Mr. Fields's article.
To the editor ...
Prompted by Mr. Fields's observations, I'd like to recount a little bit of what libertarians used to publish in their newsletters and magazines:
In the May 1970 issue of The Individualist, Murray Rothbard published his broadside against what was then called "women's lib." (I think they call it something else now.) It remains one of MNR's most unpopular essays. In anticipation of the backlash, The Individualist published a notice reading in part, "Women. Rothbard is right.... With society in the grip of every sort of insanity, let's not let female beauty slip away. Show how you feel. The Individualist is making available, free of charge, 'Rothbard is right.' buttons. Send for yours today."
In the December 1973 issue of Books for Libertarians (Roy Childs, editor) was published a favorable review of Genetics and Education by Arthur R. Jensen and I.Q. in the Meritocracy by R. J. Herrnstein. The reviewer was Hans Eysenck.
In the April 1974 issue of Books for Libertarians (Roy Childs, editor), Murray Rothbard published his favorable reviews of The Inevitability of Patriarchy by Steven Goldberg and Sexual Suicide by George Gilder.
In the August 1974 issue of Books for Libertarians (Karl T. Pflock, editor), Hans Eysenck published an essay review (favorable) of John R. Baker's Race.
In the January 1975 issue of Libertarian Review (Karl T. Pflock, editor) was published an essay review titled "A New Look at the Zionist State of Israel," discussing Peace in the Middle East by Noam Chomsky, Whose Land Is Palestine? by Frank H. Epp, The Israel-Arab Reader by Walter Laqueur, and The Arab-Israeli Military Balance since October 1973 by Dale R. Tahtinen. The reviewer was Alfred M. Lilienthal.
I venture to say that with the exception of the items by Rothbard — and them only because of the existence of the Mises Institute — not one of these items could appear in a libertarian publication today. Indeed, I doubt that some of the writers could get anything published in a libertarian publication today.
Almost certainly, this classified ad from the November 1974 Reason could never slip into that peridiocal today:
DID SIX MILLION REALLY DIE? Updated analysis exposes Nazi genocide myth. $1 each, three for $2 (cash). Quantity discounts available.Did Six Million Really Die? was written by Richard Harwood and was one of the early discussions of six-million revisionism in English. It was later reprinted under the title Six Million Lost And Found. The business offering the item was in Essex, England. The ad does not seem to have appeared in any other issue of Reason.
James J. Martin certainly understood that, where six-million revisionism and Israel were concerned, libertarians were no different from others. After receiving poison-pen mail for pushing Paul Rassinier's Drama of the European Jews in an interview published by Reason in 1976, he wrote:
There is the same split-personality stuff at work among [libertarians] as well. Though generally adopting an anti-statist stance, many of them secretly or not so secretly adhere emotionally to various pet States on the side. Those with New Left tendencies in historical enterprise related to the Cold War generally smile sunnily upon the Soviet Union. There is a goodly swath whose sentiments were clearly with the Viet Cong and North Vietnam in the recent southeast Asia phase of the unfinished business of WW2. And there is undoubtedly an even bigger one which resonates in harmony with Zionist expansionism in the Eastern Mediterranean. They may be Orwellian with respect to most of their own home front, but they have been mobilized in behalf of the usual good guy-bad guy construct elsewhere.Martin remarked that Harry Elmer Barnes always said that the logical person to undertake a comprehensive challenge of the six-million story would ideally have to be unemployed, retired, or terminally ill.
On the other hand, there was this crack, made in 1986, which surely no "respectable" libertarian would utter today. The occasion was Murray Rothbard's 60th birthday. The Mises Institute put together a conference and a dinner attended by more than 200 people by way of celebration, and they managed to keep the whole thing a secret from Rothbard, so that it was a grand surprise party. Walter Block, reveling in how they had "put one over" on Rothbard, said in a talk he gave at the party, "He swallowed this line about a small meeting and a dinner for a few people that Lew Rockwell gave him. The entire day's event, to borrow a phrase from another of Murray's interests, truly deserves to be called 'The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.'"
