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| A Confederacy of What? |
| 06.20.05 (2:02 pm) [edit] |
The following statement was posted: “Opposition to Lincoln's centralism is not ‘die hard advocacy of the CSA.’” And that is true. To oppose Lincoln doesn’t make one a partisan for the Confederacy and it’s politics of slavery. Nor does it it preclude it.
The argument that Cathy Young made in Reason is that Thomas Wood, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History”, was not merely an opponent of Lincoln’s centralism but a supporter of the the slave-holding South. Young wrote:
“Woods is talking not merely about the expansion of federal power but about the triumph of Northern ‘radical individualism,’ religious liberalism, and other cultural evils. He favorably quotes a 19th-century Southern theologian who described the defenders of slavery as ‘friends of order and regulated freedom,’ and portrays the Civil War as ‘a struggle against an atheistic individualism and an unrelenting rationalism in politics and religion, in favor of a Christian understanding of authority, social order and theology itself.’ The Southern cause, he concludes, is ‘the cause of us all.’” http://www.reason.com/0506/co...
In an earlier article on the same subject Young wrote: “The full extent of that extremism is camouflaged in the book. The author's official bio leaves out the fact that Woods is a co-founder and member of pro-secession League of the South. Here's a sample of the League's views, from a position paper: '’Today's white Christian Southerners are the blood descendants of the men and women who settled this country and gave us the blessings of freedom and prosperity. To give away this inheritance in the name of 'equality' or 'fairness' would be unconscionable.’ While generously urging ‘Christian charity’ toward blacks, the paper denounces the idea that 'Southerners should give control over their civilization and its institutions to another race, whether it be native blacks or Hispanic immigrants.’” http://www.boston.com/news/gl... Woods himself admits he is not just a member but a founding member. http://www.southerngrace.biz/...
Now to be fair to Woods I tried to read the essay of his that is quoted in several critiques. It was published in the secessionist article which was published in the League’s journal. But the links have been deleted. The journal in which it appeared has vanished from the web as far as I can tell. However, the theocratic (and I mean that in the strictest sense of the word) web site reformed-theology.org had reprinted it with Woods permission. This journal is filled with conspiracy theories from the authors who worked with the John Birch Society, Lew Rockwell contributor Gary North is a frequent contributor and it generally takes the view that Old Testament morality law needs to be put into place today right down to the stonings. These theocrats tend to be very pro-slavery saying that it is good for the inferior races to be brought in contact in white Christians. (For a web site that combines this Calvinist theocracy and Southern Secessionism try www.littlegeneva.com.)
But when one opens the journal page where the Woods article is supposed to appear you get this notice instead:
Christendom's Last Stand,
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Removed by request of the author.
http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue04/christen dom.htm" title="http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue04/christen dom.htm" target="_blank"http://reformed-theology.org/...
I thought that particularly odd since the previous page was quite explicit in saying that the article was appearing with the express permission of Mr. Woods. So some years ago Woods gave permission for the article to be disseminated and now he has it withdrawn. It has disappeared from the original location and from a secondary location. It may be that Mr. Woods has changed his mind about the article and no longer stands by what he wrote then. We all mature and change our minds and there is nothing wrong with that. I don’t want to condemn a man for views he has repudiated. But I haven’t seen anything that indicates Woods has changed his mind.
One Libertarian came to Woods aid and defended him from Young http://www.strike-the-root.co... but he spends most of his time implying that if you are anti-Woods you must be pro-Lincoln and trying to prove that Lincoln was evil. That is a point that was not being disputed from what I could see. He then said readers should check out Wood’s reply to Young’s first article on the topic at Rockwell’s site.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods38.html" title="http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods38.html" target="_blank"http://www.lewrockwell.com/wo...
Here is how Woods deals with Young’s comments about the “reply” in question.
Paragraphs 1,2 & 3: Tells us who likes his book and who doesn’t. No reply to what Young said.
Paragraph 4: Insinuates Young was out to get him, no reply to what she said.
Paragraph 5: Quote a Mises Institute individual about Wood. No reply to what Young said.
