UPDATE: I have expanded this post.
These days my time is more than occupied by the homeschool courses I’m creating (see here and here), the daily podcast I publish, and our fifth daughter, born just last week. But apparently, while I was at the hospital, we had a hostile visitor here at TomWoods.com. A policeman of forbidden opinion, if you like.
Now it’s perfectly fine for people to express civil disagreement, as long as they don’t hijack every comment thread in support of their pet issues. But the Internet generally doesn’t elicit civil disagreement. This particular person, who I think is a left-progressive (but may also be a neocon; when it comes to nationalism and centralization it is impossible to tell them apart), showed up and denounced everyone for dissenting from the traditional narrative of American history. At no time was any effort made to be civil or cordial, the way normal people try to behave when interacting with complete strangers.
Like many progressives, he cites the crazed neocon Max Boot against me without noting my response to Boot. This just goes to remind us of Woods Law #2: Progressives always prefer a neoconservative over an antiwar libertarian. (Actually, I can’t remember the numbering of the Woods Laws; maybe you guys can remind me.)
[Further update: it turns out he is not a progressive but a neoconservative. Since his talking points are all straight from Rachel Maddow, you can’t blame me for the mistake.]
He uses the meaningless Marxoid neologism “neo-Confederate” to demonize his opponents. He has apparently not seen the video Interview With a Zombie. No one can hear the agitprop term “neo-Confederate” with a straight face after that.
He thinks the Supremacy Clause invalidates nullification, which means he has no idea how that clause was presented at the state ratifying conventions. He thinks the general welfare clause is a grant of power, which further demonstrates his lack of familiarity with the ratifying conventions. He thinks secession is “treason,” which means he thinks the compact theory of the Union, which I can’t imagine how someone could refute, is false. (Plus, I’m always creeped out by accusations of “treason.” They sound to me like, “Don’t you know you are divinely ordained to be taxed and ruled over by these individuals? How dare you think otherwise!”)
He thinks Lincoln couldn’t have been “racist,” since hey, he freed the slaves! So our friend thinks all abolitionists (of which Lincoln was not one) had the same social views as William Lloyd Garrison. Yikes.
He thinks nullification was used to keep people in slavery, when it was used against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He has never heard of Joshua Glover. He has no idea what the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, quoting the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 verbatim, said in 1859.
In other words, every view is conventional and predictable, and every view is false. I have replied to every single one of them, repeatedly.
But for fun, let’s provide some links.
On the general welfare clause, our friend agrees with Bill O’Reilly. That is not a compliment.
On nullification and its constitutionality (our friend makes no mention of the Virginia ratifying convention, needless to say), there’s my Nullification FAQ, as well as my book Nullification.
On secession:
I’d be really impressed if our friend could answer the remarks I delivered at St. Louis University School of Law. His presuppositions are entirely Hobbesian, though I doubt he is aware of this. So this talk would be pretty strong medicine for someone as committed to the Clinton/Romney/McCain/Obama school of political philosophy as he is.
On Lincoln, apart from his repeatedly expressed racial views, we now know he was searching out locations for black resettlement up to the very end of the war.