17 Mar 2014

Judge Napolitano Takes over The Daily Show

Humor, Libertarianism 89 Comments

The term “like a boss” is overused, but oh my word:

I’m sorry kids, but you need to know when to take “yes” for an answer. I had put off watching Napolitano’s appearance because I had seen nothing but b*tching and moaning in the blogosphere about how awful it was.

What are you guys talking about? First and most important, Napolitano took over that show like I have never seen anyone do–not even the actress from Hunger Games.

Second, it’s not as if Jon Stewart did his best to sabotage Napolitano; he is trying to be fair, explains that he knows Napolitano loves liberty etc., and just was flummoxed by Napolitano’s discussion of Lincoln.

Yes, there was a follow-up game show–which I didn’t watch because I can’t stand that new addition to the cast playing Abraham Lincoln–and I’m guessing the point of that bit was to discredit Napolitano’s views. But look: When they don’t give Peter Schiff time to explain, you guys complain about that. When they give Napolitano more time than Nancy Pelosi (?), you guys complain about that too.

If you are a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist, you have extremely odd–freakish even–views in the eyes of most Americans. Judge Napolitano’s appearance on the Daily Show is an unqualified success, and Jon Stewart is a good guy for giving the Judge such a platform. Stewart even refers to him as his friend (when transitioning to the goofy game show), and makes sure his audience knows that he means it.

It’s going to be hard to make any progress in changing public opinion if “we” bite off everybody’s head who doesn’t agree 100% with our views, which I imagine for many of you, you yourself didn’t hold your entire adult life.

89 Responses to “Judge Napolitano Takes over The Daily Show”

  1. Teqzilla says:

    Nah, son. What you describe as Stewart’s attempts to be fair are only the sugar to make the medicine go down. Jon stewart is “america’s greatest journalist”, the Daily show is “so much better and more thoughtful than so called real news shows”. The interview was simply an acknowledgement that the weakest lincoln bit was too unfunny, unfair and transparent in its aim of depicting Napolitano as a racist crank to be reconciled with the image the Daily show projects of itself.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Teqzilla look at what you’re saying: The “only reason” they allowed Napolitano to come on, get the crowd cheering for him, etc., is that they realized they had treated him unfairly and they don’t want to do that.

      And that’s a criticism?

      Does Krugman give me a chance to write 850 words on his blog, since he feels bad after a hit piece on me?

  2. Andrew' says:

    Bob,

    There are people who managed to miss Ron Paul. The lived through their liberal friends warning them Ron Paul was an extremist. Then they heard something Rudolph Giuliani said about Ron Paul. Then they listened to the guy whose best idea was a Trillion dollar platinum coin hand-wringing over Ron Paul wanting to firebomb The Fed and horrible things would happen if he got some chairmanship. Now Ron Paul is riding off into the sunset and a lot of people who think they are informed didn’t even notice.

    So, don’t be shocked if…well, anything.

    These guys were surprised that we might hold some reservations of a guy who invaded America.

    • Andrew' says:

      Bob,

      First of all, this is about racism, not slavery. Why are people so dumb? I mean that seriously.

      We now define blacks as equals, then they didn’t. Again, why can’t people understand this?

  3. Ken B says:

    “Judge Napolitano’s appearance on the Daily Show is an unqualified success”
    I agree. Not for the reasons Bob imagines, and not for Napolitano.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      “That’s not true!” – Ivey League professor of history

    • Richie says:

      You’re just uncomfortable with Napolitano’s success on the Daily Show.

  4. Bob Roddis says:

    In the second segment, Stewart had a panel of 3 Marxist professors there to “refute” Judge Napolitano. The issue was whether the civil war about slavery. The judge stated that the north was still capturing and returning runaway slaves to their owners in Union slave states as late as June 1863, which was after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. In response, the panel shouted out, “That’s not true!!!” which was never corrected by Stewart. Properly outraged, Tom Woods explains the truth:

    http://tomwoods.com/blog/judge-right-daily-show-wrong-on-fugitive-slaves/

    The fact of the matter is that our opponents will never even allow the gist of our argument to ever be expressed in public. This is just another example of that.

    However, there is no reason why the continuous expression of this type of behavior by our opponents is not a net benefit to our side.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Bob Roddis wrote:

      The fact of the matter is that our opponents will never even allow the gist of our argument to ever be expressed in public.

      Bob, what does Stewart have to do? Let Napolitano guest host an episode of the Daily Show?

      You’re saying no one has any idea what Napolitano’s position is? That Stewart gave the impression, “This is a really awful man who hates black people, let’s all make fun of him”?

      • Major_Freedom says:

        Yup. Hence the game show.

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Well, then you’re wrong MF. Stewart is a comedian with a liberal audience. It is amazing that he let Napolitano have such a platform. When Krugman and DeLong invite me to a Bloggingheads match and give me 30% of the speaking time, let’s talk.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            “liberal audience”

            …and liberal writers.

