Is he willing to sit and discuss for an extended period of time so all questions can be asked and attended to? If I can have that I'll start anywhere they're interested in starting. If he's pissed because he thinks I'm a racist south loving rebel child wannabe then I would start there. It helps when the contrast of illusion and reality are at their greatest to help shake the foundation of what someone believes.

Probably not after you tell him we should build statues of Nathan Forrest.

True, I do sound very nu-age wishy washy with all that talk. But the way we view race is distinct to our period of time. I know this is not lead pipe lock proof, but skin color was not always that big of a deal.There will always be a new "racism" or basically some type of ignorant prejudice towards people that needs to be healed. We're lucky enough to live in a time and a country that's done so much for women and gays(we started the slave trade we don't get credit for fixing it imo) but you're right we've always gotta be on the look out. Enlightened man is a not a real person, it's the journey towards becoming it that is it.

I don't think we know that. I think(I could be wrong here for sure) we know that there is genetic preference for our own parents(Oedipus complex) so that might be the actual cause not that someone wants a specific race(thats fake) they want someone close in appearance to their parent. Since race(skin tone segregation) is actually based upon distance from the equator and some other environmental factors and like 40 thousand years time.

We're delving a bit into the realm of science a bit more than I feel comfortable without getting some googletarding done, and I feel as though I don't quite need to yet to make my point. If I've wronged myself self in the science then I'll look forward to your, or someone else's, correction.

I think the reason why we have special problems with the inclusion of black people into the American melting pot is because they came in on the bottom and were stuck in a unique spot as compared to the rest of the immigrants in our history so they could not go on the same path they went on. And then when they were afforded the opportunity(post 13th amendment america) the union decided to rub it into the south's face that they had lost the war and did what states always do. They reacted poorly in the post war south that's fairly predictable throughout history when you spit in your enemies' face after your finished with them(I honestly wonder if Lincoln could have handled it better, but nothing in his presidency gives me any inclination that he could). I think this is the base reason for why they could not follow the standard path. I think it's problems would have taken several generations to work through, but they could have been fixed. The cross section of people identified as black(this all becomes especially sad lulz when you look at the one drop rule) have endured the horrific fate of continue government assistance their entire history in America. That's a resource destructive fate I'd wish on no one.

Diversity has not made us stronger. Diversity is an illusion that servers no purpose. Black people are not different than Irish people or German people. We gained so much because tons of people came to this country poor as hell and were forced to grind it out with only their ingenuity at their guide. Diversity is an outcome when people compete over resources and realize that if a competing company is too stupid to hire people with brown skin then they will fail in productive capacity in comparison.

Not sure why I would tell him that, any reason why you'd think I would tell him that? I only know of that guy because he's been mentioned a lot in this thread. Why would a libertarian build a statue to him? Honestly I don't know where you would get the funds, maybe it would have to be a private venture. It would be a weird thing to say, but free people do some goofy things and someone may erect a statue to him.

I'd certainly give him some Rothbard to read, but I would have to be straight with him about the guys past. If I were to try and hide aspects of what he wanted to talk to me about then he would not really trust anything I had to say.

I'm not afraid of an ignorant history if I'm committed to moving away from it.

Can you give examples where libertarians have done this?

bump

bump, I'd like to see an answer to this.

(but I'm sure we'll get more of the same dead-horse-beating)

Not sure if you would consider me involved in this thread. If you not I'll give you my opinion on it.

Rjoe,

Either way your opinion is something I'd be interested in.

How about this, I'm sure it would warm the cockles of his heart...

buddy,

Interesting factoid. What does it imply?

I think some of the Libertarian's arguments are good. Such as saying we support a person's/group's right to do X and we cannot support another person/group using force to keep them doing Y. For the most part the Libertarian's in this thread have put up decent, well thought out arguments for their side but there are a few people that kind seem kind of whacky (but both sides have a bit of that going on here).

But I fall more in line with what Dvaut was saying for the most part that in general theory that is more than acceptable however when you specifically apply it so the South's attempt at secession it is no longer the same thing or acceptable. I view the Civil War as mostly about slavery. Having read this thread I see there are quite a few other reasons for the war which I don't think are as obvious or believable, at least they wouldn't be to an average person that a Libertarian might be talking to (which is pretty much what this whole thread is about: who your audience is). By average person I mean someone with a basic understanding of what happened in the Civil War which I think is pretty much what everyone learned in high school history. For example, things I don't think have much of an impact when talking to those people or might make them disinterested are about which amendment Lincoln supported, or supported more than the other wrt Corwin and 13th or how Lincoln's racism compares to modern times or other people during that time and how it affected his decisions or that it was never really about slavery and it was all about forcing them to stay in the Union. While I agree that a large part of it was to keep them in the union and it would be obvious to most people I don't think the not about slavery or him not really being to interested in it would play well. I think the average person is just going to think what Fly was mocking people with earlier in the thread, something along the lines of 'He freed the slaves he can't be that racist'. Now, if you have them interested and discussing other parts of the war both of those things could potentially be relevant later in the conversation but I don't know where that point would be.