Ronald N. Neff
Senior editor, The Last Ditch
August 29, 2003
I would like to append to Mr. Neff's official title: "... and unofficial master archivist of modern American libertarianism." — NS.Too bad about Ilana Mercer. Her loyalty lies with Israel, not America. I'm no brilliant writer or scholar, but I could see through her b******t in a second.
I used to read her, but no more.
Nancy Diemer
Cleveland, Ohio
August 29, 2003The problem I have with this is not that the Holocaust should not be freely investigated, but rather that so many who would investigate claim to be atheist. I believe that the truth is to be sought, but also that Jesus Christ is the truth, way, and life. Surely, the Jewish situation is historical, not Darwinian. I don't see how any of this makes sense from an atheistic viewpoint.
Shari Lemon
August 30, 2003Henry Gallagher Fields purports to be a libertarian, but it smells to me as if his faux "libertarianism" is a cover for something else. If he is not anti-Semitic, he certainly has a "thing" about Jews. One thing is for sure: he doesn't understand the libertarian philosophy of freedom. If he did, he would realize that there is absolutely no government oppression of nutcake Holocaust deniers, haters of Israel, neo-Nazi lunatics, and other Jew-bashing hate cooks. Fields doesn't seem to understand that there is simply no right to be heard or read. Nor is there any right to have one's articles or books published. It is a publisher who has the right to print what they want. Libertarians don't have to discuss the loony topics that Fields gets hot about. That's right, Fields, people have the right to their own views. It's called making a free choice, hard as that may be for the "libertarian" Fields to understand.
There is no right to have a job, either. Employers can hire whomever they want to serve as teacher, nightwatchman, or whatever. And they can fire anyone who espouses views they don't like — like the anti-Semitic droolings Fields would defend. Not only that, but people also have the right to band together to try to stop the stinking anti-Semitic racist filth that pours out of the Internet. ISPs don't have to allow such irrational ranting. And one can exercise one's freedom by putting software on one's computer that filters out all forms of hate.
What about those very few teachers or workers for the state who lose their jobs because of their putrid views? Well, Fields, as a libertarian, if you really were one, you should believe that no one should work for the state to begin with. Oh, I can see him fuming now! But with his libertarian disguise stripped away, Herr Fields had better skulk back to the Bunker with a few brown-shirted boy-toys of his ilk (wouldn't expect to spot any Eva Brauns in that group) and fume about those devious JOOOOOZ taking over the world and preventing all us "libertarians" from exercising our freedoms the way we did in der Vaterland from 1933 to 1945.
John Kent
August 29, 2003
Mr. Fields replies
I wonder whether my critic, Mr. Kent, just might be a capital "L" Libertarian. His prose reflects a distinctive Rubinesque quality — that is, it is similar to the rantings of Irv Rubin, the recently deceased Libertarian Party member, better known for heading the terrorist Jewish Defense League.
Despite the rabidity of Mr. Kent's frothings, I think there is much to be learned from his diatribe, because he makes explicit what for most P.C. libertarians remains implicit and unstated. But before dealing with the specifically libertarian aspects, I must discuss his belief (and it is a common one) that ideas abhorred by Jewish leaders ipso facto represent some malicious pathology. That approach, especially as it pertains to any questioning of the official Holocaust story, is far more than simply fashionable; it is absolutely mandatory for survival in the mainstream. While that is undoubtedly how things are, however, it is not how things would be in an intellectual world that was reasonable at least in part. In such a world, instead of pre-emptively branding ideas as "hate," "droolings," or "anti-Semitic racist filth," one might instead feel obliged to look at the actual content of those ideas. But Mr. Kent rules that out, firmly standing on his right to avoid dealing intellectually with such issues. While patriots of the American Revolution adopted as their defiant motto of rebellion, "Don't tread on me," the stalwart Mr. Kent seems to have adopted his own motto in defense of nescience: "Don't make me think."
Mr. Kent the libertarian, or Libertarian as may be, does not rest with merely trumpeting his right to close his own ears and eyes. He plainly regards it as perfectly acceptable to try to prevent others, as well, from learning about taboo ideas, just so long as — presumably — he can do it without initiating physical force. But is the promotion of ignorance, however noncoercive, really compatible with the work of libertarianism or with its vision? Haven't libertarians always held that one of the purposes of eliminating statist oppression was to unleash intellectual freedom? — haven't they always believed that people should think for themselves in the free marketplace of ideas? Mr. Kent busies himself in looking for non-statist mechanisms to punish freedom of thought and expression. His aim is to keep people's minds in a straitjacket while removing the formal apparatus of state control: to keep slaves obedient even after their shackles have been removed. The end result would presumably be a "stateless totalitarianism," representing the ultimate evolution of what Ronn Neff has dubbed "polite totalitarianism."