Paragraph 6: Attacks unnamed libertarian who didn’t like his book. Attacks another unnamed libertarian web site which he said “tried to portray me as a Klansman” and then responds, “you know the tender solicitude and sympathy that the Klan shows for Latin Mass Catholics.” Actually the Klan has dropped it’s anti Catholicism. But either way no reply to Young.
Paragraph 7: Attacks “Beltway Libertarians” saying they don’t like him because he upholds “Southern tradition”. No reply to Young.
Paragraph 8: Argues that Lord Acton was pro-Southern, again no reply to what Young wrote about his views.
Paragraph 9: Says conservatives previously debated the “Lincoln” legacy but no one I’ve read is opposed to that. There is a argument smuggled in which is saying that to oppose the revival of so-called Southern culture is to be pro-Lincoln. One is no more pro-Lincoln for opposing the Confederacy than one is pro-Saddam for opposing the Iraq war. No reply to what Young wrote.
Paragraphs 10 to the end: Takes on neoconservatives and attacks them. No reply to what Young wrote.
I was hoping Woods would give us some defense for his viewpoints. I figure he had three real options. He could say he did hold such views and no longer does in which case I think the story is over. He could say his views were distorted and explain how and the story ends. Or he can say he stands by the article and we debate what is in it. He did none of that. He never mentioned it. Instead he pretends it never existed and he issues requests to sites that had published it (at least one such request) asking for it to be chucked down the memory hole. At the very least he could have explained why he is trying to erase any records of what his article said? All i can do is assume that the people who originally quoted it did so accurately. My ability to disprove the quotes disappeared when Woods had the article erased. I wouldn’t think that was a wise move unless it confirmed what the critics said and Woods still stands by those positions.
I went to the web sites for the League of the South and read numerous pages. It appears to be semi-theocratic in the sense of wanting to impose some sort of undefined “Christian culture” on the new Confederacy and loosely embraced white supremacy. I say loosely only in the sense that they didn’t say “we whites have the right to rule the darkies”. But they do say just that in gentler, kinder terms.
Here is what they are clear about. They and their League of the South Institute are secessionists. Their Institute calls itself “the educational arm of the Southern independence movement.” http://lsinstitute.org/ They wish to restore “Christian liberties” and reaffirm the old southern cultural heritage. Elsewhere they say: “The League of the South is a Southern Nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic.” http://leagueofthesouth.net/s...
As Young wrote they did say that Southerners would never give control of their institutions to another race (which implies that only Whites are Southerners). They also seem to want to water down the evils of slavery which is what Woods was accused of by his critics. The League says regarding race relations in the South: “Southerners on both sides who were ‘racist’ by principle were decent and humane in their actual conduct.” http://leagueofthesouth.net/s...
That one sentence has a lot packed into it. First note that the word racist in in quotes which implies they don’t believe there was any racism in the South. Second, while I think there probably were racists on both sides, it implies that the racism was somehow equal in impact and intensity and it says that both groups of racists were “decent and humane”. Now I’m not sure we can call the actions of the Klan “decent and humane”. I don’t think lynching was ‘decent and humane” (and it was almost always white mobs lynching blacks). It was black churches that were “decently and humanely” fire bombed not white churches. I never heard of a anonymous blacks going out and breaking up groups advocating white supremacy but there were white groups that went out and broke up meetings advocating legal equality. This sentence is actually abhorrent to any decent libertarian.
Now for their “soft” racism. I quote: “The League seeks to protect the historic Anglo-Celtic core culture of the South because the Scots, Irish, Welsh, and English have given Dixie its unique institutions and civilisation. Should the Christian, Anglo-Celtic core be displaced, then the South would cease to be recognisable to us and our progeny. We must maintain this all-important link to our European heritage from which we have drawn our inspiration. Anglo-Celtic Southerners and their European cousins have a duty to protect that which our ancestors bequeathed us. If we will not promote our own interests, no one will do it for us.” http://www.dixienet.org/posit... This is pretty much the way David Duke, former head of the Klan, is expressing himself these days. It’s called marketing. Instead of saying you are promoting white supremacy you say you want the system to protect your culture. Again note how the Southern culture they talk about clearly excludes blacks and Indians who lived there for about the same period of time—obviously longer for Indians. When they previously discussed blacks in juxtaposition to Southerners this was not an error. It was intentional. They do not believe that Southern blacks are part of the Southern nation. They are aliens living in a white, Christian land. The League does say they should be treated justly but it is clear that it is against equality.
