 1870, which it became as the clearest consequence of the Civil War.

I would condone the morality of treason in the context of expanding representation and securing rights, as was the case in the revolution. I would never condone the morality of treason for the purpose of further tightening the stranglehold held upon people born to perpetual servitude under a racist scheme of tyranny.

Finally, the Stars and Bars. GET THE HELL OVER THAT FLAG. I don't care if your daddy or your granddaddy was a Klansman, a Nazi, a Soviet, in the IRA, in the PKK, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a crip, or a member of the bloody Mongol Horde. Past or present slaughter and tyranny is not something to be celebrated, and pride is no excuse. Descendants of Nazis didn't choose to be Nazis, either. Neither did any descendent of a slave choose that ancestry. Nor did I choose to be descended from illiterate cattle-raiding barbarians, or raping and pillaging Viking heathens. Go back far enough, you'll find them. There are better things to have pride in. And the Confederate Flag is a symbol of a struggle that was about slavery first and foremost, and a struggle which led most directly to the ultimate emancipation of millions living in the basest form of tyranny.

The Stars and Bars were designed in the wake of an act of immoral treason as a symbol of that immoral treason. It was not some symbol that predated the war and stood for Southern culture or pride. Any who would seek to raise so offensive a symbol, though it may not be their intent, is committing a grave offense of the highest order against both all who suffered under slavery as well as all who fought and died to end that abominable institution. I don't care what your folks told you. If you are a thinking human being, you should have the capacity to recognize that there are better things to hold pride in. For starters, any descendent of the Confederacy can also point to being a part of the greatest nation, one that would sacrifice so much to rid itself of such an abhorrent practice as slavery. Any who has more pride in the former than the latter is intellectually bankrupt or morally destitute.

Manufactured Outrage

I write this entry in response to a blog written by Benjamin Gorman, a friend of mine from school. In it, he gives his perspectives of the republican party as the "party of no," and speaks to their facility as a minority party, but asserts the GOP to be a terrible majority party, both in practice and in the nature of the political philosophy of conservatism.
I'd like to start first by clarifying a few definitions and to lay out my own worldview. Though I write in contrast to a decidedly leftist blog, I would not characterize myself as a strict conservative in any sense. Rather, I regard myself as a conservative liberal, though in this day and age that sounds to be an oxymoron. Gorman cites an apt quote from William F. Buckley, Jr., wherein he states that conservatism entails standing "athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." As I see a couple of ideas behind conservatism, I think this is perhaps the one closest to my own degree of conservatism; that is to say, I strongly oppose radicalism. I believe in small and incremental changes, and I believe in continuity being preserved as best it can so long as it does not impinge upon liberty. As to my liberalism, in the economic sense, most of the world regards liberalism as being about freedom, and hence, free markets. Along with my belief in social freedoms, it is in this regard that I am a liberal. Thus, a conservative liberal: making small steps, broadly distributed with local control, moving in the direction of greater liberty and freedom.

As a corollary to the above, I see liberalism and progressivism as being diametrically opposed, particularly in the economic sense. While I am a liberal, I am not at all a progressive. I see progressivism as a flawed political ideology based on two major false assumptions upon which so much of it seems to be based. The first is that with good ideas and a strong government, we can accomplish anything; progressivism seems to hold that any problem can be legislated away. Poor people? Launch a war on poverty! Childhood obesity? Get the first lady on it! Illiteracy? Flood the schools with money while simultaneously reducing standards! Too hot outside? Carbon tax! While I think there is no question that governments can and do accomplish many great things, the left seems to feel that there is no limit to what a strong central government can do. Thomas Sowell calls this view the Unconstrained Vision, in contrast with the Constrained Vision of those on the right. The left regards humans as being nearly infinitely malleable, and the right tends to believe that there are certain restraints on what can be achieved. Depending on where you stand, you either see this as an "optimist vs. pessimist" dichotomy, or an "idealist vs. realist" dichotomy. But there's a subtle point that I see emerging in this distinction: the left relies more heavily on logic, while the right relies more heavily on process.