It's hard to envision how such an order of things would be possible: more on that point later. But turn it around. How possible would a free society be that was populated by people who were afraid to think for themselves?
***
What is the point of trying to suppress ideas, even ideas purported to be repellent? Shouldn't we expect such faulty ideas to simply lose out, over time, when exposed to the light of reason in the free marketplace of ideas? Libertarians have been traditionally noted for their incisive critiques of views they ardently oppose. In fact, their thinking has been focused on ideas they reject. What if Ludwig von Mises had merely trumpeted his right not to discuss socialism, labeling socialists as malicious lunatics? No one would have been won over to the side of economic freedom by a non-argument such as that. I can't see how a man could ever become a thinking libertarian without confronting and understanding contrary points of view.
P.C. libertarians appear somewhat conflicted in employing the reasoning process. While most ideas may still be analyzed according to the tenets of reason, taboo ideas are considered too dangerous to be so analyzed. Perhaps P.C. libertarians suspect, deep down, that some of those ideas cannot be refuted but only howled down.
Despite Mr. Kent's presumptions, many Western democracies do actually incarcerate taboo-breakers. Given his head-in-the-sand approach to taboo ideas, Mr. Kent may have missed learning of those incarcerations: ignorance, you know, isn't as easy to tweak as the volume control on a stereo. On the other hand, he might regard the very fact of government suppression of taboo ideas as something which he has the "right" not to acknowledge; and more, that he has the "right" to falsely claim such suppression of free expression doesn't exist. When you get right down to it, Mr. Kent might believe he has the "right" to lie.
Now, as an advocate of freedom, I don't believe any person or institution has a right to compel Mr. Kent to speak the truth (except little Kentie's mother, of course), but it's obvious that such thought-resistant habits of mind do stymie any real intellectual discourse. While one has the "right" to believe one plus one equals three, it is fortunate for humanity's sake that, back in the Stone Age, not every caveman fully exercised that "right."
Am I calling Mr. Kent a liar? Moi? No, I am not sure what Mr. Kent really thinks, or whether he is even capable of much cerebration. I would guess that Mr. Kent is stuck in an intellectual Smallville, not quite grasping the implications of what he is saying. And that's very good, because in his Smallvillian ingenuousness he lays bare the de facto M.O. of the big-time Metropolis P.C. libertarians when they deal with, or actually avoid dealing with, taboo topics, most especially those that involve Jews.
***
In a free society, with no government, it would surely be impossible for a P.C. suppression movement to last for long. As I suggest above, the mentally enslaved could never build such a society in the first place. In any case, without state monopolization of half or more of the economy, people would be able to find, or create, far more safe havens devoted to free intellectual inquiry. Absent the state's education monolith with its deadening taxation and stifling regulations and all-important employee-credentialing function, enterprises would flourish where people could freely teach and learn about taboo subjects. There would be no IRS to hound dissidents. Professional defense forces would have to focus on building their reputation and courting customers: no room there for dreaming up false tyrannical "law" and applying it selectively. Under the current regime, it's criminal to say boo to members of alleged "victimized" groups, but members of "hate" groups can be harmed with impunity. One recalls the arson fire that destroyed the headquarters of the Institute for Historical Review years ago; that crime is still unsolved.
But libertarians, try as they might, aren't going to be able to build the stateless society any time soon. Failing that, we would at least expect them to do what they were able to do in the little forums now open to them: that is, to support the principle of free thought and free inquiry. Indeed, we would expect them to proclaim that principle from the rooftops and practice it in life. Whom can we expect to do it if they do not? Unfortunately, today's P.C. libertarians are not up to that daunting task.
