Guilt by Association

I have been following with some interest and a good deal of confusion the occasional on-line pissing matches that arise between Tom Palmer and his defenders and the people at Lew Rockwell, especially Stephan Kinsella. Kinsella seems to take a perverse pleasure in baiting Palmer and has even set up a web site devoted to mocking Palmer. Palmer seems never to pass up a chance to take a swipe at Lew Rockwell or the Mises Institute. The crew at No Treason sometimes takes up Palmer's banner.

The most frequent charge Palmer or his fans at No Treason level against Rockwell and Mises appears to be that these institutions sometimes feature writers who have had some dodgy associations, eg connections, sometimes tenuous and fleeting, with Holocaust deniers, Southern heritage groups, or non-mainstream religious organizations. The implication is that the writers are anti-semites, racists, or homophobic theocrats by virtue of these connections and that Lew Rockwell and Mises are also guilty of these things by association with the writers.

I read LRC and MI articles and blog entries religiously and have for about a year now. I have never detected any hint of anti-semitism or racism, and I don't really have any idea what the writers think of homosexuality. Writers have problematized Israeli policy and have questioned conventional wisdom about the War Between the States and other historical events, but nothing in these works can, IMO, reasonably be said to be anti-semitic or racist. Politically incorrect? You bet. Hatemongering? No.

A case in point is Gary North. The articles I have read have all been either curmudgeonly advice to work hard and save money or economic or social commentary. He is against government schools, I gather, and he has a tendency to predict disaster a little too readily. He appears to be anti-state, anti-war, and an advocate of the free market, and his articles fit in with the LRC theme. Lately, I have learned that Gary North is or was a Christian Reconstructionist and that this ideology looks forward to and works to bring about an era in which Christians control the government and apply Bibilical Law. This entails a substantially smaller government and free enterprise, but it would also entail some rather illiberal curtailment of freedom, eg prohibitions on homosexuality.

I do not share Gary North's vision of the end goal, if that is his vision, and, although I am a Christian, I would not coerce anyone into following Biblical Law. Does that mean I should shun him and avoid his writings? I don't make a habit of shunning people who disagree with me about religion or politics, and I believe that it is better to engage and listen to them. Do LRC and MI endorse Christian Reconstructionism by virtue of publishing Gary North's essays that do not advocate this ideology? It does not appear to me to be the case.

I do not agree with Tom Palmer's apparent view that the war in Iraq is desirable or that libertarians should embrace the warfare state. The enactment of Tom Palmer's apparent ideology means that people are being killed and maimed right now, and not in the abstract. Tom Palmer apparently supports killing people now because they are Iraqis and are in the way of the aims of the USG, whereas Gary North is said to support executing homosexuals some day in an unspecified future when Biblical Law is enacted. Assuming both are true statements about these men's views, which is more morally reprehensible? Do having these views make these men anathema? I can't imagine how I could even live in a world where I associated only with people who agreed with me on every important issue. I certainly cannot imagine disassociating myself from people solely on the basis of their associations!

I suspect that an underlying issue is that Palmer and his supporters are socially liberal while LRC and MI represent a much more socially conservative point of view. In a free society, both social liberals and conservatives will be able to live out their preferences, and neither will be required to celebrate the existence of the other. I suspect that there is a fear that neither side is really devoted to freedom and that, given the chance, the conservatives would enact some kind of Biblical Law and the liberals would make it a crime to disapprove of them.