tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.comments2023-11-03T01:07:27.013-07:00THE rEPUBLICAN OBSERVERAlexander V. Marriotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comBlogger214125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-9815536513957859632015-09-16T16:32:22.292-07:002015-09-16T16:32:22.292-07:00While I can see some of what Snowden did as defens...While I can see some of what Snowden did as defensible, I think Manning should have been shot........Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-52428060502220347192013-11-15T19:09:01.673-08:002013-11-15T19:09:01.673-08:00When the President ignores the Constitution as wel...When the President ignores the Constitution as well as the leadership in both houses of congress, a whistle blower such as Snowden, has no other choice but to run to a country that will not just hand him over to the country that would vilify him into prison (see the simpleton accused of causing Benghazi over his video) for doing what is a good thing for the people. Snowden is a hero till he releases info that causes citizens deaths. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-6675740868285458892013-08-07T20:24:36.684-07:002013-08-07T20:24:36.684-07:00The only problem with grounding a condemnation of ...The only problem with grounding a condemnation of Snowden or Manning on their oaths is that, like every Federal officer from the President down, his primary oath is to the Constitution of the United States. Snowden and Manning, however, ought to have followed the rest of the laws concerning whistle-blowing and defending themselves in court on constitutional grounds if it came to that--odds are it would not.<br /><br />However, when the President of the United States and his administration routinely leak classified intelligence that makes the President look favorably, it is going to be quite difficult to prevent the rest of the executive branch and its associated members from taking their oaths any more seriously.<br /><br />Snowden's run to China and Russia and disclosure of materials completely unrelated to any so-called turn key tyranny apparatus have fairly ruined his credibility on his own terms.<br /><br />-- A republicanAlexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-6197344726041885352012-04-30T17:02:04.094-07:002012-04-30T17:02:04.094-07:00Why, thank you, anonymous stranger. I do what I ca...Why, thank you, anonymous stranger. I do what I can!Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-24987249694091498502012-04-30T16:57:40.821-07:002012-04-30T16:57:40.821-07:00Alex Marriott is my hero.Alex Marriott is my hero.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-26733102766521055162012-04-30T08:43:15.093-07:002012-04-30T08:43:15.093-07:00I will commend you for making so much of one line ...I will commend you for making so much of one line in one paragraph that is full of links to resources meant purely to show the extent of the historical misdirection of which Mr. Paul is a part—almost entirely in their own words if possible. Like all civil rights organizations that have been around long enough—and this is not relegated merely to those founded largely by whites like the SPLC—the SPLC has long been taken to task for a variety of “failings,” from as you point out, not enough diversity within the organization to being both too radical and not radical enough. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and a host of other civil rights organizations have been similarly critiqued by a host of commentators on both the left and the right. I have not written this piece to do “fundraising propaganda” for the SPLC—at no point whatsoever do I encourage anyone to donate to the SPLC for instance, nor do I endorse anything else they’re doing outside of following this coterie of historians. I also, at no point, cite the SPLC as “experts” in anything at all, “constitutional rights and race in the Deep South” or otherwise.<br /><br />I appreciate that you have issues with the SPLC, some of which may be legitimate. That is not my concern. I do not mean to elevate or denigrate that organization one way or the other. My only point was to offer a resource from an established source that had taken an interest in an intellectual movement and done some amount of work in trying to figure out who the main players were. If that isn’t obvious from the context of the one sentence from the second paragraph of this piece, I’m not sure what else I could say to make clear what is already painfully plain.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-28180608525858898412012-04-30T05:52:00.142-07:002012-04-30T05:52:00.142-07:00"The Southern Poverty Law Center has been doi..."The Southern Poverty Law Center has been doing yeomen service tracking this circle of intellectuals..."<br /><br />It's a shame that such an extensively researched document includes fundraising propaganda from such race-baiting charlatans as the SPLC, merely because it coincides with the author's thesis.<br /><br />If nothing else, two main tenets of SPLC ought to give anyone pause:<br /><br />1. According to the SPLC, "Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing."<br /><br />Seriously, what kind of "civil rights group" deliberately conflates six of the most fundamental, constitutionally protected First Amendment rights with "hate group activities" and "criminal acts"?<br /><br />Worse still is the fact that NOT ONE of the SPLC's top executives is a minority.<br /><br />In fact, despite being located <i>LITERALLY</i> in the back yard of Dr. King's home church in Montgomery, the SPLC has <b><i>NEVER,</i></b> hired a person of color to a highly paid position of authority in its entire 41 year history.<br /><br />Even the few black lawyers they hired in the early 1970s quit, citing what they called "a plantation mentality."