One of the arguments that was going back and forth quite a bit was 'I support the right of person X saying Y and its the same thing as us talking about the Civil War.' I think its not a good point as in one case you're supporting the right of someone to say something and in the other you're supporting their right to do something. I get that people were trying to say they just support people's rights but I think there's a big difference between the two. Maybe a bad example but I'll use it anyways; say I tell you I support the government and their existence and all that. Most people around here would just come back at me with 'So you support their right to use force on everyone and steal from people...' and so on. I think that's the same thing as someone saying 'I support the South's right to secede' and someone then saying they support their right to force slavery onto people. By supporting their right to do something, in a specific instance, it would appear that you also support their right to engage in the activity, or activies, that make up their reason for the initial action. This one goes along with the other reasons that are being put out for the secession but I don't think they're enough to get that average person going in this direction.

This part is probably just me but it also seems contrary when Libertarians say they support the South's right to have their leaders decide what to do. They're making decisions for a mass group of people that may or may not agree with them and a certain group that would especially not agree with them. It seems they would support the right of the South's majority in 1860, who wanted to secede and continue slavery, but not the right of a majority to make decisions for everyone now which seems like they would support slavery. Maybe I didn't read the thread closely enough to understand what is going on or why this is so. I remember reading a back and forth about states getting progressively smaller is better and stuff like that but it didn't answer the questions for me.

As for the LvMI and all those other people it gets a little bit out there. Some of the things articles posted in this thread seem racist to me, or at the very very least they're trying to form a connection with racists and win them over which is also bad IMO. You're going to have racists involved in whatever is going on and I'm not saying you should never engage someone you think is racist or try to discuss your ideals with them but to specifically target them because of their racist ideals to win them over is wrong. The south will rise again, bedford statue rant was one of them. Giving a favorable book review to something that is basically saying people are dumb because they are black is at the very least giving a thumbs up to a racist and probably means you agree with a lot/most of the theory. There was the argument that you can admire someone's courage and technical knowledge and still not agree with them but when I read that review I get the feeling he's either swayed by it or believed in a black inferiority already. From reading it he was giving Levin's side of it, LDO its a review, but the way he did it and then showing where to read the rebuttals and all of that is what gave me that impression. Then again, I haven't read any of his other reviews so I don't know his style on it and I'm probably pretty biased myself.

The League of the South stuff was a really bad argument by a few of the libertarians in this thread. The continuation that they aren't racist or nothing was shown after their platform was put up made no sense. It was very racist and bigoted in my view and to support it, defend it, try to explain it away didn't work. That some prominent members of the libertarian movement are associated with that group certainly does not put up a good image. I see that some are denying being founding members or whatever but seems weird considering how involved they are with one anothers activities. Their involvment also says that it couldn't of been an instance of them joining a group and it later changing its ideals so that they no longer match their own.

I think DVaut's advice part was fairly sound. If there are people, prominent people, that are involved in a group like that it will look bad for your side. But probably only if that's the only thing you're always talking about. This forum probably had that reaction and this thread because when you see the AC and libertarian stuff you hear about those people a lot. To a normal person it probably won't have any effect but if you jump right into why Lincoln was a huge racist and the Civil War wasn't about slavery and the South had every right to secede I think that will have a negative effect unless you're talking with someone with a very open mind or a really good historial knowledge base combined with an equally good understanding of the underlying libertarian views.

rjoe,

Interesting post, thanks for the input.

I would be fine if someone said they support a state that is not allowed to use force to sustain it, it's not gonna happen =D. It's hard because it's a complex issue where you can get the input on just secession or the libertarian idea on the whole entire scope of the issues of the day. I prefer being able to give my opinion on the entire situation since it allows more room to proper display the nuance the position. My answer to "southern secession yes/no?" is yes, but my opinion on the policy flaws of the day would not stop there. Your next paragraph illustrates this problem, answering a question that puts you in a box...puts you in a box. I don't think people are listening or believe that we don't wanna be in that box, but if someone is gonna ask that question I will answer it(Especially considering that we're not on a site full of life noobs afaik).