September 9, 2003
Mr. Kent's last word
We see it all now. Fieldsy is so-o-o clever by half with his "logic," which is totally irrelevant to my arguments. Unable to deal with them, Fieldsy finds it necessary to engage in insults, mud-slinging, and childish name-calling. With that juvenile Smallville "joke," he must think he's some great wit. It's apparent that Fields, the self-styled "libertarian," has a definite authoritarian personality, trying to force his views on others through intimidation. Does Fieldsy have a problem? Did he forget to go to his psychiatrist for his monthly shock therapy?
Debate with pathological people like Fieldsy is impossible. You see why the lunatic views he defends are ignored by normal people. I don't know why I ever looked into this smelly, mucky, disease-ridden "Last Ditch." Anyhow, I never will again. It's understandable why the site is strapped for money. The only people who would have funded you were hanged at Nuremberg. You say you "dangle from a shoestring." Better keep that shoestring away from Nutsy Fields. On the other hand, a dangling Fields would mean one less Nazi in the world.
John Kent
September 15, 2003
The following indented letters were received before Mr. Fields replied and Mr. Kent emitted his final blast.
It sounds as though no one who is not a Jew has the right to live in Mr. Kent's perfect world. I'd like to ask Mr. Kent: What is the color of the sky there, Red? If so, maybe it is the reflection of the blood of 6 million Palestinians.David Hoffman
August 31, 2003Whew! The letter by John Kent is filled with exactly the name-calling and hate he claims to be against. Nothing so offensive as truth, is there? But of course that's exactly what makes it anti-Semitic: just ask Morris Dees and his ilk.
Larry E. Bigham
August 31, 2003I ask, who is Mr. Kent? He seems to espouse the party line in favor of Israel. It all comes down to this: any criticism of the Jews is outrageous. Anyone who does this is ipso facto a bad person. How did Jews get to be superhuman?
Are the Jews perfect and beyond criticism? Of course not? Then why should they be treated so? They are in fact people capable of doing great harm — no different from other people when they have power and use it badly.
I expect no response to my questions. As for the Jews' being special, it seems so but only by deceit and cunning. The Jews are taught that they are special in God's eyes, but they are no more special than anyone else.
The Jewish fraud must stop. In America we believe that we are all equal in the eyes of the law and God. The Jews are fundamentally different from us in their ideas. I have viewed their Internet sites, and they are totally racist.
The Last Ditch remains a source of truth and encouragement for me. Although I am retired, I shall make my third contribution in the last six months so that the truth may be aired.
William Brewer
August 31, 2003Talk about "hate"!!!!
I've seldom read such expressions of complete loathing as Kent's diatribe against one who disagrees with the politically correct take on the "UNchosen people."
He must keep the Talmud on his bedside table to inspire dreams of Christian-homicide.
Dick Meyer
August 31, 2003Mr. Fields described my libertarian ex-friend Larry to a T. I am interested in both P.C. and un-P.C. libertarian issues, but my friend always tells me to shut up when I discuss the "Jewish question," Israel, or Holocaust "denial." He has a really cushy job at a state university, and although he won't answer me when I bring up those questions, I believe he fears losing his job by discussing the issues or, now, even associating himself with me. My persistent use of free speech to discuss taboo subjects caused him to end our friendship. I am sending him a copy of Mr. Fields's informative and fascinating article in hopes that maybe we can discuss the matter.
Galen Jokipii
August 31, 2003Hear hear! Where are all of those fearless libertarians of old? There once were people like Murray N. Rothbard who accepted without remorse their positions in obscurity, buoyed by their uncompromising love of Truth. Ilana Mercer is as much of a "libertarian" as Richard Perle is a "conservative." Maybe she is a "neolibertarian": after all, Perle is a "neoconservative." Personally, I am a "liberal" like Mises and Hayek and Herbert Spencer. I think insanity must be identified and denounced or it will spread. And it has — look around. Henry Gallagher Fields's article signals that there are still some people around who agree.