            When Stewart had Desmond Tutu on the show, or Al Gore, his writers refrained from making jokes that poked fun at their ideologies. Guests like that spew progressive porn that Stewart and the audience just love. It is not true that every single guest Stewart has is part of a constant laugh riot. He has serious interviews with the non-insulting kind of humor. That is what Napolitano deserved IMO. Not to be put on a mock game show.

            Yes, it’s a liberal show by design. Yes it might be asking for too much to expect the writers and Stewart to treat Napolitano more seriously like his liberal guests instead of being put on a mock game show which is a deliberate attempt to present his views as those of an ignorant celebrity Jeopardy guest who is patronizingly “corrected” by professors. But this can be solved by better ideas.

            OK, I get it, you think it’s great he got the airtime he did. I won’t say you’re wrong for being optimistic and happy that this happened instead of a possible alternative of ignoring and not having him on the show at all.

            For me, I can think of yet other alternative possibilities. Him going on the show without a silly game show. Stewart joking about more innocuous things and not Napolitano’s beliefs.

            Would Stewart have Al Gore on a mock game show with professsors saying he didn’t invent the internet?

            If the alternative was either Napolitano going on a mock game show, or not going on the show at all, then I would be on board with your assessment. But I don’t think that is the only alternative possible. When I compare what did happen, with what I have in mind as to what otherwise could happen, I’m not enthused.

            Maybe you’re being more realistic than me, I don’t know for sure. But I have in my mind what could happen, and this is what I deal with.

    • Reece says:

      Well, Napolitano actually said that some runaway slaves were returned to the South, not just that the fugitive slave law was being enforced in the border states. So, depending on what you consider the South to be, the “experts” could have been right.

      • Ken B says:

        They clearly were. North and South were being used in context there. Possibly Napolitano misspoke.

        • Reece says:

          I didn’t want to go all the way to “they were right” because I haven’t actually studied this matter, and I’m not sure I agree on the context part.

          Just looking at the Confederate states (if that was what he meant by the South, rather than some place like Kentucky) that could still be a bit murky. For example, were any slaves returned to Virginia between the time the Civil War started and the time they seceded? If so, I think Napolitano would be correct.

          Regardless, I agree that Woods’ video did not prove the experts wrong – it more leads me to believe they were both misleadingly right (not misleadingly in a bad way, but in a failed-to-explain-completely way). It would have been interesting to see the panel respond to the fugitive slave act being enforced in general instead. I didn’t know that was the case before.

    • Keshav Srinivasan says:

      I thought Andrew Napolitano was talking about returning slaves to the Southern states.

      • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

        How could federal (northern) marshalls return slaves to southern (as in, the ones that seceded) states that were in open rebellion during the middle of a war?

        I think given the historical context, it’s pretty obvious that The Judge meant “the border states where slavery was still legal.” Keep in mind the mere EXISTENCE of such places is kind of one of the major points AGAINST Lincoln being a staunch anti-slavery crusader, and something that the average college undergrad/Jon Stewart fan probably isn’t aware of.

      • Andrew' says:

        He was essentially responding to the insinuation that they had tried compensating the slave owners.

        They didn’t. They tried to bribe allies for the war. That’s all.

        Judge should have destroyed Stewart on that one, but he chose to make the point that Lincoln was not so single-mindedly anti-slavery as our modern known-nothings believe.

    • Ken B says:

      “The judge stated that the north was still capturing and returning runaway slaves to their owners in Union slave states as late as June 1863, which was after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863”

      If the judge said that he was right. If he said ‘the south’ he was wrong. What were his exact words? There seems to be disagreement here amongst commenters.

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Here are his exact words: “The president used federal marshals to chase down slaves that had escaped and return them to the South during the Civil War!”

        • Keshav Srinivasan says:

          It’s at the 5:15 mark of “The Weakest Lincoln”.

        • Ken B says:

          Thank you. Yes, I checked.
          Napolitano is wrong. He may be innocently wrong, or deceptive. Woods is being deliberately deceptive. A stronger term leaps to mind in fact.

          Woods shows his usual stuff here. There’s the cult-leaer apostrophe to his own ‘nunce’ to start. Then the distortion of what his opponents said and of what Napolitano said. Woods is careful not to quote Napolitano or play a clip; careful to not show the evidence. Then a careful justification of the claim I noted above that is true, but was not the claim made. This cannot be less than deliberate considering he amount of work that went into it and the passage of time.

          As I said, typical Woods stuff.

          • Bob Murphy says:

            Ken B.,

            I don’t want to have to edit people’s comments, so let me issue a warning: You are really pissing me off here. Quite clearly, on the issue of whether Abe Lincoln is a great guy who is willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people because gosh darn it, that’s how much he abhors slavery, the fact that his Administration is still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law *after* the Emancipation Proclamation is a bit relevant. The point for the general public isn’t whether FSL was being enforced in border or Southern states, give me a break.