It's for this reason that despite my views on the legality of abortion, or the recognition of gay marriage, or the need I see in changing our drug policies, I tend to regard myself as a conservative. My vision of the world is constrained, and I favor process over logic. Perhaps the most important reason for this is that I am a scientist and an engineer, by training and by work function (if not by job title). And in science—and especially the history of science—it's far too easy to see how seemingly sound logic leads one to really bad ideas. In the end, what matters is data, and data is a function of the process of science, not logic. While one might be inclined to say that data is meaningless unless interpreted by logic, I'd say that far too often, over-reliance on logic ends up throwing process by the wayside. In so doing, the great flaw of logic rears its ugly head: garbage in, garbage out.

Coming back to Gorman's analysis of presidents, I'd say that breaking down by party doesn't mean much for me; not only have the parties changed drastically over the last century, but G.W. Bush was not a conservative at all, in my book. The breakdown by wars is particularly problematic. Truman started Korea, and Ike ended it, just like Tricky Dick ended the Vietnam War for which the bulk of the responsibility falls on Johnson. And I'm not convinced Nixon ending that war was the best move. And if Bush Sr. loses credit for Desert Storm due to Clinton's inability to keep a reign on Saddam and W's decision to return in 2003, then I think that Wilson should likewise lose credit for WWI, as his failure in negotiations to bring about the balance that the Germans sought and give them a more favorable position to negotiate at Versailles. And more to the point, Wilson and FDR didn't "start" either of those wars—the Germans and the Japanese and the Austro-Hungarians/Serbians did.

But what I can say is that FDR and LBJ are certainly two examples of true progressives. They saw themselves at the helm of the nation, and able to steer us to great new waters by implementing heavy-handed centrally-directed policies. I would say that of the policies he names as successes belonging to these two—the New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Great Society, and Desegregation—only desegregation can truly be called a success. And it is important to note that desegregation is a liberal policy, not a progressive policy; the original problem in Jim Crow falls on Plessy v. Ferguson, where the government imposed upon businesses that were on their own desegregated, a mandate that required them to institute a policy of segregation. While some see this as a matter of the Big Federal government against the Little State government, it's important to keep clear that in this instance—as with slavery—the strength of the Federal government was used not to consolidate power to itself, but to distribute power more broadly by granting right to the people to protect them from the state.

But every one of the rest of these strikes me as a colossal failure. And it seems to me that they can only be regarded as successes if one ignores the data and the process in favor of the logic of the idea. The simple truth is in the historical record: Hoover exacerbated a market correction that was about to fix itself, and FDR's New Deal stepped in with yet more misguided government intervention that forced a double dip depression. In truth, the true depression—meaning an end to scarcity, not just unemployment; the rationing of wartime was necessary but cannot honestly be called a recovery—did not truly happen until after FDR was dead, and a resumption of market forces came in the wake of WWII. It was only then that prosperity flourished in the US again. As for Johnson's Great Society, the stats from the era show that poverty got worse, not better, especially in the explosion of the greatest cause of poverty of today, the single, unwed mother. As the welfare reform of the 1990s is acknowledged as a success, the corollary is that the state of welfare prior to its implementation was, at least in relative terms, a failure. And Social Security is nothing like secure—it's already going into the red this year, well ahead of schedule. Medicare and Medicaid are likewise sinking ships, vast entitlements that are designed in a money-pyramid scheme wherein elder recipients receive more than they put in, and only a rapidly growing population can hope to sustain it. More to the point, while things not covered by Medicare—such as Lasik and rhinoplasty—are coming down in price (like computers and flat screen TVs and music players all do), the decoupling of medical services and market mechanisms brought about by things like Medicare have created the health care crisis as we know it. The crisis only remains because the market is powerless to fix it under the schemes of government regulations.

I might be willing to call EMTALA a progressive success if anyone had thought to fund the services required.

