General

Ludwig von Mises Institute
Auburn, Ala.

Headed up by Llewelyn Rockwell Jr., the Ludwig von Mises Institute is devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics inspired by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, whom the institute says "showed that government intervention is always destructive."

Indeed, the institute aims to "undermine statism in all its forms," and its recent interest in neo-Confederate themes reflects that.

Rockwell recently argued that the Civil War "transformed the American regime from a federalist system based on freedom to a centralized state that circumscribed liberty in the name of public order."

Desegregation in the civil rights era, he says, resulted in the "involuntary servitude" of (presumably white) business owners. In the past, Rockwell has praised the electoral success of European neofascists like Joerg Haider in Austria and Christoph Blocher in Switzerland.

Both Rockwell and institute research director Jeffrey Tucker are listed on the racist League of the South's Web page as founding members — and both men deny their membership. Tucker has written for League publications, and many League members have taught at the institute's seminars and given presentations at its conferences.

At the recent Austrian Scholars Conference, the F.A. Hayek Memorial Lecture was delivered by Donald Livingston, director of the League's Summer Institute. In 1994, Thomas Fleming, a founding League member and the editor of Chronicles magazine, spoke on neo-Confederate ideas to an institute conference.

Rockwell, who is also vice president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, runs his own daily news Web site that often features articles by League members.

Thomas DiLorenzo
Economics professor, Loyola College // BALTIMORE, Md.

The earliest apologists for the lost Cause of the South, writing in the first years of the 20th century, described Abraham Lincoln as a good and even great man, sorely misled by evil advisers who pushed a harsh Reconstruction policy. No more.

Thanks to Thomas DiLorenzo and others of his ilk, the 16th president is now viewed in neo-Confederate circles as a paragon of wickedness, a man secretly intent on destroying states' rights and building a massive federal government.

"It was not to end slavery that Lincoln initiated an invasion of the South," DiLorenzo writes in his 2002 attack on Lincoln, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. "A war was not necessary to free the slaves, but it was necessary to destroy the most significant check on the powers of the central government: the right of secession."

DiLorenzo is not a historian. With a doctorate from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, he has been since 1992 an economics professor at Baltimore's Loyola College. And most of his work has not been about history, focusing instead on libertarian and antigovernment themes.

His 10 books include Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us, and, with writer James T. Bennett, The Food and Drink Police: America's Nannies, Busybodies and Petty Tyrants (attacking organizations such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and Unhealthy Charities: Hazardous to Your Health and Wealth and Cancer Scam: Diversion of Federal Cancer Funds to Politics (both of which accuse nonprofits like the American Cancer Society of using public money to fund leftist "political machines").

DiLorenzo is also a senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a hard-right libertarian foundation in Alabama, and teaches at the League of the South Institute for the Study of Southern Culture and History, a South Carolina school established by the League of the South to teach its unusual views of history (see also Little Men).

In 2003, LewRockwell.com, a Web site run by Von Mises Institute President Llewellyn Rockwell that includes a "King Lincoln" section, hosted a "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference in Richmond, Va., starring DiLorenzo. The conference has since become a bit of a road show, reappearing around the South and headlined by DiLorenzo.

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Evilsceptic — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:21:39 GMT

Aristophanes:
SPLC (you don't need to like this) labels LvMI as a neo-confederate hate group.

Really? Do you have a link?

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Evilsceptic — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:20:27 GMT

Aristophanes:
a neo-confederate hate group.

Really? Do you have a link?

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Aristophanes — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:45:30 GMT

Way to purposely shield yourself from the big pictue you weird old man.

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Clayton — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:21:12 GMT

Here is another way to say it "LvMI itself is not partisan

OK.

Clayton -

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Aristophanes — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:22:36 GMT

Policies that come out of the Institutes make their way to the common person in the form of "news." That is how they are used to affect entire populations opinions/perceptions of things. Most people who don't read much probably don't know who Samuel huntington is, let alone have read his paper "The Clash of Civilizations," but they are more than likely of the precept that there is a jihad waged by the Arab/Islam world aimed at the liberal democracies and their decadence which is the thesis of the paper (or that there will be one in the future; it's an old paper).

The whole contemporary narrative of international relations is premised on Huntington's paper and book.

Ron Paul's influence obviously comes from his television apperances (debates, TV shows, w/e), but the point of Paul's success that I thought we were debating is how in depth it got. The depth comes from people, in turn, visiting LvMI and/or reading the related material. Ron Paul was only the second or third book I read about contemporary politics (way back in 2007 or 08; Revolution) and it set me in a very different direction that LvMI played a heavy role in.

The depth is compared to the quantity. The quantity I'd represent in shallow political adherence to what Paul promoted (I'd count tea party politicians who cannot be counted on truly, but use the rhetoric. Rand Paul is an example of this and I've written much about him on these forums) and the depth is the level of cultural influence (business, media, academia) that he has generated. The cultural influence might not show up in the political world or it may show up in a level of the political world that social/media politics doesn't reach (i.e., the non-democratic stuff such as bureaucracy, administration, and policy institutes).