<br /><br />If these are the author's "experts" on constitutional rights and race in the Deep South, I respectfully submit that there are better sources to be found.Richard Keefehttp://rkeefe57.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-34945897766461077662012-01-25T20:14:33.361-08:002012-01-25T20:14:33.361-08:00Alexander Hamilton, September 1792: "Mr. Burr...Alexander Hamilton, September 1792: "Mr. Burr’s integrity as an Individual is not unimpeached. As a public man he is one of the worst sort—a friend to nothing but as it suits his interest and ambition. Determined to climb to the highest honours of State, and as much higher as circumstances may permit—he cares nothing about the means of effecting his purpose. Tis evident that he aims at putting himself at the head of what he calls the “popular party” as affording the best tools for an ambitious man to work with. Secretly turning Liberty into ridicule, he knows as well as most men how to make use of the name. In a word, if we have an embryo-Caesar in the United States, ‘tis Burr."Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-40694749612496308732012-01-25T20:04:47.120-08:002012-01-25T20:04:47.120-08:00The works of Douglass Adair--particularly his famo...The works of Douglass Adair--particularly his famous essay "Fame and the Founding Fathers," makes some sense of Jefferson's remembrance of Hamilton's remark while visitng Jefferson's home. That is the only sourse for Hamilton ever saying anything particularly kind about Julius Caesar, so it was probably either a joke at Jefferson's stiff formality when answering Hamilton's question about the paintings, or Hamilton considered the question in a way different that Jefferson did in terms of "greatness." As one might say the greatest force in 20th century American politics was Woodrow Wilson or Franklin Roosevelt without necessarily wishing to impart a moral approval of their "greatness." In all of his actual writings, Hamilton condemned Caesar quite vehemently. When George Washington was deciding between a cabinet dispute he posed the already known Jefferson critique that Hamilton was aiming at something other than republicanism to which Hamilton replied: "It has aptly been observed that Cato was the Tory—Caesar the Whig of his day. The former frequently resisted—the latter always flattered the follies of the people. Yet the former perished with the Republic the latter destroyed it." One must remember that according to all the anciet historians, Caesar was with the people against the Senate, a demagogue who destroyed the republic. Hamilton saw Jefferson as a much better analogue to Caesar than himself and he certainly did not consider Jefferson the end all-be all of men.<br /><br />As for being a "central planner," Hamilton is a rather shabby forerunner of that--he was simply and fundamentally concerned with how the country would be able to finance it's vast debts while also surviving a perilous international system of empires and mercantilists--most of whom wished to see the American republic go belly up and fall apart.<br /><br />As for dreaming of empire--that word means something, or has quite different implications now than it did in the late 18th century. No American statesman dreamed of an American "Empire of Liberty" stretching across all of North America longer and more fervently than Thomas Jefferson. The works of Peter S. Onuf are a difficult but excellent place to start on that aspect of Jeffersonianism.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-46224585311426043722012-01-25T16:25:14.970-08:002012-01-25T16:25:14.970-08:00I also remember one book being cited in favor of t...I also remember one book being cited in favor of that argument. I think it is: Liberty, State and Union" by Luigi Marco Basani<br /><br />here is one review:<br /><br />" leftist academics have grossly misrepresented Jefferson's views in their writings, so much so that entire books have been written arguing that he was a precursor of Marx and Engels! If they are not distorting Jefferson's libertarian philosophy they are blowing the reputations of his critics, such as Hamilton, way out of proportion...Jefferson thought very highly of the philosopher John Locke,... He famously stated that, during his time, the three greatest men that civilization had produced were Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. (Hamilton responded by saying Julius Caesar would be his pick for "greatest human"). Despite the well-documented fact of Locke's influence on Jefferson, especially on the issue of private property, leftist academics such as Garry Wills "have devoted much time and effort trying to prove that Jefferson was not a Lockean." Bassani explains why Wills' book on the subject should have been entitled "Inventing Jefferson"...Another myth about Jefferson that Bassani disproves is the myth that he had an antipathy toward trade, banks, and commerce. "There is in Jefferson no political bias against trade and commerce or finance," he writes. What Jefferson opposed was the oppressive policy of government in taxing American farmers in order to subsidize politically-connected businesses"Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-19666279716016973082012-01-25T16:16:56.400-08:002012-01-25T16:16:56.400-08:00Alexander, you asked me earlier about how Hamilton...Alexander, you asked me earlier about how Hamilton was a monarch. I don't quite remember how I came to that conclusion but one of the accusations against him is that he was a central planner/empire lover and the often cited quote is this one: "The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar". I think its from there that we concluded that he was a monarchist/central planner/ empire lover<br /><br />I wonder what you make of such a claimMikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-17339168224371454562012-01-23T16:05:38.763-08:002012-01-23T16:05:38.763-08:00I would say three specific issues:
