Incest
Timothy Sandefur on Sep 2nd 2006
Stephan Kinsella is a silly little man who doesn’t believe in considering the ideas of those who don’t describe themselves as libertarians. He proves it in this blog post in which he not only rejects out of hand the works of the brilliant constitutional scholar Akhil Amar, but actually praises a book review written by a person (Thomas DiLorenzo) whose writings are almost the exclusive foundation for the book under review (a fact DiLorenzo fails to mention, by the way). Now, in the book review business, such reviews are called “incestuous reviews,” and they aren’t given much attention, precisely because they add so little to our knowledge; they merely re-echo what’s already been said. But for Kinsella, apparently, that’s all that’s worth hearing.
It’s sad how this willful ignorance is so equally matched by his intellectual dishonesty. Take, for example, his repeated claims that Thomas Jefferson would have endorsed secession. I have responded to this more than once, and yet Kinsella simply ignores the facts of the matter—just as the other neo-Confederates continue to ignore the basic theoretical underpinnings of the Constitution. Why? Because they weren’t the work of officially approved Lew Rockwell affiliates, I suppose. And if these things aren’t humiliating, then nothing is.
Filed in The Bookshelf
[...] First up is Thomas DiLorenzo, who says that I lie about his work. Well, here’s what I said. I said that DiLorenzo has published a review of Andrew Napolitano’s Constitution in Exile without mentioning that DiLorenzo’s work is heavily relied upon by Napolitano. This is considered improper among people who write book reviews, and for good reason. Now, in my post, I wrote that DiLorenzo’s writings were “almost the exclusive foundation for the book under review.” Now, I should have said “for the relevant chapter in the book under review,” because, as DiLorenzo rightly claims, it is only the chapter on secession that relies almost exclusively on DiLorenzo’s amateurish and misleading work. This was a mistake on my part, although a completely irrelevant one, since this is the chapter relating to the subject at hand. DiLorenzo, by contrast, purposely failed to acknowledge that the book he was praising so highly relies heavily on his own work, and therefore that he was essentially applauding himself in the face of the public—something that, again, is considered improper among book reviewers, without at least a disclaimer. That, after being called on this stunt, DiLorenzo would then call me a “lying little twit” is simply ridiculous. [...]