Coming back to the republican party, it strikes me as simple to answer why republicans in federal positions fail as conservatives. In truth, the reason is not much different than the reason that Gandalf refuses to accept the One Ring from Frodo—the power is a corrupting influence. A US senator acting according to strong conservative principles is required to actively work to reduce his power, while his progressive counterparts meet their obligations by usurpation of yet more strength and control. The only check that the people have against self-aggrandizing federal legislators bent on increasing their power without bounds is to identify those who betray their principles and vote them out of office. Of course, this is dubbed demagoguery or derided as populism by the political class. It would be amusing to see the same forces that appeal to democracy denigrating the will of the people when it fails to align with their interests if it weren't so effectively destructive to the republic.

When challenged to point to a conservative victory, I'd point to Reagan's work in deregulation that reversed a long spell of rapidly increasing inflation, and which reversed growing unemployment (though it took time to begin; Obama has several months before his plans can be compared to the results that Reagan produced). And as conservatism is at the heart of the matter, rather than the Republican Party, I'll note the value of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 which lead to the complete dismantling of the CAB by 1985, and which ultimately brought about cheaper airfares and more widely accessible air travel.

Indeed, when I think about the things that make life in America great, they tend to be the ways in which the government stays out of the lives of individuals and allows them a stronger degree of self-determination, as was the case in the 13^th Amendment, the CRA (for at least 9 of the 10 titles), and the deregulation of industries that brought about the economic expansion of most of my remembered lifetime.

Social Security, on the other hand, forces me to pay huge sums of money into a "retirement account" that's guaranteed to go bankrupt, that produces no return on investment, and which funds higher pay-outs to a past generation that didn't pay in nearly as much as they now feel they deserve from the fund. As a member of the "Baby Bust" generation that falls between the Boomers and the Centennials, I and my fellow Xers are virtually guaranteed to take the largest brunt of the ultimate reform, as we will be the smallest demographic to punish as Boomers fade from the SSI roles and Centennials manage to reduce their pay-in for a system that will be evidently doomed for failure as they grow older. So I've got that going for me. As an added bonus, the money I've paid in to date is enough to erase my car loans and my student loans and leave a healthy chuck left over for seed money to save for a down payment on a house. But I'm not allowed to touch that money to pay off my debts, so I'm instead effectively left to pay interest on my Social Security withholdings, which are, effectively, the only reason I still have debt from college. Oh, and I almost forgot—it's incredibly regressive as a tax, as I'm left paying SSI taxes on 100% of my earnings, whereas Obama, Bush, Limbaugh, and Kerry are only paying SSI taxes on a teeny-tiny fraction of their earnings.

When I look at the results of the policies of progressives as opposed to applying arm chair logic with false assumptions to the concepts, I'm left with the manifest fact that the policies are all abject failures.

But then we have the Zadroga Act, recently defeated. Is this what we want to see from progressivism? Perhaps it has some value, but I'm having some trouble really parsing through the details. For starters, no online version of the bill I can locate specifies the nature of the funding mechanism; hence I can't really determine if this is a tax loophole or a tax hike on foreign businesses that hire Americans, because the text that I've found does not use the word "tax" in any form (by all means, if anyone can find me a copy that details the "tax loophole" to be closed, please link it). On another level, what I've read of the bill seems to imply that a person working in July of 2002 at the dump to which debris from the towers was transported, if he were to throw his back by using improper lifting techniques in July 2002, it seems he is counted as a first responder by my reading. Meanwhile, there's no special fund for the guy who runs into a burning building in Memphis to save a little girl. I think there are some legitimate concerns on the degree of accountability, and I think that taking this at face value as being solely about aiding first-responder heroes seems almost as naïve as assuming the PATRIOT Act was about patriotism alone.