Morley Leonard Evans
August 31, 2003
www.MorleyEvans.comI look forward to Mr. Fields's upcoming response to his critics, which I shall read closely. I feel compelled to point out that I personally draw a clear distinction between the hypothesis that the state of Israel uses a complex strategy, including espionage, to influence U.S. foreign policy, and the hypothesis that the Jews are responsible in some way for the decline of culture in the Western world. The former, an hypothesis I find plausible, is no more anti-Semitic than the observation that the British government did the same thing prior to World War II is anti-British. The latter hypothesis is far more problematic and overlooks the fact that both Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises, iconic figures in the struggle for liberty, were Jews. Ascribing pernicious motivations to entire peoples is not libertarian thinking as I see it. It's also important to point out that many Jewish intellectuals are critical of Israel's actions, Noam Chomsky being only the most prominent among them, while many Christians are undoubtedly pro-Israeli to the point of being Christian Zionists of a sort. Surely that complicates any attempt to view the Jews as a whole as some sort of problem.
There is also, to my mind, an important distinction to be drawn between defending the right to investigate any question and opposing prosecution of such investigators for hate crimes on the one hand; and, on the other hand, actually believing that the Nazi extermination of six million Jews was a hoax. Everything I have read leads me to believe that a very large number of Jews were killed by the Nazis, a number easily in the vicinity of six million — and I recently reviewed the entire sordid case in some detail.
Finally, more than a couple of letters that The Last Ditch has published are clearly anti-Semitic as well as ignorant of Jewish religious thinking. Judaism invented the idea that those outside the tribe are to be treated as those inside: an idea not to be found among the Greeks or any of the other Mediterranean civilizations. If the Jews fail to live up to this creed in the day-to-day struggle, well, that's about par for the course, isn't it? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. I think it behooves The Last Ditch to make a clear and unambiguous statement about where it stands on this question. I hope Mr. Fields's reply to Mr. Kent does so because I must tell you that I am deeply unsympathetic to anti-Semitism, which, as I have tried to explain, is something quite different from freely asking hard questions about history, cultural influence, or foreign policy.
More-recent letters.
Mr. Purdy declares he is unsympathetic to anti-Semitism, which is a rather falsely ringing double-negative construct. When it's joined with "I think it behooves The Last Ditch to make a clear and unambiguous statement about where it stands on this question," Mr. Purdy's attitude becomes even more ticklish. Sounds very much like a demand. I don't know what Mr. Purdy believes he will get as an answer but, while I enjoy reading TLD, if I notice it bows before any of these kinds of requests and rushes to delimit, in other words if it agrees to accept any of the P.C. taboos as legitimate, I know I can find myself another site to browse through. Which I can also do if the ideas and synthesis expressed here became a source of displeasure instead of the interesting reading they are now. I suppose Mr. Purdy can operate a similar self-control, especially if he is a libertarian (which I am not ). I usually find self-control more rewarding in the long run than desire to control others, tempting as it may be.
Mr. Purdy writes: "Judaism invented the idea that those outside the tribe are to be treated as those inside: an idea not to be found among the Greeks or any of the other Mediterranean civilizations." Would he care to elaborate? I find that Judaism indeed managed to integrate the Jews into a rather monolithic tribal structure where various paths of thought were eventually subordinated to what was considered the well-being of the tribe as a whole. Yes, there are exceptions. And if we're talking Mediterranean, the Romans strike me as being a little less tribal than others, offering a political frame that helped their ascendancy probably more than their legions did. It was in any case successful as the moniker mare nostrum attributed to the mentioned Mediterranean sea indicates. True, the Romans themselves seem to have had a bit of trouble with a certain tribe that left them puzzled, confused even, to the point when one notorious Roman chose to wash his hands. I believe Mr. Purdy will take the, hopefully, unoffending (hmmm, seems the un-, anti-, non- is catching) irony at its face value.
Al Right
September 24, 2003Mr. Purdy states that "many Jewish intellectuals are critical of Israel's actions," for example, Noam Chomsky. I fully agree. However, once Mr. Purdy makes that point he shifts into the pure Zionist party line. His position, like that of the Zionists, seems to be that anything unfavorable about Jews is anti-Semitic and can be viewed as a hate crime. And, besides, we should treat Jews especially well because "easily in the vicinity of six million" Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
Moreover, he says the Jewish religion teaches that outsiders should be treated well. The hell it does! Read the Talmud. Non-Jews are considered subhuman and are called unclean animals. Mr. Purdy is simply wrong on the facts and wrong-headed in his view of the world. He asks that TLD change its free and reasoned thinking, and ignore the truth when it comes to the Jews. In other words, destroy this forum because the Jews have such a thin skin when it comes to the truth. It seems that Jews have the audacity to ask other people to roll over whenever their strongest feelings are involved. How can one relate to someone who is so selfish?