            So going forward, if you’re going to suggest one of my personal friends is a liar for something, it should be a pretty open and shut case, in your favor. Not in the favor of the person you are calling a liar.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              Murphy,

              Ken B is just extremely distraught and discomforted by the growing realization that Lincoln was not who we were taught he was in public school.

              His views are being refuted, and so he is emotionally lashing out in defense, calling Woods a liar.

              It’s a sign of weakness, more than douchebaggery.

              We need to be distracted over whether or not Lincoln sent his thugs to return escaped slaves to northern states, or southern states. After all, that would matter when it comes to understanding what Lincoln really thought about the slaves.

            • Ken B says:

              Bob if Woods had argued that there’s a substantial point and that Napoletano misspoke, then all would be well. Instead, although the historians are perfectly correct, he clearly and flatly misrepresents what they said. Marshals did not return runaway slaves to the Confederacy. None of the historians on the panel denied the fugitive slave law was enforced during that time. They denied the statement that they were returned to the south.

              Look at Roddis’s statement. It is flatly incorrect, that statement is not what the panelists denied. This is the key point. Your team is high-fiving because you think you caught eminent professors in a howler. You did not, Napolitano at best misspoke.

              So some questions Bob. In his statement did Napoletano mention that it was only states loyal to the union where this was happening? In their objections to those historians object to anything but the entire statement? Do you remember the historians cry out no the fugitive slave law was not enforced at all? I from my reading know that the fugitive slave law was forced during the war; is it plausible Foner would not know that?

              • jamhandle says:

                >Marshals did not return runaway slaves to the Confederacy.

                Napolitano clearly did not say that marshals did so.

                Typical lies from Ken B.

              • Bob Roddis says:

                Isn’t Maryland SOUTH of the Mason-Dixon line?

                The judge didn’t say “confederacy”. As long as we’re splitting hairs and have nothing else to do

              • Bob Roddis says:

                Further, Maryland probably would have seceded but for the fact that it was already conquered by the Union army before the war even started. At which point the Union did nothing to abolish slavery in Maryland, which is the whole point. Just as Lincoln expressly said: Stay in the Union, collect and pay over the tariffs and you can keep your slaves forever.

          • Major_Freedom says:

            I don’t get it. What difference does it make that fugitive slaves were returned by the Feds to their masters in the north or the south? I thought the point was to show Lincoln’s true demeanor towards slaves.

            • Bob Murphy says:

              MF wrote:

              I thought the point was to show Lincoln’s true demeanor towards slaves.

              No, the point is that Ken B. is the only guy who opposes slavery.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ah yes, because he supports genocide of men, women and children the mostest.

                It makes sense because we can only focus on one thing at a time.

                If you don’t support genocide, you’re racist. Ah, the psychological fix only lasts but a few seconds there.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                I think Ken B dislikes Woods because Woods outsnarks him, and is doing it against Ken B’s views.

              • Ken B says:

                No, but Ken B to be one of the few guys on this blog who objects to misrepresenting people.

              • Major_Freedom says:

                Ken B:

                You mean there is only enough room here for you to misrepresent yourself, to wit, it’s as if you never said the judge was wrong to include the word “south” in his Daily show appearance argument about the feds returning eacaped slaves to their masters.

                You are misrepresenting the number of times you’re wrong.

            • Ken B says:

              I know you don’t get it. But the point is that conclusions are being drawn and statements made about historians who objected to a statement that was made on national television. Their objection was “that’s not true.”

              • Major_Freedom says:

                BUT IT IS TRUE

          • Bob Roddis says:

            Ken B: You haven’t called me anti-semitic lately? What’s wrong?

          • Bob Roddis says:

            I think it’s a much worse indictment of Lincoln and the North that these slaves were returned to their “owners” in Union states pursuant to court orders of Union states and D.C., all after the Emancipation Proclamation (which only applied to areas NOT under Union control).

            Again, the central point should be that the North was racist to the core and the main reason the Union government INVADED the seceding states was to keep the south from engaging in free trade with European suppliers who could/would undercut Northern suppliers absent a 50% tariff. The abolition of slavery was a war measure employed to undermine the southern resistance.

          • razer says:

            You’re also the guy who accuses people of having it both ways when hey offer no opinion and run away when your called to back up your BS.

            Just saying.

          • jamhandle says:

            Of course, if you actually cared about accuracy and intellectually you’d make clear that every border state (state that remained with the union during the civil war) except missouri is a ‘southern’ state, and so if you’re returning slaves to these states you’re returning them to ‘the south’, since ‘the south’ is not synonymous with ‘the confederacy’.

            Typical Ken B stuff.