But the question on why the democrats did what they did to sink this bill will be easily answered: will the democrats take this up again between the resumption of congress at the end of August and the November election and muscle it through with their control of both houses plus the White House, or will they dedicate their efforts to using this as a bludgeon to beat over the heads of their republican challengers this election while doing nothing to get it passed before November? When the latter occurs, we'll all know the truth behind their current crocodile tears.

Are you still beating your wife?

In the recent conundrum between Breitbart and the NAACP, everyone seems to be marking their scorecard differently. First is Shirley Sherrod, though I think most people are fairly well in agreement here. She was not actually the racist that she was painted as being based on the short video clip, and it was absolutely wrong for her superior to demand her resignation. The full video has been released, and it clearly shows that her anecdote was a point of revelation, wherein her thoughts on race distinction did her a disservice, and she came to realize the importance of looking past race. Assertions at the beginning of the clip that suggest her story pertains to her current work at the USDA are shown to be patently false. Fortunately, she managed to find herself in the midst of a controversy sufficiently volatile that the previous wrongs were largely righted, and though she suffered a horribly stressful week, it would seem that she has found her ultimate redemption and is now very secure in her position. She has been offered her job back, and hopefully she will resume her position soon.

Next is Andrew Breitbart, who stirred up the matter by posting the incomplete video. Those who hate him have their excuse to call his work deception, and those who favor his position can freely see the point he says was his aim, that prior to the conclusion of Sherrod's story, the audience is receptive and amused by this idea of her abusing her power to play a game of "now the shoe is on the other foot." Seeing as how he's a pop advocate pundit rather than a journalist, this manner of publicity only works in his favor. The left is using the opportunity to revisit the matter of ACORN (who was pretty much single handedly destroyed by hidden video footage that Breitbart released), now pointing to the fact that no criminal charges were ever successfully prosecuted against the organization or its members as "proof" that the whole debacle was unfounded (as though the idea that there was no criminal wrong-doing ought to now lead us to ignore the simple truth that we've already seen in the videos). Regardless of whatever people like Maddow and Olbermann may hope, this entire circus only makes Breitbart more relevant—though I doubt there will be any midnight resignations the next time he unveils his next big controversy. I think we should all be grateful for that.

The Obama administration comes out of this exchange looking decidedly bad. Having to reverse a rapidly made decision to demand resignation is one of the greatest feats of political floundering in the eye of the media I've seen in my adult life, by far. Obama will not be directly touched, as this moved so quickly and stayed so far below him that he cannot be tied directly to the panicked reactions of Vilsack, who forced Sherrod to resign. My suspicions are that Obama emerged unscathed likely more due to good luck than good planning.

But the big question is, what of the Tea Party movement? This controversy emerged as Breitbart responded to the NAACP publicly calling for the leaders of the Tea Party movement to denounce racists in their ranks. Breitbart has long denied many of the accusations of racism in the Tea Party movement. When André Carson of the congressional black caucus accused a crowd of chanting the "N" word 15 times, Breitbart responded with a $10,000 reward for any evidence that the word was uttered at all by that crowd. Breitbart gave an ominous warning that he would release evidence of racism in the NAACP if they did not withdraw the challenge to the Tea Party to denounce racist members of the movement. Ultimately, he responded with the short video of Shirley Sherrod.

I find the challenge posed by the NAACP to this leaderless rabble of Tea Party activists to be an absurd ploy. Much as my title to this entry suggests, this is a classic loaded challenge: if any Tea Party "leaders" (and I use the term very loosely) take the bait and seek to denounce racism in their ranks, then the NAACP and its associated race-baiters can take that as a victory in the form of a tacit admission that racism is truly a part of the movement, and one significant enough to require explicit condemnation. Conversely, any failure to resoundingly denounce categorically racist elements of the Tea Party movement may be interpreted as an approval of racist sentiment. The challenge posed to the Tea Party is innately under-handed and dishonest; it's a ploy designed to undermine one's political enemies rather than an honest attempt to root out racist sentiment. As such, I'm left thinking that the absurd hand-grenade that Breitbart threw into the mix was largely deserved by those who seek to polarize the debate and to foment paranoia for personal gain.