The League has one page showing how the US congress voted on issues and then they separate out the Southern representatives to shows how the new Confederacy would have voted on the same issues. The implication certainly is that the South was the good guys (and on some issues they were). But included in the policies of the new Confederacy was foreign aid for the Contras, retention of US control over the canal in Panama, prayer in state schools, banning abortion and keeping out immigrants. http://leagueofthesouth.net/s...
Now some supporters of the Paleolibertarian agenda try to pretend these secessionists who want a white, Christian nation are really libertarians at heart. The League of the South doesn’t buy into that at all (and remember we are discussing them because Mr. Woods is a founding member). First the League makes it clear that this libertarian idea of equal rights is out the window. “In a starkly secular libertarian world where everyone has the same, duplicate rights as all others, and government exists not to enforce organic values, but merely to prevent imposition on rights, some very startling results become obvious. The government guided by the god of human individualism must set out to tear up all human relations and constructions that are grounded in anything other than human individualism and consent. Herein libertarianism and Critical Theory connect. At this point, extreme libertarianism joins not only with secularism, but also with feminism, the Civil Rights Revolution, and internationalism.” http://www.lsinstitute.org/Ex...
They say that Southern culture didn’t buy into this sort of equality of rights egalitarianism. This is correct even if that is glossed over by Mr. Woods. Instead it gave rights on the basis of who you are. So everyone’s rights are protected because the only real rights they have is determined by what group they belong to. So fewer legal rights for blacks is okay because their black. It’s based on who they are and therefore not a infringement of equal rights. I quote: “Southern Conservatism openly essays at being just, not egalitarian. It finds justice in treating a man or woman as who he or she truly is-who he or she is, in reality. It finds rights, duties, liberties, and communal values, in the Common Law of the land and people, the Common Law handed down to it through time, a Common Law constructed as the framework for an organic society. It does not find these things in the application of abstract principle answering questions of how to benefit the lowest-common-denominator at any given moment.”
And what they are setting up is a Christian system of law. This is one reason Reconstructionists are on their side much of the time (not all of course but generally). “Furthermore, the Common Law of a Christian people is necessarily a Christian Common Law. And the Common Law of a Christian people knows its own and is not ashamed of its own, neither its values nor its ethnicity.”
And if you get real inspired to join this cause for a racially based, Christian-based revived Confederacy you can sign a declaration linked to by the League to that effect. http://www.petitiononline.com... Here are a few excerpts:
“The national culture of the United States is violent and profane, coarse and rude, cynical and deviant, and repugnant to the Southern people and to every people with authentic Christian sensibilities. Purveyors of the national culture have everywhere lowered standards of morality and debased human dignity. They have appealed to mankind's worst impulses through profanity and obscenity in the arts and literature; they have depicted decadence and debauchery as normal and desirable; they have distorted Southern symbols and denied our right to interpret or display those symbols; they have assumed the authority of parents in the areas of religion and education; they thus have driven a wedge between the generations; they have prostituted all areas of thought and learning for market share; they have demonised Southern heroes and canonised tyrants and war criminals; they have distorted Southern history to advance their ideas of social justice; they thus have driven a wedge between the races and regions; they have destroyed hope; they have spread despair; they have called good evil and evil good; they have everywhere substituted the opinions of men for the decrees of God.”
“To our Southern forebears the triune God gave the inspiration and wisdom to create a confederated, constitutional republic based on the principle of local self-government and sustained by a vibrant and vital cultural heritage. We consider our heritage a sublime and unmerited blessing and we cherish it. Today it is threatened as never before by the godless national culture of death, supported by an overbearing government that acknowledges no limits to its power.”
“We reaffirm the cultural inheritance of our honourable forefathers and declare to the world our intention to defend and preserve it. The preservation of historic cultures--especially those that establish liberty--has never been cheap or easy. We hereby proclaim to the world that the struggle to protect and advance our Southern cultural heritage begins in earnest today...Henceforth, we shall stand steadfast in defense of our inheritance as free men and women of the South, and we welcome all who share our principles to stand with us. “
“As witness to our intent, we affix our signatures to this Declaration of Southern Cultural Independence...invoking the blessings of our Lord, Jesus Christ, on a just cause.”