            (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States)

  5. Major_Freedom says:

    The reason I think there are complaints and quibbles from libertarians every time a libertarian is interviewed/covered:

    Look at the environment we live in today. Agreed, these views are odd, freakish even, to most people. Well what the heck kinds of people do you think will make it through that overwhelming tsunami of anti-libertarian status quo? The people who ride the waves and play nice?

    Libertarianism is where it is today because of the incredibly tough as nails standards that some people are imposing on themselves. To never be fully content with getting a nod or a wink or a mention. To be absolutely relentless in the quality of discourse. To be, in short, an intellectual fighter. These are the people who tend to be “filtered” out when we live in a mostly non-libertarian world. The radical crazies tend to make it through the miasmic onslought of anti-libertarian discourse. So they aren’t purposefully concerned with merely “getting attention”. Their constitutions are to quibble over everything. That’s what most libertarians are like today. Shrill like.

    What kind of people would tend to be the first slave revolters? Those who clap and shout at being given attention by the masters? Or those who buck the trend of “normal” day to day life, and find plenty of faults in a slave being given a day of rest and food? Would they shut up and be happy with the one day? Of course not. They have visions of improvement that are way beyond the standard of success of the average slave.

    There are tough standards that anarcho-capitalists and libertarians impose on themselves. I don’t think the new generation can do what you ask them to do. Or maybe they can, but it’s going to take a lot of work. It is more likely going to take the next wave, those who follow libertarianism because it is significant enough to follow for reasons other than purely philosophical ones. The current generation are doing the dirty work, and so tend to play dirty. The next wave might be the more “ride the wave” type libertarians. Maybe then you’ll see the more light hearted, jovial, NON-SERIOUS approaches against the mainstream when the mainstream addresses libertarianism.

    Personally, I think it is fantastic that the libertarians you are observing are not resting on their laurels nor being content with merely being mentioned or given airtime. To point out every single flaw they see, every single imperfection that they see, it’s teaching not only other libertarians a higher standard, but even those who are giving libertarians air time. Those journalists and whatnot will know that they will have to be on their best intellectual behavior or else they know they’ll get hammered. That’s a good thing. Let the good stuff through and leave the half ass crap behind. And that is perhaps the best way people can become libertarians. We need people to thirst for knowledge. Build a strong base of a solid core, while the coattail riders perform the role of idea repeater presenting the ideas on silver platters and thank you cards My two cents.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      MF wrote:

      Personally, I think it is fantastic that the libertarians you are observing are not resting on their laurels nor being content with merely being mentioned or given airtime.

      No no no. I’m not talking about the libertarians who get on the air. I’m talking about people on the Internet who bitch and moan about it, and wonder why Schiff and Napolitano are so dumb as to go on The Daily Show and let their views be decimated etc.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        I meant the “bitching” libertarians.

        But not the ones who said Napolitano was stupid. Those are chickens%&t libertarian bitches.

    • guest says:


      Libertarianism is where it is today because of the incredibly tough as nails standards that some people are imposing on themselves. To never be fully content with getting a nod or a wink or a mention. To be absolutely relentless in the quality of discourse.

      It helps to be aware that the enemies of freedom have been, and continue to be, relentless in their efforts, too:

      Rahm Emanuel on the Opportunities of Crisis
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk

      Holder 1995 We Must ‘Brainwash’ People on Guns.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-6IAOBhlU4

      Roseanne Barr on The O’Reilly Factor
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e39lheVnQjA#t=51s

      Howard Dean Deception Boot Camp
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIycNkLAEV0

      These people will forcefully take your money (taxes) to fund their ability to make you do what they want you to do; They will play word games with you to get you to not notice the purpose of their collectivist policies; Their Saul Alinski tactics are designed to allow them to avoid answering questions.

      This is what we’re up against, and thank God I understood enough about the intentions of America’s Founders to be willing to hear other perspectives even when I thought Ron Paul was likely shilling for Left Wing, hating-America, 60s-radicals, Socialists.

  6. Gene Callahan says:

    Slavery in England had “just” been “expired” in 1772. Ninety years later, the southern plantation owners were still willing to fight to the death to preserve it. Fact free analysis?

    • Ken B says:

      It was pining for the fjords. It was an ex-peculiar institition.

    • Andrew' says:

      Can you elaborate on your point?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

      “”””Slavery was officially abolished in most of the British Empire on 1 August 1833.[11] In practical terms, only slaves below the age of six were freed in the colonies. Former slaves over the age of six were redesignated as “apprentices”, and their servitude was abolished in two stages; the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840.

      The Act provided for compensation for slave-owners who would be losing their property. “”””

      They quite likely abolished it in their tiny little island because they didn’t have many huge fields there.

      • Andrew' says:

        This is why I can’t tell if some of you guys are being sarcastic.

        Yes, it takes a bit longer to get rid of slavery in places where slavery actually makes economic sense compared to places where keeping slaves was just a status symbol for people who could afford to waste money.

