| | - 1. Is the above a good description of a fracture line among pro-freedom, anti-initiation of force, free market ideologies?
- 2. Who are the major LL's?
- 3. What are their major arguments?
- 4. Can parallels to leftist ideology, leftist history, leftist political analysis be traced?
Apparently, we will have to wait for Left-Leaning Libertarians: Blackwashing or Enlightenment? by Philip Coates (in preparation). You seem way out in front on this. No one else comes close to a formulation. Considering the extreme capitalism of The Mises Institute and Liberty magazine, perhaps some definitions are in order, as merely criticizing American foreign policy ("blackwashing") may be the essential distingushing characteristic.
Did you not observe this in college or even high school, the liberal press, the academics? It comes from the left - the marxists, not from the conservatives, who are more likely to be undiscriminating in their support of American foreign policy.
Well, yes, in that being 60 years of age, my experience began with AuH2O in 64. How things are now, as I said, is that the Marxists are besieged by the postmodernists. And yes, "conservatives" (so-called) are the ones who argue for the wars that the "liberals" start. Many conservatives denounced the Presidents Bushes as globalist Bilderberger Rockefeller Council on Foreign Relations agents.
But, now, again, from recent classroom experience, the progressives are the ones demanding that nation states take back their resources and assert their authority over the globalist multi-national corporations. Realize also, that Jeff and the others, we are all old men. So, your Left-Leaning Lbertarians may be as irrelevant as bra-burning feminists.
As far as someone who tries to downplay every abuse in American history is concerned, it seems less widespread in the field of history than Riggenbach alleges in his quotes.
Ayn Rand's "Horror File" had a specific purpose, to demonstrate (or remind) that the bizarre hyperboles spoken by the villains in Atlas Shrugged were not her invention, but her observation. Beyond that, though, simply quoting every idiot who wrote a book proves nothing either way. Suffering through a few more minutes of Glenn Beck I watched him trot out an "adjunct professor from Harvard." Well, that sound nice, "adjunct." But we know that it means that he was hired with no intention of keeping him around. He's a temp. So, what is proved by having him speak, except to lend weight to some point that Glenn Beck wished to make. There might be 25 significant historians at the level of Whitfield and LaFeber. Quoting them to show statistical correlations might be interesting, but, only to other consensus professors. In my graduate class in US Foreign Policy, I wanted to read and review William Colby's book on Vietnam, but that was not allowed, Colby not being a "serious historian" -- only a CIA agent in Vietnam who rose to head of the CIA, so what would he know? So, I have to agree, that generally professional historians, i.e., university history professors, do not whitewash American foreign policy.
> ...Medieval Iceland...[See] "The Market for Liberty"...read what I have written here under Dissent about the actual operation of real world market entities in defense and adjudication.
Tactics and Responses: I am tired of the tactic of not responding (carefully and fully) to a specific situation such as the one I gave about the mugger in NYC in an unpoliced, anarcho-capitalistic society [Post #22, immediately above] and instead saying, go read or hunt through an entire thread or (worse) ... [lefties and LLL's] love this fallacious tactic...
Sadly, the last time it was pulled on me, the perp was Bob Bidinotto, whom I regarded then as a serious criminologist based on his articles for Reader's Digest and his book, "Criminal Justice?" He told me that he already defeated Roderick Long on Medieval Iceland and I should read his website because he was not going to repeat himself for me.
... which could be a valid point... I was not offering him money in return for his effort, just as you are not offering me money for mine.
I will respond, though by saying that statistically valid studies by criminologists such as Sykes and Matza suggest that delinquents do know the standards of society and do care about how they are perceived. That was later supported by Steven Levitt's sociology research as reported in his classic Freakonomics.
Also, if you read what I wrote directly above, I did point in the right direction, but let me make it clearer: The "anarcho-Objectivists" attempted to widen to society in general the morality of business. If Objectivism, rather than Christianity, were the dominant philosophy, then, yes, many of their hypothetical cases would be valid: cirminals would be rare. It is a statistically validated fact that in retail, about 37% of your losses are from customers, about 47% are from employees, about 10% is mere shrinkage and error; and the balance is being ripped off by your suppliers. That last is the smallest wedge of the pie because business is based on trust. Thus, the "anarcho-Objectivist" claim that in a world of business ethics rather than altruism, crime would be greatly lessened as trust is raised.
As I said above, here and now in the real world, we put up with much more. Ever see new Nikes in the box at a flea market? Anytime you see new in the box goods for sale outside of a normal retail venue, I assure you that they were likely stolen off a railroad boxcar in a switchyard or less often from a truck at rest stop. (Wanna buy a watch?)
I have degrees. I have experience. I am happy to help. You have problem? I am for hire. Knowing the real problems, I have real solutions that do not involve police reports and court appearances. Click on my name and read my bio.
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