1) the importa...I would say three specific issues:<br /><br />1) the important events leading to Pearl Habour and how FDR wasn't conspiring to start war with the Japanese nor did the embargo cause the attack on pearl harbour (two common libertarian viewpoints on this subject)<br /><br />2)the dropping of the atomic bombs and how that was the moral and right thing to do. <br /><br />Here is a good link that summarizes the standard libertarian complaints about the war:<br /><br />http://www.lewrockwell.com/raico/raico22.htmlmike250https://www.blogger.com/profile/13771261746381180701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-80795451137667760182012-01-23T07:51:20.417-08:002012-01-23T07:51:20.417-08:00Before I agree to take on another post that will w...Before I agree to take on another post that will wind up taking several weeks longer to produce than it ought--to what specifically are you referring? Imperial Japan in the decades leading up to and including World War II, or something more contemporary?Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-73615213215920451502012-01-22T23:47:49.315-08:002012-01-22T23:47:49.315-08:00you know Alexander I think you should do one post ...you know Alexander I think you should do one post about how libertarians distort historical facts surrounding Japan. I think it deserves its own post just like this one.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-22171059432559406152012-01-19T19:36:22.098-08:002012-01-19T19:36:22.098-08:00I am not familiar with the work, but Fernandez-Arm...I am not familiar with the work, but Fernandez-Armesto is a top scholar of the subject and it looks absolutely fascinating.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-19234696592879130042012-01-19T17:36:29.178-08:002012-01-19T17:36:29.178-08:00Thanks for recommending those Alexander. Do you th...Thanks for recommending those Alexander. Do you think this is a good one to consider <br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Columbus-Himself-Felipe-Fernandez-Armesto/dp/1603841334/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2NC6ULXQ3IW3N&colid=SU5HDKSQ7RHTMikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-27477328212693336292012-01-19T16:59:41.403-08:002012-01-19T16:59:41.403-08:00It's important to remember that Bowden's b...It's important to remember that Bowden's book is not a work of history--hence why I did not recommend it when I was suggesting books about Columbus--it is a polemical work about the historiography about Columbus. As for the books you're finding, Hakluyt (both of them, there are two of the same name) is good. So are Thomas Harriot and John Smith, links to which I have provided below. You can also find out more about relations with the Indians in the writings of William Bradford. The best scholars on the earliest periods of English colonization are James Axtell, Karen O. Kupperman, and Colin G. Calloway. See also John H. Elliott's superb comparative opus of English and Spanish colonization: http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Atlantic-World-Britain-1492-1830/dp/030012399X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327021135&sr=1-2<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Briefe-Virginia-Rosenwald-Collection-Reprint/dp/0486210928/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327020998&sr=8-3<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Captain-John-Smith-Narratives-Settlement/dp/1598530011/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327021023&sr=1-1<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Plymouth-Plantation-1620-1647/dp/0075542811/ref=lh_ni_tAlexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-87918056768489927392012-01-19T16:32:47.168-08:002012-01-19T16:32:47.168-08:00appreciate the response Alexander. I think I now h...appreciate the response Alexander. I think I now have a better picture of the circumstances around that time period. Bowden's book is on my purchase list. One negative review of his book that caught my attention was this top one by Ashtar Command "Seeker"<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Christopher-Columbus-Thomas-Bowden/product-reviews/1889439363/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar<br /><br /><br /><br />Also, in my search quest on the topic I came across this book which documents Original experiences revealing how Indians dealt with people who often did them no harm:<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Captured-Indians-Firsthand-Accounts-1750-1870/dp/0486249018/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325872914&sr=1-8<br /><br /><br />I also found this book about Original letters by British merchant ship captains to the merchant owners, collected by Richard Hakluyt:<br /><br />http://www.amazon.com/Voyages-Discoveries-Principal-Navigations-Traffiques/dp/0140430733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325872532&sr=8-1<br /><br />I think this makes a solid addition to the earlier books you suggested, but I did want to ask if you have come across or read any of those two books.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-68768680323698387462012-01-19T14:18:43.415-08:002012-01-19T14:18:43.415-08:00Mike, hard to be brief about my thoughts on the li...Mike, hard to be brief about my thoughts on the links you offered. But since the second fellow bases some of his conclusions on a book he admittedly never read on the first article you linked from JLS, I'll merely address that with a couple of observations.