Comments on: The Hegemonists, Thomas Woods and the League of the South http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/ n. the principle of good order "Observe the strange inversion of all order and sense! Dignity debased; how vilely is the function of a consul prostituted!" ~The Craftsman Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:49:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: Daniel Larison http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-8574 Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:15:13 +0000 http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-8574 But what is his real gripe exactly? That instead of merely talking about the legitimacy of secession, I support a secessionist group? If I supported the Second Vermont Republic, would that be any different? Is the problem that they are secessionists, or is it that they sympathise with the Confederacy? Or is it both? Which of these is the "noxious" view that "respectable" people are supposed to find unacceptable? But what is his real gripe exactly? That instead of merely talking about the legitimacy of secession, I support a secessionist group? If I supported the Second Vermont Republic, would that be any different? Is the problem that they are secessionists, or is it that they sympathise with the Confederacy? Or is it both? Which of these is the “noxious” view that “respectable” people are supposed to find unacceptable?

]]> by: Koz http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-8573 Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:09:47 +0000 http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-8573 I'll grant you that support for the Confederacy is a more complicated subject than the usual discourse on the subject allows, but if you really do support a “Southern Nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic” then to some extent Kirchik's gripe is legit. I’ll grant you that support for the Confederacy is a more complicated subject than the usual discourse on the subject allows, but if you really do support a “Southern Nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic” then to some extent Kirchik’s gripe is legit.

]]> by: Daniel Larison http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-41 Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:51:43 +0000 http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-41 You make a good point. Max Boot is fantastically ignorant about American history, but regarding the things that he champions (chiefly the neo-imperialist doctrine and finding half-baked justifications for it in American history) I believe that he does know some of the evidence behind the substance of the claims that Dr. Woods is making and chooses either to ignore the evidence or view it according to his belief in the necessity of American hegemony. In his little book, The Savage Wars of Peace, he valorises the small wars of the early twentieth century by deliberately turning a blind eye to the unavoidable conclusion that they were practically all fought for corporate interests, simply exulting about the "moral" and humanitarian goods that we were pursuing or were achieving. Clark Stooksbury had an excellent description of the career of Smedley Butler in the July 2002 Chronicles issue (I believe that's the right month), and what he quoted from Butler there (and what Butler wrote in War is a Racket) made a mockery of Boot's claims, at least about the small wars of the early twentieth century (which are the only wars directly pertinent to his thesis about the 'normalcy' of presidents having often deployed Americans overseas). Since then, I have been convinced that Max Boot is perfectly willing to deny or distort evidence as it suits him. My letter in response to a servile, effusive review of Boot's book in New Criterion can be found online here: http://www.newcriterion.com/constant/letters2.htm Mine is about three-fourths of the way down the page. Jude Wanniski also happened to write in on the same subject and had much the same reaction as I did. Incidentally, I have also found, in one of Boot's own descriptions of his little book for Hoover Digest, that Boot is perfectly willing to be sloppy or dishonest about the facts regarding other deployments, such as the Tripolitanian War. In his lame attempt to justify undeclared wars, he claims that war was never declared in this conflict. This is simply not true. It is true that, because our embassy had been attacked, Jefferson responded first with force and then sought congressional approval in a formal declaration against Tripoli some nine months after the first fighting began. Of course, a state of war exists when one's territory, including one's embassies, are attacked by a hostile state, which allows the president to take certain measures for defense and immediate retaliation that do not admit of waiting for an assembly of Congress, but it is legally necessary that any continued prosecution of a war be explicitly authorised by Congress in a declaration--fourth-graders might have a better grasp of constitutional law than Mr. Boot on this point. The delayed declaration of the Tripolitanian case is very different from saying that a declaration was considered unnecessary. Nowadays, when Congress is virtually in permanent session for most of the year and travel is extremely easy, there would be no excuse for immediately assembling Congress in response to any such attack and declaring a state of war. As for his other examples, the Haiti and Nicaragua deployments were not wars, but simply involved occupying the countries in question. Incidentally, simply because such practices occurred in the past in no way legitimises them today, if they are found to be fundamentally unconstitutional (as I believe they are). He refers to a presence in China lasting 100 years, which is silly: here we are not speaking of a meaningful military deployment, much less a war, but of the intermittent presence of American forces to secure commercial interests, extract concessions and the security of the embassy. Once again, whatever presence there was in China was precisely a function of Eastern interests in the China trade and our being a bystander and beneficiary of the imperialist carving of China into spheres of influence. No doubt there was also something very "moral" about all of that. Mr. Boot is not quite as ignorant as he might seem; he simply does not care about making solid arguments based in evidence, as the evidence for most of American history repudiates his awful vision of what is authentically American foreign policy. As to whether he is evil or not, I will leave that to God. But we do know him by his fruits, and they are not very good. This is the link: http://www.hooverdigest.org/023/boot.html You make a good point. Max Boot is fantastically ignorant about American history, but regarding the things that he champions (chiefly the neo-imperialist doctrine and finding half-baked justifications for it in American history) I believe that he does know some of the evidence behind the substance of the claims that Dr. Woods is making and chooses either to ignore the evidence or view it according to his belief in the necessity of American hegemony. In his little book, The Savage Wars of Peace, he valorises the small wars of the early twentieth century by deliberately turning a blind eye to the unavoidable conclusion that they were practically all fought for corporate interests, simply exulting about the “moral” and humanitarian goods that we were pursuing or were achieving.