This does sound very theocratic to me and I honestly believe that their constant discussion of “culture” means race something they are more clear about elsewhere. Certainly some of the signers of that petition left white supremacist messages on the site so they seemed to think so as well.
Now why spend any time on the League. Wood is not the only Rockwellian Paleolibertarian type to associate with them. You will find a couple of Paleolibertarians have worked with this group as well and other League lectures have written for Rockwell. But Woods was a founder of the group. And the whole debate about his membership came out because it was said this his book on history intentionally distorts facts to give a pro-Confederacy viewpoint and that this is inspired by Woods’ belief in the revival of this confederacy. At issue was what sort of group did Woods endorse. I wouldn’t even condemn him for speaking to them or listening to what they had to say. But being a founding member was more than that. That implies endorsement.
Now why is Woods being promoted by these Paleolibertarians so strongly. Rockwell’s web site carries around 50 articles by this man—including a review he wrote about his own book. He is not merely someone to whom they link because he occasional writes something interesting. He is a regular columnist for them. He lectures for Rockwell’s Mises Institute and I note at least one other League of South lecturer is also a frequent contributors to Rockwell’s site.
Woods founding membership in the League of the South certainly makes one wonder what kind of libertarian, paleo or otherwise, he’s supposed to be. And equally one would wonder why Rockwell’s site and the Mises Institute are so fond of him. If he were the only such bird in the Paleolibertarian flock you might ignore it. But he isn’t.
A slew of Rockwell linked writers have come out with book after book fighting what would appear to be a war that has been over for 150 years. Woods is an adjunct scholar for the Mises Institute. An internal search of the Mises site shows Woods mentioned over 500 times. Other seccessionists associated with the League, like Woods, lecture to the Mises crowd. Mises related academics lecture for the League. It’s a very cozy relationship to say the least. But are the goals of the League really what libertarianism is all about? I don’t think so.
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posted by: penguinsloveme (reply)
post date: 06.20.05 (3:24 pm)
ohmigoodness. how do you type all of that?
posted by: Bill Woolsey (reply)
post date: 06.21.05 (2:52 am)
Wood's article is interesting.
While the are aspects of the article that are troubling, other portions of
it remind one of Hayek's article--is it "Two Individualisms?"
posted by: rightwatch (reply)
post date: 06.21.05 (2:57 am)
The following comment was posted:
Monday 06.20.05 - 8:24 pm
Everything is archived on the web. If it's not cached at google, it'll probably be archived at archive.org. Here's the article he wrote:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000602032857/http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue04/christendom.htm
And here are the different archives:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://reformed-theology.org/html/issue04/christendom.htm
Keep up the good work,
Anonymous
PS - I've pasted it below in case you have trouble using archive.org
I left his links in but deleted the full article. We do not have permission to reprint the whole article and that would be a violation of copyright which we have no desire to do. I will read it as soon as I get a chance and with the links you provided people should be able to find it. I did check to see if there was a Google cache of it and there wasn't. I didn't know about the other. Thank you. Remember you can quote but not reprint wholesale without permission.
posted by: Fred Mangels (reply)
post date: 06.21.05 (4:40 am)
You can't reprint in entirety without permission? Hmm... didn't know that. Seems to me, if something is posted on the web, for all to see, it becomes public property, in effect and could be reprinted anywhere. That's assuming the author gave permission for it to be posted on the web in the first place.
Maybe that's why Woods requested the article be removed from the sites he had his stuff posted on? To regain some sort of copyright protection since then it wasn't openly available on the web?
posted by: rightwatch (reply)
post date: 06.21.05 (4:57 am)
No. It is still under copyright protection even if posted on the web. There is a "fair use" provision in the law which says one may quote but if you use substantial portions you are deemed to have violated copyright and reprinting the whole thing is not permitted unless the copyright has run out.
Being printed on a web page visited by a few thousand people doesn't make it public domain anymore than being printed in a newspaper read by a couple of hundred thousand.
So Woods did not have to withdraw the articles from the web to regain protection as he never lost it. Note that many newspapers reprint entire articles on the web (such as the New York Times) but they still own the articles.
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