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Entry: The Limits of Lincoln Bashing Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_limits_of_lincoln_bashing#24229 Post contents: To say that Dr. DiLorenzo has been misrepresented by this article is putting it mildly. <i>Perhaps most famously, the paleoconservative historian Thomas DiLorenzo has eagerly accepted Jaffa’s terms of discourse while disputing its moral implications.</i> First of all, DiLorenzo is hardly a paleoconservative. He’s a libertarian of the Austrian School. Mr. Havers hasn’t done his homework. Second, DiLorenzo rejects Jaffa utterly, including Jaffa’s “terms of discourse” (“freedom”, “equality”, “Proposition Nation”). The issue in 1861 was simple: the tariff. And neither Jaffa nor the author of this article seem to know anything about the perfidious Morrill Tariff, or about what harm tariffs do, or about economics at all. (And on this website Mr. Havers is hardly alone in this ignorance). The author would do well to actually read Dishonest Abe’s First Inaugural: He had no intention of touching slavery, and intended to insure it for perpetuity; but he sure was going to ram the tariff down Dixie’s throat! Mr. Havers hasn’t done his homework. <i>Lincoln was not the first architect of Leviathan in America</i>. Nor did DiLorenzo ever say that he was! DiLorenzo clearly see Lincoln in the Hamilton-Clay Federalist-Whig tradition of centralized statism, fake “nations”, and fiat money. Mr. Havers hasn’t done his homework. I would go further and argue that this tradition goes back to the founding of the Whigs in 1678 and extends forward to the so-called “Neo-Conservatives”. The attempt to separate this website from Neoconservatism fails again. The Neocons really don’t believe in “democratic universalims”, it being as it was for Dishonest Abe a fig leaf for their economic and nationalist ambitions. Mr. Havers, Sam Francis, Mr. Piatik, and Mr. Richert all agree with the Whig-Lincoln-Neocon definition of Federal Power and Gringo Nationalism. Just as Republicans are Democrats at 80 cents to the dollar, so Paleos are Neocons who just think melanin is important (it isn't). Time for Dixons, Jeffersonians, and Burkeans all to pull out of the shell of moribund “Paleoconservatism”, now that Lincolnism-Whiggery and paganism have found a home here. The author would do well to read <i>The Real Lincoln</i> and deal with its arguments. And Richard Gamble agrees that DiLorenzo is correct. I shall alert Dr. DiLorenzo of Havers’s article. Maybe Dr. DiLorenzo will consider responding on LewRockwell.com . Sent at: 2008 07 04