Clark Stooksbury had an excellent description of the career of Smedley Butler in the July 2002 Chronicles issue (I believe that’s the right month), and what he quoted from Butler there (and what Butler wrote in War is a Racket) made a mockery of Boot’s claims, at least about the small wars of the early twentieth century (which are the only wars directly pertinent to his thesis about the ‘normalcy’ of presidents having often deployed Americans overseas). Since then, I have been convinced that Max Boot is perfectly willing to deny or distort evidence as it suits him.

My letter in response to a servile, effusive review of Boot’s book in New Criterion can be found online here: http://www.newcriterion.com/constant/letters2.htm
Mine is about three-fourths of the way down the page. Jude Wanniski also happened to write in on the same subject and had much the same reaction as I did.

Incidentally, I have also found, in one of Boot’s own descriptions of his little book for Hoover Digest, that Boot is perfectly willing to be sloppy or dishonest about the facts regarding other deployments, such as the Tripolitanian War. In his lame attempt to justify undeclared wars, he claims that war was never declared in this conflict. This is simply not true. It is true that, because our embassy had been attacked, Jefferson responded first with force and then sought congressional approval in a formal declaration against Tripoli some nine months after the first fighting began. Of course, a state of war exists when one’s territory, including one’s embassies, are attacked by a hostile state, which allows the president to take certain measures for defense and immediate retaliation that do not admit of waiting for an assembly of Congress, but it is legally necessary that any continued prosecution of a war be explicitly authorised by Congress in a declaration–fourth-graders might have a better grasp of constitutional law than Mr. Boot on this point. The delayed declaration of the Tripolitanian case is very different from saying that a declaration was considered unnecessary. Nowadays, when Congress is virtually in permanent session for most of the year and travel is extremely easy, there would be no excuse for immediately assembling Congress in response to any such attack and declaring a state of war.

As for his other examples, the Haiti and Nicaragua deployments were not wars, but simply involved occupying the countries in question. Incidentally, simply because such practices occurred in the past in no way legitimises them today, if they are found to be fundamentally unconstitutional (as I believe they are). He refers to a presence in China lasting 100 years, which is silly: here we are not speaking of a meaningful military deployment, much less a war, but of the intermittent presence of American forces to secure commercial interests, extract concessions and the security of the embassy. Once again, whatever presence there was in China was precisely a function of Eastern interests in the China trade and our being a bystander and beneficiary of the imperialist carving of China into spheres of influence. No doubt there was also something very “moral” about all of that.

Mr. Boot is not quite as ignorant as he might seem; he simply does not care about making solid arguments based in evidence, as the evidence for most of American history repudiates his awful vision of what is authentically American foreign policy. As to whether he is evil or not, I will leave that to God. But we do know him by his fruits, and they are not very good.

This is the link: http://www.hooverdigest.org/023/boot.html

]]> by: Jim Newland http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-40 Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:07:17 +0000 http://larison.org/2005/03/01/the-hegemonists-thomas-woods-and-the-league-of-the-south/#comment-40 In re: Max Boot, this reduces to the age-old question with regard to one's political opponents: are they evil or just stupid? Daniel, your answer seems to be that Boot is evil--he knows the truth but resents Southerners because of their rootedness. I don't think this is true. Max Boot, like most people these days, is simply ignorant of American history. He buys the fairy tales that have been told to him by liberals and their neocon brethren, and since to him those two groups represent a full left-right spectrum of thought, it never occurs to him that perhaps they are both laboring under the same errors and misconceptions--that they both constitute, in fact, a single camp. Thus, if and when someone does come along with a different interpretation of historical events, that person must, ipso facto, be an "extremist" and a loon, for he is outside the acceptable bounds of the political spectrum. (There are serious problems with the whole notion of a political spectrum in the first place, but that's neither here nor there. Boot thinks there's one and that paleocons and libertarians fall outside the acceptable bounds. In fact, it is part of the very definition of "paleocon" and "libertarian," in Boot's mind, to be wrong on history.) This is why he's so quick to jump on Dr. Woods and call him names, without ever bothering to consider or refute Woods' substantive claims. To him, it's not necessary, because "everyone knows" that Woods' claims have to be based on lies and distortions of the truth. In re: Max Boot, this reduces to the age-old question with regard to one’s political opponents: are they evil or just stupid? Daniel, your answer seems to be that Boot is evil–he knows the truth but resents Southerners because of their rootedness. I don’t think this is true. Max Boot, like most people these days, is simply ignorant of American history. He buys the fairy tales that have been told to him by liberals and their neocon brethren, and since to him those two groups represent a full left-right spectrum of thought, it never occurs to him that perhaps they are both laboring under the same errors and misconceptions–that they both constitute, in fact, a single camp. Thus, if and when someone does come along with a different interpretation of historical events, that person must, ipso facto, be an “extremist” and a loon, for he is outside the acceptable bounds of the political spectrum.

(There are serious problems with the whole notion of a political spectrum in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there. Boot thinks there’s one and that paleocons and libertarians fall outside the acceptable bounds. In fact, it is part of the very definition of “paleocon” and “libertarian,” in Boot’s mind, to be wrong on history.)

This is why he’s so quick to jump on Dr. Woods and call him names, without ever bothering to consider or refute Woods’ substantive claims. To him, it’s not necessary, because “everyone knows” that Woods’ claims have to be based on lies and distortions of the truth.

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