The challenge to denounce racism is, in my belief, unfounded. I can't really call myself a "Tea Partier," and I certainly have spent no time nor money contributing to the cause. I have, however, gone to one of the Town Hall meetings that I could attend. I did not get there early enough to get in the door, so I instead spent time walking through the large crowd of the excluded protesters from both sides. At the time, the big challenge to the movement was that it was Astroturf. This was the main challenge for which I sought evidence.

To that end, I'd say that all evidence pointed to the movement being truly grassroots. I think that this is largely conceded by the left these days, as the new term I've heard applied repeatedly over the course of the last week is "populist;" opponents have found a spin to make sure that the genuine nature of the movement is still regarded as a weakness. But I saw no racism whatsoever, and yes, I saw members of every race standing to oppose the passage of the health care overhaul (which was the center of the debate at that time). I saw one pack of fire-breathing evangelical Christians, but they belonged to neither side, and they were debating both sides. They seemed hell-bent on convincing the Tea Partiers that they were all going to go to hell for caring so much about fiscal policy while gays were running free and abortion remained safe and legal.

I did see depictions of Obama with a Hitler mustache. In fact, I saw the same picture that seems to have popped up across the country at Tea Parties everywhere. It is the one produced by the Lyndon LaRouche campaign. LaRouche is a perennial democratic candidate for president, and generally a conspiracy theorist from the coot fringe of the left. My first introduction to him came when at Berkeley I saw a debate between Mark Danner and William Kristol regarding the 2004 election. LaRouche's people decided to heckle both sides, and were ultimately removed by the police, to the applause of both the democrats and the republicans in the audience.

Even still, I'm at a total loss to understand why everyone would be having a fit about Obama/Hitler comparisons. I have attended protests for two events in my adult life. Apart from the aforementioned Tea Parties to protest the health care overhaul, I also took part in two massive marches in San Francisco prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. What I can assure you is that the streets were full of Hitler/Nazi comparisons. "Bushitler" was a common contraction, and everywhere swastikas were used for the "S" in Bush. I never imagined that the idea could in any way be construed as racist then, no matter the race of the person holding the sign, and I certainly see no reason to regard such a comparison for Obama today as racist. And in point of fact, the two people I saw supporting LaRouche with their depictions of Obama as Hitler were both black.

But at the anti-war protests in 2003, I must say I saw far worse than mere violations of Godwin's Law. I saw many anarchists, many communists, and many Jihadi-supporters—all three groups tended to have many members with their faces covered by bandannas. They were not the majority, but there were many of them. There was also a popular pretzel meme going through the crowd, owing to the fact that Bush had recently come close to fatally choking on a pretzel. There were "Pretzel = Peace" signs, "Have another pretzel, Mr. President" signs, and my personal favorite, a huge peace sign made out of dough, baked and salted like a pretzel, held at the end of a stick as a sign. While I imagine those with such signs ranged from those who truly would have believed Bush deserved to die to those who simply thought it was a funny way to mock a widely-hated president, I cannot imagine that if any similar joke had been made regarding Obama by the Tea Party, the leftist press would have left it alone.

And that day, when Barbara Boxer, Barbara Lee, Martin Sheen, and Danny Glover took to the stage in front of San Francisco's city hall, none paused in the denunciation of the Bush administration to denounce the communists, anarchists, or Jihadi-sympathizers in the crowd. Nor should they have—it was a popular protest, not a uniform organization. It's absurd to expect that any such grassroots movement can possibly screen its membership. It gets worse when, as with the Tea Party movement, you have disinformation campaigns with leftist bloggers plotting to have leftists plant themselves in the Tea Party crowd to undermine the movement (Zomblog has some good coverage of this phenomenon, for those interested to question the matter).

