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I Don’t Know, and Besides ...

Sunni's picture
Submitted by Sunni on Fri, 2008-01-11 10:22. |

... I am not a crotch-kicker.

For those who’ve asked, I have nary a clue as to who really wrote those RP newsletters. My days as a libertarian “insider” [Ha!] came after they were penned and mailed; and the focus at Free-Market.Net was really on the big tent, not just electoral politics. That, coupled with my extreme disinterest in electoral popularity contests, made it easy for me not to see them if they had been in the FMN database (which seems doubtful). Perhaps Tom Knapp knows; he’s certainly more of an insider networker than I ever was.

There is much speculation abounding over the issue, and I think the author(s) should come forth. If that happens, don’t rush here for the breaking story: look to Wendy McElroy, or Knappster. Wirkman Virkkala was one of the insiders during the time the newsletters came out; he might break the story, but until then, his other writings on the subject and those days are interesting. I especially liked his closing words in Just blame me and get over it:

Politicians will always betray you somehow. I mean, I grew up on Thomas Jefferson, but realized early on that, on the slavery issue, this man was as compromised as one could be. Ron Paul comes out looking like a saint compared to Tom. But then, Tom had more excuses. His whole life was based on slavery, his stance as a rich guy able to do science and philosophy and music and all the civilized rest. It rested on slaves. What excuse do modern-day paleos have, to dredge up the old bigotries about color and culture and skin and the rest?

It is an odd thing, trying to be a civilized person in the libertarian movement — or in modern society. You have to keep some independence of mind. You cannot allow yourself to become part of any cult. For all the leaders will betray you. All the prophets will prove false. All the gems will prove brummagem.

To which I can only add, Amen.

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Timo

Submitted by Happy Curmudgeon on Fri, 2008-01-11 11:46.

I may not always agree with him, but I agree that Timo's writing is interesting and definitely worth reading.

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Nickname?

Submitted by Sunni on Fri, 2008-01-11 15:10.

Where’d he get that nickname? (And I agree with your assessment, by the way.)

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I've been reading his stuff

Submitted by Happy Curmudgeon on Fri, 2008-01-11 15:54.

I've been reading his stuff since his days at Liberty (sort of like I've been reading your stuff since the LRT days and Billy Beck since the usenet group alt.philosophy.objectivism days). In some of those writings he's signed off as Timo. And in a comment to an article at reason.com he wrote the following:

I was named Timothy. I was, for ages it seemed, called "Timmy." Then "Tim." Because of a typo, for one year I went by the name "Time." Later, in recognition of my Finnish ancestry, I offered "Timo" as a more friendly nickname. Unfortunately, some people pronounce this "Timmo," which is wrong. Recently, my neighbors have been using the preppy nickname "Timmer." Hmmm. A number of people now call me "Mr. Tim," which I kind of like, though I'm not sure why.

Since then, whenever I think of him, I think of him as Timo.

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Me? An insider?

Submitted by thomaslknapp on Fri, 2008-01-11 12:57.

Sunni,

Surely you jest. A "networker," sure, but I don't fit in well enough anywhere to be an "insider."

My information on the Ron Paul newsletters is pretty much what's publicly available on the intarwebs, plus some educated guesses based on personal correspondence/conversation and years of the kind of work we used to do together (manually crawling movement sites for material to put into the FMN database or feature in Freedom News Daily).

Most people, including some who were certainly in a position to know, and except for Lew Rockwell and the Paul campaign, seem to be saying that Lew was the "content guy" for the newsletters. Not the sole writer by any means, but the de facto editor/publisher (with Burton Blumert providing the financial structure and Paul lending his name).

Assuming that that much is true, then (as someone else said somewhere), it's reasonable to think of those newsletters as the dead tree predecessor of LewRockwell.Com: Lew on top, with a talented but idiosyncratic group of writers fleshing things out. And absent any evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to assume that longstanding relationships of that type running backward from now to the beginning of LRC probably ran further back than that, into the newsletter era.

On grounds of both style and substance, my opinion is that the worst of the stuff being trotted out now (i.e. the most repugnant material on grounds of racist and homophobic sentiments) was authored by Gary North. But that's just my guess.

As to how Lew reacts to the brouhaha, that's up to him. I don't see that the current LRC modus operandi -- screaming "smear!" at anyone who raises uncomfortable questions -- accomplishes anything worthwhile, but it's his little red wagon and he can pull it in any direction he wants to.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

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I slither corrected

Submitted by Sunni on Fri, 2008-01-11 15:08.

And I’ll modify my comments to reflect that.

Most people, including some who were certainly in a position to know, and except for Lew Rockwell and the Paul campaign, seem to be saying that Lew was the "content guy" for the newsletters.

Lew is quoted as saying he wasn’t, but perhaps he’s playing some Clintonesque semantic games.

As to how Lew reacts to the brouhaha, that's up to him. I don't see that the current LRC modus operandi -- screaming "smear!" at anyone who raises uncomfortable questions -- accomplishes anything worthwhile, but it's his little red wagon and he can pull it in any direction he wants to.

Can’t—and won’t—argue that. But the longer the issue remains shrouded in secrecy, the worse it’ll be for them.

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We do reap what we sow

Submitted by Mama Liberty on Wed, 2008-01-16 17:26.

I've been watching all this, very glad I never was even tempted to get into the little red wagon... much as I continue to be badgered about it all by RP friends.

But something else has come out of all this talk about bigotry and so forth...

Along with every other right we cherish is the right to discriminate. I mean that absolutely. We exercise that right daily in our choices, of course. Who we associate with, what we buy, how we decorate our homes, who we listen to...

Our choices and actions have CONSEQUENCES, and if we want to live at peace with others we must exercise all of our rights with thought to how they will affect our ability to continue in that. Choosing to discriminate against certain kinds of people, of course, can well bear greater consequences than an avowed dislike of cats, for instance, but the principle is the same.

But if we decide we are willing to accept the fall-out from an avowed hatred of something or someone, nobody has a right to stop us from doing so.

The problem, as I see it, with politics (for one example), is that this natural right to discriminate is suddenly treated as some sort of total moral failure - and not as a right to choose for ourselves, for our own reasons.

Isn't the problem the imperial and "unitary" presidency (or any political office) where these discriminations might lead to harming people who are powerless to prevent it or defend themselves? Isn't government unique in this? I think we would all say that, regrettable as it might be, a person could discriminate against anyone, for any reason, on their own property.

Isn't that because the POWER of government is the problem rather than the discrimination? If there were no politicians with power over others, why would it matter so much who or what they were willing to discriminate against?

And please, don't accuse me of defending either RP or racial discrimination. I hate shrimp, actually, but none of them have ever lodged a complaint. :)

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