        • Ken B says:

          You are bolstering Gene’s argument. You know that, right?

    • Bob Roddis says:

      Ninety years later, the southern plantation owners were still willing to fight to the death to preserve it.

      That is out of context. Yes, the southern plantation owners wanted to preserve slavery. I’m not sure they realized that by seceding they were “fighting to the death”. The point is that the north was thoroughly racist with oodles of anti-black codes and that Lincoln was concerned solely with representing his northern business elite clients. That is why Lincoln threatened invasion of the seceding states in his first inaugeral address only if tariffs were not collected and turned over to the feds. He also expressly stated that he would not object to the passing of the Corwin Amendment which would have made slavery a permanent fixture of the US Constitution.

      To state these unpleasant FACTS to the pro-Lincoln statists results in the usual hysterical denunciations of racism and neo-confederate.

      http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/03/judge-napolitano-gets-set-up-on-daily.html?showComment=1394639876637#c2302597509138340924

      • Andrew' says:

        That a country would invade someone just to end slavery is laughable. Our current foreign policy isn’t even that dumb.

        But if they don’t make it all about slavery, then they are worried that the South might have a little bit of a point when they said “we are going to take these independent states and dis-unite them.”

        So, it has to be a moral crusade to end slavery…before you’ve actually abolished it in your own domains. It’s approaching Poe’s Law territory.

  7. Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

    Really? I feel like this was an incredibly low and despicable performance from Stewart and the Daily Show. Far worse than what they did to Schiff.

    Schiff’s appearance was part of an obvious humor segment. It was fairly obvious that they were semi-jokingly making him appear to be the greedy rich guy from Monopoly or what have you. They turned him into a caricature, and while that’s unfair, the segment wasn’t really presented as debate.

    This segment with the Judge was very very different. They made it appear as a legitimate debate, that Stewart “won” mainly by ignoring all of the Judge’s arguments and changing the topic immediately whenever he made a legitimate point. The intent of the two segments was identical, but this one was presented in a way to smear, demean, and DIScourage debate all while pretending that open and honest debate is what they are attempting to accomplish. Very sneaky, sinister, and underhanded.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Matt M wrote:

      Really? I feel like this was an incredibly low and despicable performance from Stewart and the Daily Show.

      Well then you are going to live one miserable life. I really feel sorry for you. You will hate just about everyone you meet until the day you die. That sounds horrible.

      • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

        You don’t think this segment was a kangaroo court? This was the Daily Show doing everything it possibly could to *look* like it fosters honest and open debate, while absolutely NOT really having an honest and open debate at all.

        Non-libertarians came away from this segment thinking that the Judge is some dumb racist who has basic historical facts wrong and was absolutely put in his place by Stewart, a valiant defender of human rights.

  8. Andrew' says:

    People don’t seem to see this subversion as much as I do.

    People are shocked that someone would question a guy who cleaved his own country through civil war.

    The Daily Show acts “shocked! shocked!”

    The target makes himself available to be skewered yet again.

    All is well, except what is the new normal?

    • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

      This is really the part that bugs me the most. I’ve seen this debate tactic so many times and it’s surprisingly effective.

      As much as Stewart puts on the show of referring to the Judge as his friend and claiming to respect his intelligence, he immediately reacts with a completely phony expression of PURE SHOCK at most of the Judge’s arguments.

      One would think that if one of your good friends whom you know to be highly intelligent espouses a viewpoint that you’re unfamiliar with, you might kindly ask to learn more. You might say, “Really? I hadn’t heard that, what do you mean?”

      Instead, he puts on this huge show of expressing to the audience that these ideas are SO bizarre he’s never even heard of them and has no idea whatsoever how to respond! The implication isn’t “Hey, my really smart friend believes these things, maybe there’s some merit in them” but rather, “These libertarians are SO crazy/stupid/racist, even the smart/respectable ones believe crazy/stupid/racist things like ‘Lincoln manipulated the South into firing the first shot!’ How ridiculous of them!”

  9. Bob Roddis says:

    Here is my version of how to have rid the US of slavery without a war:

    1. The North declares without exception that all black and minority people have the same privileges and immunities as all people, including the right to own one’s body and physical property and to engage in voluntary contracts. These rights are then enforced in practice. Runaway slaves are welcomed and become free and prosperous.

    2. A voluntary boycott of southern trade is successful because of the universal disgust with slavery.

    3. The north becomes affluent much more quickly than it did in reality because there was no war and instead, there was a regime of laissez faire.

    4. The vast majority of non-slave holding southerners realize how impoverished they have become compared to the bustling North as the result of Southern stupidity on the slave issue and vote to abolish it.

    • Ken B says:

      “1. The North declares without exception that all black and minority people have the same privileges and immunities as all people, including the right to own one’s body and physical property and to engage in voluntary contracts. These rights are then enforced in practice. Runaway slaves are welcomed and become free and prosperous.”