Ultimately, I think that someone needs to stick a fork in the Tea Party movement—it's done. It made sense when it stood with a singular purpose of preventing the health care overhaul. but like the anti-war movement, it failed, and the damage is done. The lingering movement only makes itself available to hijacking by opportunists. MoveOn was initially created as a response to the impeachment of Clinton, with the idea being that a slap on the wrist should be given, but then congress should "move on" to more important matters than perjury in an investigation that never went to trial as the plaintiff could prove no damages. But it lingered, and subsequently became hijacked by any number of causes that were not even on the radar when the impeachment hearings were occurring. And nearly a decade after the impeachment failed and ended, MoveOn decided its mandate included accusing Gen. Patraeus of treason (of course, the fact that Patraeus was the best thing to happen to Iraq policy and that he was wisely retained by Obama has done nothing to drive MoveOn to admits its fault). Now, the Tea Party just serves to give clueless loudmouths that do not belong in the political dialogue (like Sarah Palin) more attention than they deserve.

But the Tea Party is not the only body that needs to be dissolved. The final vote for winners and losers in the Sherrod charade goes to the NAACP, and it is decidedly a vote against them. They have managed to simultaneously make themselves look bad by hosting racist sentiments (as the video does show approbation to discrimination against a white farmer well before the moral to the story becomes clear) as well as making themselves look bad by panicking and denouncing Sherrod when the full video was undoubtedly in their own archives, and the fact checking should have been a simple matter for them.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear: I am not in any way suggesting that racism no longer exists, or even that institutional racism no longer exists. Both are still a very big problem in this day and age. But the NAACP has lost sight of its founding vision, and it seems today the organization is far more devoted to creating controversy than addressing racism. The truth is that I first decided the NAACP should disband about a month ago, when I first saw a controversy over a greeting card. A greeting card for recent graduates featured a recording of two cartoon voices saying how the card recipient would take over the universe. At one point, it says: "And you black holes—you're so ominous! And you planets: watch your back!" This was misheard and believed to be saying something about "black whores" needing to watch their back. In the linked video, you can see that there are nine people standing behind a press conference to denounce Hallmark for releasing this completely innocuous—but misunderstood—greeting card. Rather than seek clarification first, in this matter which could be so easily cleared up (and for which Hallmark was more than happy to comply in pulling the card, despite no wrong-doing of any sort), we instead see nine people with apparently nothing better to do than start a tempest in a teacup and make a completely unfounded accusation.

This brings us to the question of what the NAACP is doing and what it seems to regard its mandate as being these days. Is there really no greater racism to which the NAACP can be turning its attention than a misheard greeting card?

Of course, the NAACP as an organization deserves a great deal of credit for the lack of true matters justifying its attention. I'm reminded of Mickey's Christmas Carol, when Scrooge is approached by those collecting for charity in the beginning. He responds that if you give money to the poor, they will not be poor anymore, and that will put the collectors out of a job. So Scrooge, refusing to put the two out of work on Christmas Eve gives them a wreath and tells them to be on their way. Of course, charity does not actually end poverty, and the reasoning employed in that scene is facetious. But the NAACP has the distinction of truly being an effective institution with true accomplishments to boast. Founded in 1909, the NAACP came about in a world with Jim Crow laws, and with lynchings continuing unprosecuted, where racist mobs literally killed people and the law did nothing to stop it. It was a horrendous time, and the need for the NAACP was great. It is to the NAACPs credit that so much of the scope of its mandate has been obliterated until misheard greeting cards could become top priority.

I'm reminded of the old saying (for which I cannot find an author): "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." This is the problem in today's NAACP: its devoted more to the perpetuation of the organization at this point than it is to addressing a known and identified problem worthy of its scope. It's hard to imagine any chair or CEO with a six-figure salary and commanding a multi-million dollar budget concluding that its mission was so thoroughly accomplished that the remaining vestiges of its mandate were all too small in scope and too scattered to be effectively addressed by the organization, and choosing to therefore disband said organization. It seems to me that the NAACP is now more devoted to creating the illusion that the problem it seeks to address is bigger than it actually is. Thus do we instead get false alarms like the greeting card or people thinking that the word niggardly has any etymological relation to the "N" word (it doesn't), hoaxes like Tawana Brawley or the Duke Lacrosse case, or empty and meaningless accusations with no foundation and no avenues of pursuit like the open challenge for the Tea Party to denounce racist members.

