You’re right, Mr. Stephens, “Mankind is not comprised solely of profit- and pleasure-seekers; the quest for prestige and dominance and an instinct for nihilism are also inscribed in human nature.” That’s precisely why no such flawed creatures ought to be put in charge of managing Leviathan.

Rolling back empire is not “disengagement from the world.” It’s just rolling back empire. The quip Senator McCain’s that you cited accurately reflects the heft of the bombardier’s “thinking,” as does the condescending grin he wears when Dr. Paul is outlining his Taft-Republican positions.

After thirty-years of reading on the subject, I have yet to find a libertarian who believes that “things go better when left alone.” Libertarians believe that what you must leave alone are things that don’t belong to you. The world is not comprised wholly of peaceful co-operators on free markets, of course, but a world of free markets is the optimal one for handling violent non-cooperators. By the latter I especially mean Leviathan’s convenient terrorist bogeymen du jour, whose ranks would be much diminished without the daily incentives that the empire provides around the globe (to the applause of papers like The Wall Street Journal).

As “non-fringe” candidates break open their piggy-banks to see what they have left to invest in Super-Duper Tuesday, it is no small blessing to libertarians, as it must be no small curse to you, that pro-empire editorialists still find it necessary to wield their pens against Dr. Paul and his “fringe” movement.

Your note provides me with an opportunity to ask for help regarding a matter that's been puzzling me. The lives of two of my intellectual heroes, Lord Acton and Alfred North Whitehead, overlapped at Cambridge, so I'm wondering if it is even ascertainable whether the younger man, who was a Fellow in Mathematics there (1888-1910) when the historian was delivering his inaugural Regius Professorship lectures, attended those standing-room-only events. Whitehead was very much interested in history and theology in those years (1895-97), so it is possible that he was present. It's a purely factual matter that I'm sure someone like Roland Hill or Owen Chadwick could settle, but I do not feel comfortable bothering men so advanced in years just to satisfy my curiosity. (The Cambridge site was not very helpful.) The truth of the matter may very well be lost to history, but I'd like to take a few more steps before I come to that conclusion. Thanks for any thought you may give to my query.

When I took notice recently of the fact that two of my heroes, Acton and Whitehead, were at Cambridge at the same time, I wondered whether if it was even ascertainable whether the younger man, a Fellow in Mathematics there (1888-1910) when the historian was delivering lectures inaugurating the Regius Professorship of Modern History, attended those standing-room-only events. After all, Whitehead was studying history and theology during the period overlapping those years (1895-97), so it was likely he did attend them.

Today the first volume of Lowe’s life of Whitehead, which I had once read and reserved last week through inter-library loan, arrived. On page 186 I read that Whitehead admired Acton, was keenly aware of his “troubles with Rome,” proposed a Cambridge memorial to him, and did indeed drop “in on some of his lectures after Acton was appointed” to that chair. “But I know of no discussions between them.”

OK, so my initial curiosity has been satisfied, and then some. But there’s more. Last week I learned that Acton had rooms in Nevile’s Court (once home to Newton and Francis Bacon). Today I learned (from a Googled excerpt of Roland Hill’s Lord Acton which, again, I read years ago without thinking about this matter) that his room was “staircase 2, A1, on the first floor.” (His library would later occupy the apartment next door).

Picking up Lowe again, I read that when “Whitehead married [in 1891], he changed the rooms given him by Trinity College, moving from a large, high-ceilinged room (C2) in Nevile’s Court to a modest one there” until 1902, the year Acton dies. So during the years of the lectures, at least, Acton and Whitehead are neighbors. (I hope someone at Cambridge can tell me the proximity of their rooms to each other.)

But there’s more. Lowe mentions that in the mid-‘nineties McTaggart formed Eranos, a philosophical discussion group, and that while Whitehead was a member, he did not think much of it. And today I read in James C. Holland’s Introduction to Owen Chadwick’s study of Lord Acton that “it was at Cambridge that he gave it [i.e., “his commitment to moral judgment in history”] definitive and final expression, in May, 1897, in the privacy of his Trinity rooms in Nevile's Court, where he [Acton] addressed a select society, the Eranus [sic], which never numbered more than twelve members.”

Now, this is not the crowd that the Regius lectures attracted: they were held in the large lecture rooms. This is an elite group whose members know each other. It seems highly likely that not only Whitehead was present, but he almost certainly conversed with Acton, whose path he must have crossed in the corridors of Nevile's Court many times. Did they converse?

What could settle the matter may very well be lost to history, but I would not like to draw that conclusion prematurely. It may involve asking men, advanced in years, like Roland Hill or Owen Chadwick, about published diaries that might hold the answer. Or maybe someone who works in an office at Trinity knows whether there are attendance records extant that confirm Acton and Whitehead's being in nearly unavoidable contact with each other.