True, and you're right it is a bad image. But pretending it did not happen is not gonna help, it only messes up arguments. It was hard to deal with for some people, but we got some healing done in my opinion.

His advice is sound, but generally unwarranted. We have this thread like once a year, it's not the main argument or anyone by people who are not a part of the LoTS which, as it turns out, no one here really had a good understanding of anyway. I already mentioned this, but I think the posts where people said that are just attempts to feel like they "won" the thread so they can cap it off with some advice that no one needed in the first place.

Leading with the most complex ideas is always a bad idea, and the optimal means by which someone engages another human-non libertarian to convince them of the libertarian platform is always a situational problem. That's why Mises.org has so many articles that are written about so many different situations. If you met the civil war argument first and it's not up your alley try something else if you're still interested in checking out the philosophy. If I had to choose one piece of work to give to someone knowing they would read it and digest it fully and my goal was to get that person to become a libertarian I would not choose a book on the civil war in 9/10 occasions.

res ipsa loquitur

I don't think you shouldn't talk about it or answer questions. I think that will all the variables involved it could be a very tough conversation for some people to have if they're not willing to go past some of the well established beliefs or their understanding of history and really dive into what you're saying. If they aren't they're going to shut down right away, if they disagree you'll need to prepare to have a weeks long conversation about it from what it looks like :P
It was more intended for if you're talking to some random person, not here, as I think most people here are willing to take the time to at least go back and forth on an issue for however long it takes.

For the most part I think there was a very good discussion on this part of it but there were a very few hold outs that kind of kept trying to bring it back up and argue that there was nothing wrong after a bunch of people had made various concessions on both sides and it didn't really help anything.

Perhaps. I'm sure you guys can come up with your arguments and provide them in a convincing way without other people telling you how to do it, after all, it seems like a lot of people have had or changed a great deal of ideas and opinions in this forum alone. I probably should have phrased it as 'his advice was a good point' and less as a way that came across as 'his advice is good and you'd be wise to heed it'.

Makes sense. To be honest when I came into this forum I didn't ever think there would be a thread with almost a few thousand posts on the Civil War.

I rather discuss the more current racist policies and actions of the Democratic party and individual Democrats, including the Japanese internment camps of WWII; the appointments of Hugo Black and Jimmy Byrnes to the Supreme Court; Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings and the numerous democratic Senators who opposed the Civil Right Act of 1964 and most importantly the racial implications of currently existing federal programs that have a substantial negative economic impact on poor minorities.

And when we finish that discussion, we can move on to the Republicans.

Why not just talk about everyone that supported or opposed those events at one time?

Because then we would be closer to talking about the merits of the issues rather than attempting to tarnish an entire party or general way of thinking with the racist label simply because there may be a racist who thinks similarly on issues other than race.

I guess you were trying to set a clever trap. FWIW both sides have agreed afaik that there are racists in pretty much any organization and I don't that's really what's being argued ITT by most.

What libertarian arguments? I don't see any. Libertarianism is only tangentially related to this discussion.

This is a about a specific group of libertarians with questionable viewpoints who happen to have a lot of apologists on this forum.

He probably meant "libertarian's arguments." Just like there are no "statist arguments," ITT, just "statist's arguments." You'll get that when the premise of the thread is just an ad hominem. I'm not saying it's not valid to say that certain libertarians have questionable associations, but it is not an attack on their ideas.

Rothbard's article WAS primarily talking about the North's actions.

Also, I'd be more interested in the truth than "what the average person thinks about the Civil War" because the average person has been told a lot of bull**** propoganda about it.

It is awesome that you automatically assume that people would lead with that example. Nice try.

I'd certainly give him the whole article so he wouldn't keep making the same stupid mistake some of you are here by taking that completely out of context.

Nowhere in that article does Rothbard say slavery is right. Nowhere does he say it was justified that blacks be subjected to white rule. The entire article focuses on the unjust **** the North did, and for a reason. It isn't to glorify slavery or racism, it is to make light of the horrible crime the North did and their motivations for doing it.

Just for kicks:

Cont.

No Treason Intro

No Treason No. 1

For further reading:

No Treason No. 2

No Treason No. 6

How Libertarians Win Friends And Influence People With Their Positions By Posting Walls Of Text*



*by a single almost unknown 19th century anarchist/abolitionist that reflects upon Rothbard's, Rockwell's, DiLorenzo, Woods', and the rest of Mises' dogwhistling about as much as that Louisiana justice of the peace's black friends