It seems to me like the best thing would be for us all to learn the lesson that Sherrod sought to convey in her speech, now heard across the country: it's no longer about black and white, it's about those who have money, power, and influence versus those who do not, and are subject to exploitation or injustice for their political irrelevance. If this is the bigger mandate, then perhaps this is an issue that should be pursued by organizations focusing on poverty and social justice, and the NAACP can just step aside.

However, if the NAACP seeks to continue to pursue the injustice that persists against American blacks, I might recommend a few instances of blatant racism left largely unaddressed. No one knows racially-charged hostilities these days so much as an American black conservative.

Keyser Soze meets Godwin

In all my time spent trying to figure out how one begins a blog, I’ve decided first to address some of the issues that I see in the nature of debate itself.

I love debate. I love it more than is good for me. It’s probably my main pastime, and I love it because I can learn so much through it. As such, it is important that I work to have meaningful contributors that care enough to read and respond—especially to disagree with me. As such, I address this first post, I would respond to something I read recently on a friend’s blog. He had made a list of views so far-out, and so wrong, that any time he should encounter such a view, that was the sign for discussion with that person to come to an immediate end.

My problem with that is the idea that any subject of debate is taboo.

Of course, I’ve definitely pissed away enough time arguing with some hard-headed idiotic time-burglars, but in my view, the times when debate are futile are denoted more by process than by content.

I see mainly two major things that are required: agreement on the approach to debate and the nature of rational discourse, and an understood degree of common ground in values. If you have those two things, then no idea that can be debated within that framework is, in my view, off limits.

Agreement on the approach to debate requires only a few things. You need to have a shared respect for logic, you need to agree that valid points deserve a response, that certain logical fallacies are useless, and that threats, shouting, etc. have no place.

Most illustrative of this idea to me was a former coworker over a decade back. I had said something about how my legs ached from the lunges I had been required to do in my weight training class. Raul responded, “You hurt, you lose.” I replied very simply that it was a good sort of ache, because it meant I knew I had done a good work out, and that pain was necessary for building muscle. Before I could finish this sentiment, he increased his volume to repeat, “YOU HURT, YOU LOSE! YOU HURT, YOU LOSE! Can’t change the rules—God makes the rules!” This fairly well exemplifies everything I hate about irrational discourse.

I hear the words “You hurt, you lose!” whenever I find myself with a person that is dedicated to hearing absolutely nothing of what the other person has to say.

To this, I’d add a few things. Appeals to authority are a common pitfall. Two devoted Jews/Christians/Muslims might agree with one another that the words of the Talmud/New Testament/Quran were valid as an argument. None of these would be able to make such an appeal between groups, and none of these approaches will pass with an agnostic or other person that subscribes to no Abrahamic faith. If you both agree, then more power to you. If you don’t, then there’s hardly any point in arguing with one another and using any such appeals. As such, I agree with most Americans that engage with people on generally secular grounds; my approach is one of logical positivism, loosely defined.

As for the second, we need to have common values. It’s one thing to argue an issue like living wills or abortion with a general understanding that both sides value life, happiness, quality of life, autonomy, dignity, and security. But if you think that we need to start putting old people on ice floes or you think that abortion should be legal until several years after birth because there are too many people, then there is a fundamental disconnect that makes any useful discourse impossible. If two people who believe in freedom, autonomy, self-determination, and prosperity want to debate whether Operation Iraqi Freedom was a good idea or a bad idea, they can. The person who approaches the question from the perspective of one who thinks America is an evil empire and needs to die, and that the death of all Americans would be a good thing, however, lacks any common ground upon which I can discuss ideas.