William Brewer
September 24, 2003In reference to all of the letters regarding the issue of Semitism. anti- or otherwise, I would just like to say that the definition given by all of the writers is wrong, a misnomer, an incorrect interpretation. Read a dictionary; Semitic people are Arabs and Jews, not just Jews ... period. So to be anti-Semitic is to be anti-Palestinian, anti-Egyptian, anti-Israeli, and so on. It is the Zionists who have taken this word to describe a race of peoples, similar to Caucasian or Oriental, and twisted its meaning. It is a lie! If anyone were to call me anti-Semitic, I would say, "I beg your pardon, but I have nothing against Palestinians."
P. Terry
British Columbia, Canada
September 24, 2003
Editor's note. In light of the overall tone of the following letter, readers may find the references to "Mr. Fields" to be somewhat cognitively dissonant. In fact the original text was wholly couched in the second person. However, in publishing letters to the editor I insist on at least this modicum of civility: They must be couched in the third person. I have imposed that style.The original solicitation on this letter was "Dear Anti-Semite."
Nicholas Strakon
Editor-in-chief
I came across Henry Gallagher Fields's article "P.C. libertarianism and the Jewish taboo," I have to comment.I was sickened and appalled. There is too much to comment on ... but the main thing ... I am the son of a Holocaust survivor ... yeah, one of those thousands, hundreds of thousands ... does Mr. Fields think they are delusional, as a group? Has he ever sat with these people and talked to them?
Does he think my father was a liar? I had plenty of differences with my father... but a liar about his past, he was not. His parents, my grandparents, were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He was 17 and survived the last year of the war as slave labor.
My father spoke to me about his experiences twice. He could not bear to talk about it until he was dying ... and, when he was overdosed on pain medications, as he lay dying, and started to hallucinate about Nazis coming ... does Mr. Fields think he was just play-acting?
Does he think the other survivors I met were under the same "delusions"? That they did not watch others being murdered, gassed, shot? Does Mr. Fields think the films of that time were all falsified propaganda films, a la Riefenstahl's films about the Nazi grandeur?
I have no problem with people who claim themselves to be libertarians saying that we — i.e., the U.S. Govt. — should not monetarily support Israel. I have no problem that some are very opposed to Israeli government policies, though I often find the arguments rather ignorant of FACTS, as well as specious; but they are certainly entitled.
I won't, however, read such sick drivel as Mr. Fields writes and let it go unchallenged. He did not grow up with a survivor. He has zero idea of what he writes, and I can ONLY be led to the conclusion that he is full of hatred himself. All those who have nothing better to do than question the reality of the Holocaust are hate-mongers, because there is no other reason TO question it.
If he says, we have to revise the Holocaust numbers or even the question of whether the gas chambers existed ... who cares what the numbers were? Six million, one million ... millions. Mechanized, organized death. By a supposedly civilized group of Europeans (unlike the supposedly less-civilized Japanese, some of whom actually helped Jews escape from the horrors of both the Communists and Nazis).
Did Stalin join in? Was he worse than Hitler? Who cares? This is a contest worth ruminating about? Whom should we give the most credit to for organized murder?
If Mr. Fields says, those who "promote" the Holocaust as the sole excuse to support Israel at all costs ... fine. That would be a valid point, and Israel should not be backed just because of the Holocaust. Those who use it that way ARE wrong.
But no, instead, Mr. Fields and other like-minds of horrible scum (yes, it's a nice ad hominem attack, I don't give a damn ... he is sh*t and I will call him sh*t) attack the veracity of the Holocaust itself, he questions the details.
This is what libertarians have to worry about? Skewering the memory of the Holocaust? Skewering Israel? Go live in Saudi Arabia, a**hole. Go find out how libertarian it is over there, vs. Israel. Iran ... go visit. Go live. Hell, I vote for sharia here ... that'll be good for libertarians.
Does Mr. Fields have a f**king clue?
