How Lesbian Jewish Yankee Women Brought Us the Welfare State

[Borodog]

Bluff,

Peddle your bait to someone else. I'm not dumb and not interested.

[BluffTHIS!]

Well you don't want to discuss it, but other devotees of mises.org did. From the mises blog come the following comments on that essay:

As much as I love Rothbard, I didn't like this piece. I wish he had stuck to the evolution of the ideas and where they came from rather than playing hop scotch with the people involved in a superficial way. I almost felt that I was reading an essay based on guilt by assosciation with a touch of guilt by sexual orientation thrown in. His short biographical sketches explained nothing.If ideas matter, he should have stuck to the ideas and mentioned people only where necessary.



Yes, ideas originate from people. People with an agenda. All Rothbard is pointing out is the background of the people who fostered the welfare state. If they share a common background, then perhaps that motivates their agenda. No one acts without a reason. If "LESBIAN-FEMINIST-SUFFRAGETIST-SOCIALIST" was the motivation, covering up the background doesn't change the facts, it only hides them from scrutiny. History should be the study of facts, not the supplanting, hiding, or revision of them. Events do not stand by themselves--events are created by people acting according to beliefs. You have to understand the people and their beliefs to see how history was made. But why complain about "LESBIAN-FEMINIST-SUFFRAGETIST-SOCIALIST" when you could worry about the anti-catholicism mentioned or other issues mentioned? Why is it that some people are anxious that "LESBIAN-FEMINIST-SUFFRAGETIST-SOCIALIST" not be mentioned as a motivation for being a change agent? Is it false? If so, then we should point that out as a matter of veracity. Is it true? Then I don't see any problem with pointing it out a long with the rest of the facts. Why is it so important to hide the background and motivation of historical figures if they happen to be "LESBIAN-FEMINIST-SUFFRAGETIST-SOCIALIST"?



The first commenter makes the point I am in this thread, that if ideas matter, then why unnecessarily bring up personal facets of the lives of persons in economic history. However the second commentator also makes a valid point, which is that persons/groups have agendas and it is fair to note the characteristics of those persons or groups *provided that* they are relevant.

My argument here is that those characteristics not only weren't relevant to the analysis, but in fact led Rothbard to downplay the greater role played by other parties in his fixation on those who had the characteristics in question. And if that is correct, i.e. the ethnic/religious/sexual characteristics weren't relevant, then the fact that they were mentioned points to an agenda of Rothbard's not having to do with libertarianism or economics.