      Upper Canada. None of your sequelae happened. You are refuted.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        Of course 1. didn’t happen. That’s presumed because Roddis was proposing an alternative solution than genocide.

      • Bob Roddis says:

        You are so right, Ken B. And that’s because having all of the Union states abolish slavery, void the runaway slave laws and welcome runaway slaves (and all minority people) with opens arms is EXACTLY THE SAME as what actually happened with only southern Ontario welcoming the slaves who managed to get through the hundreds of miles of the slave catcher gauntlet and cross Lake Erie to freedom.

        • Major_Freedom says:

          It was so exactly the same Roddis that many of them were so happy about being welcomed on the North that their enjoyment of music became so pronounced that they travelled not just with, but inside rolling pianos along the way and over the border. They must have wanted to get a real close listen.

  10. Bob Roddis says:

    I cannot recall the precise book we used in my college civil war class in 1971 or 1972, but theme was that the war was not about slavery and was between the financial elites of the north and south. The class was taught by old an middle of road professor, not a right winger or flaming commie (there were several of the latter).

    That was pretty much the standard ubiquitous New Left viewpoint back then. It has only been since the leftists were Clintonized in the 90s that they have conveniently “forgotten” the prior New Left scholarship and attitudes on crony capitalism. Kolko was a New Left scholar.

    Perhaps the transformation had nothing to do with Clinton and everything to do with libertarians making points using good New Left scholarship.

  11. Andrew' says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade

    Other places abolished slavery faster because they were getting the crap while the Southern US and other colonies were getting the slaves.

    Duh.

    You guys are incredibly JV. Stop being JV and then I can be nice.

  12. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Here’s the full unedited interview if anyone’s interested:
    http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/xm3fnq/andrew-napolitano-extended-interview
    In the unaired second part, Stewart makes an argument that Napolitano doesn’t give a response to: if it would have been fine to wait until slavery died a natural death, then wouldn’t it also have been fine to wait until the horrors of colonialism died a natural death as they did in Canada, rather than fighting the Revolutionary War?

    • Andrew' says:

      By way of answering with a question, if the US Army was on a moral crusade to stamp out slavery to the point they had to invade their own country, wouldn’t it be odd if nary two years prior they were in the business of putting down slave rebellions?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_%28abolitionist%29#Raid

      Do you hear a ton of libertarians decrying slave escapes? Because that would be the apples-to-apples comparison.

      • Andrew' says:

        Umm, ahem, besides, because of Lincoln we are still patiently waiting on the colonialism thing.

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Well, perhaps they did it out of a belief in the rule of law.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        That is easily explainable. During those two years Lincoln the almighty used his telepathic powers to convince the North that slavery was wrong.

    • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

      No, this is a terrible point that Stewart brings up a million times and never really lets the Judge respond to. I planned on blogging about this eventually, but the TLDR version is that he’s attempting to compare two wars that were VERY different.

      The founding fathers did not march into England, burn it all to the ground, kill all the livestock, steal everything of value, and rape all the wives of British soldiers in order to earn their independence. They fought a war in defense of their homeland until the aggressors decided it wasn’t worth it and left.

      As the Judge starts to point out (before Stewart changes the subject), the analogy here between the founding fathers is to the south, not the North.

      And Stewart’s snide little “Then we could have been Canada” seems to imply that he believes the world would be better off if we never fought the revolutionary war. I’d love to get him to state it that clearly, on the record. And hell, I won’t even put on a completely phony and disingenuous act of being SHOCKED that someone would espouse such a viewpoint. If he does that’s fine, I just want him to say so.

    • guest says:

      Britain attacked the seceding colonists. The seceding colonists didn’t attack Britain.

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Stewart is saying, why was there a need for the American colonies to even try to get independence if the horrors of colonialism would die a natural death?

        • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

          Perhaps there wasn’t. What does that have to do with Lincoln either way? Other than a cheap “gotcha” tactic to try and discredit his supposed “good friend.”

          Although once again, the Judge pointed out that he would have supported a slave revolt in the South. That’s not what the War Between the States was. That IS, essentially, what the founding fathers claimed the War of Independence was. Stewart immediately dismissed this distinction by laughing at it and moving the topic in a different direction.

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            “Perhaps there wasn’t. What does that have to do with Lincoln either way? ” It’s to point out a potential inconsistency in Napolitano’s views.

            • Matt M (Dude Where's My Freedom) says:

              Which has nothing to do with the topic they are supposedly debating. Not the type of thing you do to your good friend whom you highly respect and are allegedly bringing on your show so that he can be given a fair opportunity to defend himself against your previous attacks.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                What’s wrong with saying “You’re my friend and I respect you greatly, but I just don’t understand, how can you support the Revolutionary War but not the Civil War? Don’t you see that this argument that you’re using against the Civil War applies equally well to the Revolutionary War? So given your strong feelings about Revolutionary War, don’t you see that the same reasoning applies to the Civil War as well?”