Go live in the Palestinian territories ... tell me how f**king libertarian they are. Does Mr. Fields know what they tend to do with folks who disagree with the fight against Israel? They shoot 'em. Of course, they tend to murder each other over other things besides political arguments. Remember when they sent a nice young woman, accused of adultery, to blow up some Israelis at the Erez crossing a few weeks ago, in Gaza? But hell, they are libertarian folks, those nice Hamas or PA or Islamic Jihad folks ... and anyway, it's ALL Israel's fault.
Hey, go ride a nice bus-line in Israel ... like the one that goes between two hospitals (which treat Arabs and Jews ... they treat wounded terrorists, instead of lynching them ... remember the Jews who wandered into Ramallah 3 or 4 years ago, were literally flattened to death ... oh, I forget, those were probably lies also) .., one that was blasted recently. Maybe Mr. Fields will get lucky on the Terror Express, and they'll blow his f**king brains out his skull. Palestinian territory is being expropriated? Palestinians being murdered? Hey, live by the sword, die by it. Palestinians started killing Jews almost as soon as Jews started heading to historic Palestine, owned by the Turkish Ottomans and not the "Palestinians," whether rightly or wrongly, at the turn of the previous century.
But then, I suppose s**mbags like Mr. Fields will say that the Jews were terrorizing and setting up illegal settlements then, instead of the historic reality, that Jews were being murdered by Arabs early and often, just for trying to live on the land.
I got this off an Israeli Website today ... I am sure the author was as big a liar as my father. Heck, my father was probably in a nice Carpathian resort during the time he said he was in the camps ... my grandparents probably died of overeating chopped liver.
During December 1947, my maternal great-grandmother [name excised] was being buried on Har Hazeitim. While the funeral procession was taking place, it was attacked by Arabs and the majority of the participants were murdered ruthlessly. Those that were fortunate to survive had to hide and bury the dead during the darkness of night.
One must point out this was during the time when the Holy Land was called Palestine. The Jewish State of Israel had not yet been re-established formally. Judea and Samaria had not yet been falsely and wrongly called "West Bank" (or "occupied" or "Palestinian" territories) by the world. In other words, what excuse was there then for the terrorist Arab attacks? Simple. They were Jews. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Mr. Fields has every right in the world to write his perfidious lies. He has every libertarian right to raise whatever issues he wants, and hell, he can even lie [to?] himself and to everyone stupid enough to read his lies.
Mr. Fields can denigrate libertarians who have issues with liars and anti-Semites. Should he be castigated for his opinions? He makes the argument that all fear the wrath of the Jews ... nah, what's to fear, when you can write lies and promote fantasy and hate, and the worst we can do is call you names? Big f**king deal.
I thoroughly believe in Mr. Fields's right to say whatever he damn well pleases. But people who perpetrate lies have to expect to be brave and put up with being called ... liars. He can write what you pleases ... but so can we who oppose those who have nothing better to do but to be Holocaust Revisionists. Go to hell. Burn in hell.
I have every right to say Mr. Fields is scum. Ignorant at best, a purposeful liar and hater at worst. Scum. Pure and simple.
P.S. I came across Mr. Fields's reply to Butterbach's letter ... Mr. Fields is even a more hate-filled reviling a**hole than I thought before I read that. Unbelievable. Yeah, we have a lot to hide. Mr. Fields is unreal. He is indecent. This goes beyond any rational dislike of U.S. involvement in the Middle East or support for Israel; this is just simply hate mongering and lies.
So, now I know the truth ... Mr. Fields is just a conniving piece-of-sh*t. This is not ignorance, this is wilful lying and hatred-mongering. This is libertarianism? I hope not.
In the libertarian spirit, however, I wish nothing to harm Mr. Fields. I make no threats, I respect his right to be a complete jerk and liar.
I do hope, however, there is a heaven and hell, and Mr. Fields can join Adolf and his friends in the special section of the latter reserved for moronic hate-filled scum such as himself.