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Sukrit — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:58:42 GMT

Do all these institutes actually make a difference in changing minds of average people who don't read much? Did Ron Paul's campaign succeed in part because of the work done spreading the message by the LvMI? Or was it just because he got on national TV debates?

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Aristophanes — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:28:36 GMT

Please explain what part of the definition of "partisan" is a true description of LvMI.

LvMI is supportive of a particular ideology (trhat ideology associated with libertarianism/anarchy/methodological individualism). What more do you need? Ideologues form partisan groups (you can say that people who agree on individualsim aren't groups, but...)...partisan groups are subsumed (most of the time) in political parties. You can try to disassociate LvMI from this reality (because obviously people here my self included do not want to be associated with a political group).

You did put words in my mouth because you don't agreeeeeeeeeeeeee with what I am trying to say...

Here is another way to say it "LvMI itself is not partisan, but its goals end up becoming partisan."

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Clayton — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:15:13 GMT

Clayton. Don't put words in my mouth.

The words coming out of your mouth are doing well enough - you said "partisan". JJ has given the dictionary definition of partisan, and LvMI is decidedly not partisan. Your definition of "partisan" seems to be "anybody that ADL/SPLC doesn't like." Well, that isn't the meaning of the word, sorry to rattle your DC-beltite cocoon where words mean whatever the big-wigs decide they mean.

Please explain what part of the definition of "partisan" is a true description of LvMI.

Clayton -

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Clayton — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:06:01 GMT

No one here will envoke Thoreau or Malcom X

WTF? Thoreau. Malcom X. Noam Chomsky. Gore Vidal. I could go on. You're getting sloppy.

Clayton -

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Aristophanes — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 04:59:20 GMT

Read my edit it answers all but this

I'm not sure how the fact that scholarship can be polarizing and partisan has any relevance to anything.

How can you not see that playing to the emotional bases of people at all levels of politics is what is truly successful persuasion? It doesn't matter if they know why they decided x. What matters is that they felt compelled to decide x. Never again will people think liberty as their priority. you are trying to get them to fight for something that they don't feel for. There is not an emotional compulsion for people to desire it anymore. When RAND and Brookings publish their almost annual publications "On Invading Iran" they play to the most obvious emotions in their readers (national pride, scary colored people, anti-semitism, nuclear holocaust). Partisan politics is built on emotions. [[you and I probably know better or at least think we do most of the time, but most of the world, from my point of view, does not]]

LvMI publishes scholarship that criticizes the emotional political goals (welfare, pride, borders, protectionism) of people but it targets people who know better than to let emotions rule. Power corrupts because emotions rule. Intellect can only get to to the Athenian court where they will say you are possessed by a demon then sentence you to death.

and this:

The ADL is also used by FBI for open source intel. LvMI is underneath them in terms of influence on power. LvMI is acting on the democratic plane. Within the system of social/media politics in a democracy LvMI has no chance to get away from the repercussions of the upper level political heirarchy. It is the victim of a very strategic and hostile counter-intelligence community (some elements of ADL and SPLC don't know what their function is).

Here again, I still don't know what you're getting at. It sounds like you're saying the LvMI should move inside the Beltway and start playing the political game, and cozy up to government elites.

haha, that's what you got out of that? I simply mean that the influence that LvMI can hope to project on people is fighting against a counterintellgence (PSYOP) division that is countering, not what the scholarship says*, but the emotional perception of the readers. In no way am I promoting the LvMI try to jump into that game. I am merely stating that that is the current ontological paragidm of revisionist histories. You have to combat scientifically crafted propaganda. Facts and theory will not do that.

*Krugman does that. And even he uses, you guessed it, emotionally charged assertions!

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

John James — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 04:43:12 GMT

Aristophanes:
LvMI (I've gotten no push back from this) is polarized and looked at as a hate group by SPLC which the FBI uses for open source intelligence gathering.

I'm not sure why you should get push back. Are you saying the LvMI should be looking to be praised by the SPLC and the FBI? I honestly don't know what you're suggesting here.

The ADL is also used by FBI for open source intel. LvMI is underneath them in terms of influence on power. LvMI is acting on the democratic plane. Within the system of social/media politics in a democracy LvMI has no chance to get away from the repercussions of the upper level political heirarchy. It is the victim of a very strategic and hostile counter-intelligence community (some elements of ADL and SPLC don't know what their function is).

Here again, I still don't know what you're getting at. It sounds like you're saying the LvMI should move inside the Beltway and start playing the political game, and cozy up to government elites.

And if any organization is trying to influence people's perception of the world (outside of cognitive philosophy...well okay even here a little bit) they are political organizations. Look at all of the books and articles? They are hopelessly devoted to politics. I am just done with trying to deal with democracy. it is barely even a real thing in the world.

Are you saying the LvMI is focused on dealing with democracy?

I will respond to that article after I've read it and thought about it for a bit. Thanks for the link. But, scholarship can be polarizing and partisan as well (CFR is considered "academic" in the political literature, for instance).

I'd be interested to see any sources that offer that impression of the CFR. Seems to me to present itself as a diplomacy and "foreign relations" coalition.