  13. Gamble says:

    “not even the actress from Hunger Games.”

    Just watched Catching Fire last week. Highly recommend it.

    ( 2nd installment of Hunger Games) Wife said movie fallowed book closely.

  14. Bob Roddis says:

    [The Emancipation Proclamation] did not apply to the states not in rebellion where slavery flourished (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri) because at its heart its intent was not so much to create free people as to foster slave rebellions in the South (especially on plantations whose owners had gone to war) and to disrupt the food production on which the Confederate army depended. (Lincoln the politician also had no desire to alienate slave-owners in the Border states who were, after all, men whose votes he would need at the next election.) In other words, as Secretary of State William Seward remarked ironically at the time, “We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.”

    Kirkpatrick Sale “Emancipation Hell”

    • Major_Freedom says:

      I think a major reason people have trouble with accepting the true Lincoln is that they believe they would have to think of something eerily similar to hating their parents, and it is too emotionally distressing to do so.

      I mean, the reason certainly has nothing to do with the historical record.

      • Bob Roddis says:

        I think our opponents have those types of problems with most everything we say. I generally take “racist racist racist” as a form of “witch witch witch”.

  15. Bob Roddis says:

    “They asked me who my master was,” recounted Fanny Carr on her confrontation with the Yankee soldiers. “I said I had no master, that I was a free colored woman.” Fanny Carr, a resident of Alexandria, Louisiana, though born a slave had been free for more than twenty years. The widow stayed in her own home on the outskirts of town with a grown daughter, Catherine. Catherine, also free, worked as a domestic for a neighbor, Mrs. Thomas C. Manning. The Carrs kept farm animals for their own use. Their frame dwelling was proudly maintained and filled with prized household possessions. Fanny cherished the watch left by her husband, and young Catherine took special pride in her bonnets and jewelry. Mother and daughter were respected members of the community. Thomas Manning, associate justice of the state supreme court, characterized them as “truthful and industrious people.”

    The blue-clad invaders arrived in Alexandria in mid-March 1864 and immediately began plundering the town. “On seeing me they asked who I was,” said Fanny. When she tried to make them understand that she was free, they called her a liar. When she said that the house belonged to her and to no one else, “they cursed me and called me a liar again, and said niggers could not own property in this State.”

    “They commenced pillaging the house,” said Fanny. “I begged them to stop.” It was no use. Taken from the home were her silverware, plates, tablecloths, sheets, and mirrors, along with her and Catherine’s clothes. Expensive woolens and linens were stolen, “and my husband’s gold watch,” said Fanny, “which I minded more than the clothes.” All their food supply disappeared, along with the poultry and a hog. A store of lumber she had accumulated was chopped to pieces. The vandals then proceeded to pull down the house itself, even taking bricks from the chimney.

    Fanny was literally left with nothing but the clothes on her back. She later saw her stolen garments being given by the troops “to one of their colored women and a white woman who came off one of the gunboats in the river just in front of the town.”

    Catherine had been at work when the invaders came and did not get home until the next day. Furious over the theft and destruction, she stormed to the headquarters of Brig. Gen. Joseph Mower. “The Yankees said we should not have our things back; that they knew they were not ours, for colored people were not allowed to own so much property down here. I told them they did belong to us,” insisted Catherine. She then asked Col. William T. Shaw for provisions since his soldiers had taken all that she and her mother had to live on. “They wanted me to go away with them.” When she refused, Shaw sarcastically replied “that if I wanted to stay down here I could get the Rebels to feed me.” She told him the rebels would feed her, and she would not go off with Yankees.’

    WAR CRIMES AGAINST SOUTHERN CIVILIANS by Walter Brian Cisco

    • Major_Freedom says:

      See? The Northern soldiers really did invade the south to free the slaves. /s

    • Gamble says:

      I, like Rothbard, and so many other anarcho-capitalist insist that ALL people can and should own property.

      [The blue-clad invaders arrived in Alexandria in mid-March 1864 and immediately began plundering the town. “On seeing me they asked who I was,” said Fanny. When she tried to make them understand that she was free, they called her a liar. When she said that the house belonged to her and to no one else, “they cursed me and called me a liar again, and said niggers could not own property in this State.” ]

  16. Hank says:

    I don’t understand defenders of Lincoln. He said he would allow the Southern states to keep slavery if they rejoined the union. As an an anti-secessionist, all he cared about was the preserving union. He said blacks should not serve on juries because they were inferior to whites.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Lincoln also tried, after the emancipation proclamation (which by the way he wanted passed to reduce southern state military power, not to free the slaves), to have hundreds of thousands of blacks kidnapped and sent to the British colonies in S America to be slaves on the sugar and cotton plantations. Britain reneged because they feared the south would win the war and sue the British for lost slaves.