[Name withheld by request]
March 16, 2004
Mr. Fields repliesIn my article I made an effort to advocate the apparently ultra-controversial concept of freedom of inquiry:
... It is only when the question of the Holocaust can be freely investigated that one can hope to learn the truth about it. Even if one disagrees with the specific historical analyses provided by [the Institute for Historical Review], it seems hard for a lover of freedom and truth to reject IHR's position that the issue of the Holocaust should be investigated in a spirit of free inquiry and with no governmental impediments or intimidation. In short, let's treat the Holocaust as we would any other issue. This should be a no-brainer for everyone, and for libertarians especially — and that very fact is probably why a dispassionate analysis of the issue is absolutely forbidden.My correspondent regards this view as the ultimate hate, deserving of hell. "Freedom is hate"? — even Orwell didn't think of that one. But then Orwell only dealt with 1984, not 2004. Obviously, to seek the actual, truthful details of the Holocaust — such as the number of Jews killed, the existence of gas chambers — is hate. Just believe the survivors or the alleged survivors.
But what about the Palestinians who talk about Zionist atrocities? What about the Zionist massacres at Deir Yassin, Kibya, or Jenin? Zionists say the Palestinians are liars. Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres denied the existence of the Armenian genocide. It seems we can't believe those Armenians, either, especially when Israel needs to placate its Turkish buddies. What about the Ukrainians who claim that Stalin killed millions in the forced famine of the 1930s? Oh, that was just a much-exaggerated natural disaster or bureaucratic snafu.
In fact, all gentiles exaggerate their alleged sufferings. Let's denigrate those sufferings. Let's deny them. Believe only the Jews. Never question what Jews say.
And certainly don't ever demand real evidence. As my correspondent writes, "Who cares what the numbers were?" Numbers don't matter because no groups suffer as much as the Jews. But, even so, don't question the numbers provided by Jews, because if you do, members of that group such as my correspondent will scream that you are a "hate-monger," "sh*t," a "hate-filled reviling a**hole." And if they have the power, some of them, and their allies, will have you thrown into jail until you rot to death, as is the case in many "democratic" Western European countries and now looks to be the case in Canada with Ernst Zundel. Yes, those loving, peaceful Jews. It's hard to imagine why gentiles ever disliked them. Just out of plain pathological hate, I guess.
March 16, 2004
Nicholas Strakon commentsMr. Fields is asked whether he thinks our correspondent's father was a liar. Of course a gentleman refrains from making such a charge in these circumstances. More to the point, perhaps, a man who respects truth, logic, and ordinary standards of evidence refrains from making such a charge before knowing the answers to certain questions. In the case at hand those questions would include exactly what the informant reported, what the extent of his drug-induced hallucinations was, whether the informant can actually be shown to have been in a position to observe what he has reported, and whether his reports comport with what we know of natural law and historical fact.
An older relative of mine participated in the Pacific War of the 1940s, as a combat infantryman on the U.S. side. I have heard from him many vivid and terrifying accounts of his experiences; and I have no reason to doubt any single detail of those accounts. On one occasion when I stumbled into a more general discussion with him about the reported Japanese attempts to negotiate peace in 1945 (before and after the first nuclear bombing), he exclaimed that the Japanese he encountered during the war were certainly not disposed to negotiate anything. And he stormed out of the room, ending that particular conversation (thank God).
As a "college puke" and draft avoider who had never come under hostile fire — who had never spent terrifying nights in a flooded foxhole swimming in my own waste and waiting for an enemy soldier to lob in a grenade — I was more than a little diffident about insisting on the accuracy of the war history I had read while luxuriating in a comfortable armchair, smoking a cigar, and listening to Mozart on the stereo. Yet it is simply the case that careful, critical reading in a variety of sources provides one a much wider and more dependable context in which to answer questions about vast events than does personal experience in the midst of the microcosm, however vivid and awful that microcosm may have been.
An isolated personal report may be invaluable for the profoundest comprehension of vast events, but only insofar as it has been folded into a coherent array of properly documented personal reports and also examined in the context of what we know about Man, Time, and the Universe. One man may be able to testify reliably, as a direct eyewitness, about one or a hundred or perhaps even a thousand murders — but not, surely, about 6 million murders. (Or is the canonical figure now 4 million? It is so hard to keep up.)
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The question about ownership that must be answered is whether individual Muslim Palestinians did or did not own — that is to say, did or did not justly possess — the houses, businesses, farms, groves, and other property of which they were eventually dispossessed by force and the threat of force.
March 16, 2004
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