<br /><br />The article makes no mention--at all--of wars (regardless of fault, initiation, provocation, etc) between Indians and between Indians and Europeans. It's almost as if 1) they never occurred and 2) wars are not a common way for all societies everywhere on earth to exchange and/or surrender land. This is not surprising given the peculiar fetishising of pacifist Quakers that occurs throughout the article. What the writer, whose qualifications I'm utterly unfamiliar with and who quotes no primary source materials, fails to mention is that Penn's "successful land dealings occurred almost entirely with the Lenni Lenape tribe and other tribes of Delawares who were already steady friends of coastal Europeans for protection against more aggressive interior tribes and help in growing and trading for food in order to survive.<br /><br />Quaker pacifism failed utterly once Pennsylvanians colonized outside of the Delaware river valley--culminating in the utter abdication of a role in government during the French and Indian War by the Quakers who could not bring themselves to vote for defensive protection for settlers being killed west of the appalachian mountains by Indian tribes allied with the French.<br /><br />The Quakers were not the only people who showed up in the new world decidedly hopeful about having peaceful transactual relations with the Indians--all the English settlements proceeded with that as an explicit goal as a way of repudiating the Spanish example. But the political relationships with the Indian tribes and the inability and unwillingness to police individual colonists often led to incidents that then led directly to wars that often went very poorly for the Indians--though the tribes allied to the colonists in these wars often made rather impressive short-term gains.<br /><br />Finally, the second person, aside from having anarchism banners on his site, asserted that Bartholeme de las Casas was a classical liberal! He was an Augustinian Catholic Priest and an advocate of African slavery--as a way of saving the Indians from slavery. He was many things, but an Aristotelian liberal he most certainly was not.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-80875491488975916652012-01-19T11:44:20.793-08:002012-01-19T11:44:20.793-08:00Jack, all of your suppositions on the matter have ...Jack, all of your suppositions on the matter have merit. It comes down to the fact that the Founders created the U.S. Constitution--and that Constitution spawned, in the view of the radical libertarian historiography, the modern welfare state we currently live with. So, they are, ipso facto, bad guys who didn't see the consequences of their own actions. This, of course, is grossly anachronistic and unfair--and ignores subsequent historical and intellectual developments over more than a century.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-49384735893841174932012-01-19T11:31:19.094-08:002012-01-19T11:31:19.094-08:00What's going on with all these libertarian wri...What's going on with all these libertarian writers who condemn the Founders as a bunch of Statists? Is this just the consequence of tradtional libertarianism's hatred of the state? Is this the influence of the anarcho-libertarian movement? This is really just more proof that the term "libertarianism" is meaningless. <br /><br />JackAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-80806304972281887882012-01-19T01:45:12.878-08:002012-01-19T01:45:12.878-08:00yeah, Richard Salsman's article in Forbes was ...yeah, Richard Salsman's article in Forbes was an eye-opener and your article on him was even bigger. I have no purchased every book on him and will, when I do get some free time, examine and read them in depth.<br /><br />By the way Alexander, As I was about to embark on my journey with Columbus and my research thesis, I came across this interesting article:<br /><br />http://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_9.pdf<br /><br />Also, I came across this top entry in this blog dissecting Thomas's Bowden book on Columbus:<br /><br /> http://www.praxeology.net/unblog11-03.htm<br /><br />I wonder what you make of both?Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-92110867647429656912012-01-19T00:26:32.473-08:002012-01-19T00:26:32.473-08:00Columbus had many flaws of the late 15th century E...Columbus had many flaws of the late 15th century European--he was incredibly vain, extremely devout in his Catholicism, and imbibing the violent culture of his patron country quite prone to violence. However, Columbus was also a daring man with a vision--a faulty one as it turned out, since his calculation of the earth's size was disastrously wrong--who dared to do something few considered to be possible. In doing so he finally united the world into one large self-conscious unit of trade and exchange. The legacy of that is incredible, terrific, and fantastic is every possible way. It ultimately paved the way for Europeans of several cultural and intellectual traditions to experiment in the re-creation of society outside of Europe with some significant interference/resistance from the remaining indigenous population--such an opportunity was undoubtedly necessary for the possibility of a place like the United States coming into existence. Columbus doesn't deserve all or even a large share of the credit for that, but there's a reason the founders named the district of the capitol city "Columbia."Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-33045152423469082322012-01-19T00:14:43.649-08:002012-01-19T00:14:43.649-08:00Better now, Jim?
Mike, first monarch how? Hamilto...Better now, Jim?<br /><br />Mike, first monarch how? Hamilton's committment to republicanism, while severely tried by his experiences in the continental army and the continental congress in the 1780s, never died so far as I have been able to tell.Alexander V. Marriotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17781689609653626889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5110398.post-45351887694655144472012-01-18T23:44:16.464-08:002012-01-18T23:44:16.464-08:00Thanks for this comprehensive post. I have to say ...Thanks for this comprehensive post. I have to say Hamilton is quite an underrated figure. I always thought of him as the USA's first monarchMikenoreply@blogger.com