Tying these two issues together, I’d have to make a final point about Godwin’s Law. Common perception of Godwin’s law is that given enough time, someone will call someone a Nazi or make a comparison to Hitler, and thereby lose the argument, because such comparisons are such a lame thing to do. This has even been relabeled as the “reductio ad Hitlerum” fallacy.

I have a serious problem with this perspective. And here, I must invoke the great line delivered by Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) in The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

I get to feel at times as though people think that Hitler and that entire epoch was some fluke, like flipping a quarter and landing heads a million times in a row. That people think that the odds of something like that ever happening again—certainly in the Western Industrialized nations—is so negligibly low as to be essentially impossible.

This idea is a very dangerous idea. It is as dangerous as ideas come.

The truth is that the Nazis were not the exception to the rule. Liberal constitutional democratic republics are the true exceptions. They are very young as a general rule, fairly rare, and most tend to slide continually back into centralization and consolidation of power that destroys liberty and subverts self-determination. As the ashes of World War II settled and the light fell upon the atrocities of the Holocaust, we swore, “never again!” And then convinced of the idea that our resolve was as useful as action, we sat by as slaughters appeared again and again throughout the last half of the 20th century, from the Balkans, to Rwanda, to Cambodia.

And these abuses exist everywhere for the bulk of all history: the Mongol Horde to the Maori, Tasmania to South Africa, Ireland to the Caribbean, Armenia to Nanking. It is far, far easier to find examples of mass slaughter of innocents and systemic destruction of entire peoples than it is to pull forward examples of truly free constitutional republics.

As we tend to slap the label of Godwin’s Law on everything that touches the European theater of WWII, we come to diminish our ability to discuss things among the most important. I, for one, feel that we must be vigilant, and that this will ever require us to see the signs of oppression before they take root. How can we do this if we can’t talk about it? Why censor this end of debate?

As it happens, I imagine that many will regard such enforcement against violators of Godwin’s Law as a necessary response to the completely over-blown invocation of Nazi Germany. Why do we invoke it so much?

My own sense is that such overdone comparisons stem from the combination of the need to meet my second criteria—agreed upon values—and the plague of moral relativism that undermines our abilities to find common ground. Maybe America is the blight of the earth, and to use Adil Hoxha’s phrase, “the machinery of capitalism is oiled with the blood of the workers.” Maybe the Czar was so horrendous that Lenin and Stalin’s ends justified their means. Maybe human sacrifice among the Aztecs and Maya was an honor and people wanted to be slaughtered to appease their thirsty gods. Maybe it’s all just our imperialistic Eurocentric Christian dogmatism that leads us to fail to understand the perspectives of these different cultures.

When you hit that wall, what can you do? How can you find the common ground needed to discuss a matter as trivial as tariffs or traffic laws with a person whose values are so disconnected from your own that they would justify such senseless slaughters? The answer, of course is the Holocaust. In the US, you can try to take any side you want in any war in history or today. You can hate on Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King, Kennedy, Reagan, and any other American you want. You can justify the decisions of Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hirohito, Pol Pot, Castro, or Ho Chi Minh all you want. But Hitler is off-limits. He’s a bad man, and everyone in this country has to appreciate the enormity of the Holocaust. If you want the quick route to common ground, then Hitler is the fastest and surest road to get there.

In the end, I think it’s best to avoid excessive comparisons to Hitler if for no other reason than the dangers of trivializing such a matter. But I will not avoid it wholesale or decide that any comparisons to Nazi Germany are off limits. Instead, I’ll articulate my values so that trivial invocations become unnecessary.

I believe in liberty. Not “freedom,” with all of FDR’s “freedom froms” which serve as a justification for further encroachments on liberty. I believe in family, hard work, discipline, and integrity (though I do not claim to be a model in exercising all such virtues). I believe in distributed control and freedom on conscience. I believe in the sanctity of human life and human dignity alike.