I'm not sure how the fact that scholarship can be polarizing and partisan has any relevance to anything.

Re: Ron Paul launching foreign policy institute,coming out with new book

Aristophanes — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 04:12:51 GMT

Dictionary.com:
par·ti·san

noun
1.an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance.

adjective
3. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of partisans; partial to a specific party, person, etc.: partisan politics.

Merriam-Webster:

Partisan

1 : a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance

Perhaps you just didn't know the definition of the term?

Why do you think you are so clever? You've got to realize that people which adhere to ideology form parts of a: "group, party, or cause, especially a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance." The emotional allegiance that is entrenched here is like a brick wall. No one here will envoke Thoreau or Malcom X to stir the democtaric fires it is always Ghandi and NAP NAP NAP. This indicates to me that they are chickenhawks for r3volution.

That's pretty much exactly what Cato does.

Is CATO non-partisan? Or are they about as openly partisan as Heritage or AEI? CATO is the Rand Paul to the AEI's Richard Perle. CFR is non-partisan (or post partisan) they are on a higher level - i.e., they are not trying to influence democratic level politics (social/media politics). They are influencing people inside positions of power. CFR is geostrategic intellectual fuel for BP and Carlyle. Paul should do the same thing. Offer them a peaceful organization that doesn't promote extortion, bribery, etc. Maybe it will work?

So? That isn't the goal. And I'm surprised you'd be making wishes that organizations would aim for such a thing.

So, why do you have to constantly be a dick to people? I've made my preference (to jam up, slow down, weaken, etc.) known. But, Paul is showing that he might be wising up to the optimism that people can be "converted" when the entire system is against that. LvMI (I've gotten no push back from this) is polarized and looked at as a hate group by SPLC which the FBI uses for open source intelligence gathering. The ADL is also used by FBI for open source intel. LvMI is underneath them in terms of influence on power. LvMI is acting on the democratic plane. Within the system of social/media politics in a democracy LvMI has no chance to get away from the repercussions of the upper level political heirarchy. It is the victim of a very strategic and hostile counter-intelligence community (some elements of ADL and SPLC don't know what their function is).

And if any organization is trying to influence people's perception of the world (outside of cognitive philosophy...well okay even here a little bit) they are political organizations. Look at all of the books and articles? They are hopelessly devoted to politics. I am just done with trying to deal with democracy. it is barely even a real thing in the world.

I will respond to that article after I've read it and thought about it for a bit. Thanks for the link. But, scholarship can be polarizing and partisan as well (CFR is considered "academic" in the political literature, for instance).

EDIT

Okay, so North is firmly committed to influencing the mindset of the individual. I consider this the democratic plane whether the indiviudal votes or not. I see its benefit, but disagree on the effectiveness it displays.

On CATO,

Libertarians and conservatives attempt to block horrific pieces of legislation, but they do not have the votes to register effectively in Congress.

You see how he is focused on "trading votes." My strategy in this domain would be stealth votes. Just lie and pretend to be on board and promise that you'll vote on things and then don't. Just make excuses to the people who you promise. This is what I would call politicking. Lie, excuse, Lie, excuse. People already have like 13% approval for Congress, why not take advantage of the invulnerability that our Congress has from self-shame? Use Kant's universalization test to see if "your will can become a universal law."

"I will act with the maxim that I will only lie in Congress to do the right thing." Everyone lies in Congress to do the right thing. See? You fit in already! I'm telling you that if we just used the first few pages of a counterintelligence manual we could fight back more effectively (lose important papers, mischedule important meetings, etc. - this is what the our intelligence people told the Nicaraguans to do in order to destabalize...).

Nothing that the Cato Institute has ever done has blocked anything significant that the federal government has planned.

Right, because if you are pushing an ideology in democratic planes then the members need to be pure of mind. Politics breeds the contra.

There is no hope whatsoever of reversing the federal train by persuading the engineer to put on the brakes. The train is either going to go over the trestle, or else it is going to go off the tracks before it reaches the trestle. There is no possibility of doing anything to stop the train.

I'm sick of analgoies. The ship of State is not a train! And as a ship there are no tracks, there is no set destination, there isn't even a realiable way to get to where ever we decide to go. Oh yeah, and there are no cliffs except in Dover. (irony...I planned that)

Let true academic organizations handle "the big picture." Their slogan is "Principles, not policy making." The moment you read "public policy" and "501(c)(3)" (IRS-authorized), put away your checkbook. It's money down a rat hole.

How do we know that Paul won't employ the likes oif Agee or something? if he wants to cause problems for the military industrial complex a policy institute that aggravates their policy implementors might be a funny thing to get going. Philip Agee used open source intel to publish the names of deployed covert agents. How's that for thwarting imperialism? Bush Sr. called him a traitor...and he had to live in Cuba...but still. That is being a rebel.

Anyway, putting people like that into a policy think tank, people who can severly undermine the policies that come from the others, might be a good thing. Just look at the trash that passes for scholarship out of RAND or Brookings...they are flagrant about their biases in that plane.