    • Philippe says:

      “all he cared about was the preserving union”

      That’s not correct. He wanted to preserve the union, and he saw it as his official duty to do so. He also hated slavery and wanted to end it, but he was initially prepared to make concessions to the other side in order to preserve the union, which was his priority.

  17. Bob Roddis says:

    Up to one thousand slaves were used in 1862 to rush completion of Fort Pickering. an earthwork used to guard land approaches to the key commerce center of Memphis. Tennessee. It wasn’t Confederate forces that compelled the slaves to labor, it was General Sherman. Within days of taking command in Memphis in the summer of 1862, Sherman had 750 slaves working on the fort. And what was Sherman’s contribution in Memphis to the war contemporary Lincoln scholars proclaim a war of racial justice? It was to “establish rules for slave labor” in order to hurry completion of Fort Pickering which had been started by Grant. In fact, Sherman “required accurate book-keeping on the use of slaves for later payment to loyal slaveholders.” Sherman “placed the slaves under his jurisdiction at work on Fort Pickering, and soon had a thousand working there, another two hundred working for the quartermaster on the levee and three hundred to four hundred as teamsters and cooks in the regiments.”

    “LINCOLN UBER ALLES – DICTATORSHIP COMES TO AMERICA” by John Avery Emison

  18. Bob Roddis says:

    Expulsion of Jews from Paducah and Other Anti-Semitic Actions, December 1862

    The store of the expulsion of the Paducah Jews from their homes is a dark, bizarre moment in American history, one that is almost completely unknown n outside the Jewish community. The fact that the U.S. Army conducted its own form of pogrom right here on American soil, speaks volumes on the extent of ignorance about the atrocities that took place during the Civil War.

    The United States government needed cotton during the war for uniforms, blankets, canvas, and other items. THE LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION DECIDED TO PERMIT TRADE WITH THE SOUTH THROUGH TRADING LICENSES THAT WERE ISSUED AND REGULATED BY THE TREASURY AND WAR DEPARTMENTS. Much of this regulated trade occurred in and around Memphis and fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army in June 1862. Naturally, some of the trade was conducted illegally, without license or official government sanction.

    There are many references to cotton traders making a fortune during the war, some of whom were Jewish. One such cotton trader was Jesse Grant, father of the general. Jesse Grant signed a contract in December 1, 1862 with three prominent Jewish brothers from Cincinnati, Harmon, Henry, and Simon Mack. The elder Grant promised to use his influence with his son to obtain a permit that would allow the Macks to trade with the Southern states.'” Even Lincoln knew something of the extent of the black market. He wrote to a friend, “The army itself is diverted from fighting the rebels to speculating in cotton.”^ Indeed, Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut “participated in the smuggling himself once he was appointed post commander in Memphis. He “then blamed Jewish merchants for the entire problem.”******

    What we know is that Grant issued his infamous General Orders No. 11, December 17, 1862, from the field in Holly Springs back to his headquarters in Paducah. By the terms of this order, all Jews in his military district (northern Mississippi, West Tennessee, and western Kentucky) were to be expelled on twenty-four-hour notice.

    The order read:

    “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order. Post commanders will see that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.”

  19. Bob Roddis says:

    The order was issued under Grant’s authority by his adjutant, John A. Rawlings, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time. It was preceded by two other orders on subsequent days in November 1(S62 aimed at the Jews. From LaGrange, Tennessee, on November 9, Grant sent this order to General Hurlbut in Jackson, Tennessee, “Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out.” The next day, Grant sent this order to General Webster also in Jackson, “Give orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them.”

    Once issued, Order No. 11 was immediately executed in Paducah, Holly Springs, and Oxford, Mississippi, where Jewish soldiers under Grant’s command were stationed. The order prompted the resignation in the field of a Jewish officer, Capt. Phillip Trounstine of Ohio. Trounstine’s letter of resignation cited as cause of his resignation, among other things, “the taunts and malice, of those to whom my religious opinions are known, brought on by the effect that [General Order No. 11] has instilled into their minds.”

    In Paducah, thirty Jewish men and their families were rounded up and hurriedly sent upriver to Cincinnati. Rabbi Bertram W. Korn says in his American Jewry and the Civil War that only two Jews were left behind. “Two dying women [were] permitted to remain behind in neighbors’ care.” Two of the Jewish men expelled with this group had already served enlistments in the U.S. Army.”

    Historian John E. L. Robertson says the oral history of the contemporary Paducah Jewish community holds that the U.S. Army searched every house looking for Jews. Some were hidden by citizens during the searches.

    “LINCOLN UBER ALLES – DICTATORSHIP COMES TO AMERICA” by John Avery Emison

    • Bob Roddis says:

      Typo: It was preceded by two other orders on subsequent days in November 1862 aimed at the Jews.

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