Did these two giants converse? Well, that’s my question! Who might know how to go about answering it?

“What some call the promotion of hatred others call telling the truth. Quite often, whatever opinion the rich and powerful do not like they will find some means of calling ‘hatred.’ In any event, we believe in the right to promote hatred by any means that do not fall within the Common Law definition of assault.”

“. . . in the standard accounts of the Second World War, the Katyn Wood massacre used to be blamed on the Germans, and now it is blamed on the Soviets. How can I be sure that the same is not true for the holocaust?”

“. . . I can believe that Hitler was a bad man: this does not require me to believe that he ate human flesh.”

“. . . considered purely in itself, the revisionist material is as persuasive as that of the mainstream historians. At least one side in this debate is lying, and lying very fluently—but I am not able, on the basis of the evidence offered, to say who is lying.”

“I believe in the central fact of the holocaust. On the secondary issues mentioned above, where my authorities do not agree, I suspend judgment. Take away the freedom to argue with or against these authorities, though, and my assurance that they are right must be weakened.”

“Laws to compel belief in the holocaust do not mean it did not happen. But they do allow people to ask what kind of truth this is that needs laws to defend it. There are many people who know even less about the holocaust than I do, and who deny that it happened simply because David Irving is generally acknowledged to be an expert of sorts on the period, and he had to be locked up before he would shut up.”

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Proves Politically Correct in Latest Zündel Ruling

By Fred Lingel

In a decision issued Feb. 27, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati has unanimously upheld a lower court’s judgment stripping historian and pacifist Ernst Zündel of his right to be heard on a petition for writ of habeas corpus which was filed when Zündel was first arrested by U.S. authorities in February 2003.

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The court held that the controversial German publisher had effectively bargained away his right to appear before a court because he last entered the United States under the Visa Waiver Pilot Program (VWPP) in May 2000. The court of appeals ignored Zündel’s arguments based on the U.S. Constitution and rejected his argument based on the expiration of the VWPP April 30, 2000.

Zündel has asserted that, because the VWPP had sunset by the time of his May 2000 entry, the attorney general and INS could not have permitted him entry as a “visa waiver” alien in May 2000, and were not entitled to enforce the agreement that “visa waiver” candidates have to enter into as a condition for not having to obtain a visa. Zündel was in a routine waiting period for U.S. permanent residence through his U.S. citizen wife, Ingrid, at the time of his arrest.

“Once again, Ernst Zündel has been betrayed by a federal judiciary which, in its rush to judgment, has tread roughshod on the Constitution and the letter and intent of the law in order to achieve a politically correct result,” said Zündel’s attorney, Bruce Leichty.

There is no precedent for denying an individual of Zündel’s immigration status a hearing on a habeas petition, said Leichty, who noted that the courts have routinely extended habeas rights even to illegal immigrants.

Recent appellate decisions have focused on whether enemy combatants held outside the United States have the right to habeas proceedings, but Zündel was never labeled as an enemy combatant or terrorist-despite ultimately being declared a “national security” risk by Canadian authorities after his summary removal from the United States.

“The law in this area is well established,” said Leichty, “and a different panel of the Sixth Circuit recognized in an earlier decision that immigrants like Zündel can obtain habeas hearings even after they are deported if they face a 20-year bar like the one imposed on Mr. Zündel. But this panel was not willing to apply the law.

“At the time of his arrest, Ernst Zündel was a target of several countries based on his controversial historical views about ‘the Holocaust,’ and even though he was protected by the First Amendment [in the United States], those protections have proved meaningless without judges willing to uphold them,” notes Leichty.

If the decision is allowed to stand, Zündel would be banned from reentering the United States until 2023. He is currently 67 years old.Just weeks before the Sixth Circuit decision, he was convicted in a German courtroom of “inciting racial hatred” because of his Holocaust revisionist views. Zündel asserted that he is a pacifist who is neither anti-Semitic nor racist but that he is simply a champion of his German people, and that he has the right to express different views about what happened during the World War II, including what happened to Jews.

Zündel will seek a rehearing from different judges at the Sixth Circuit based on the unconstitutional suspension of his habeas rights and on known conflicts of interest of at least two members of the panel, says Leichty. One of the judges gave a prohibited campaign contribution to the Bush reelection campaign after being appointed to the federal bench and another has a daughter working in Tennessee for the U.S. attorney’s office, which handled the opposition against Zündel’s petition in a Knoxville federal court.

Zündel’s attorney says he discovered both facts after the case was argued in January 2007. The judges adopted almost to the letter the argument of the Justice Department that sought to assert a distinction between the expiration of a “Visa Waiver Pilot Program period” and the expiration in April 2000 of the attorney general’s visa waiver authority itself-a distinction which was farcical, says Leichty.

The February appellate decision was issued “per curiam,” meaning that none of the judges acknowledged writing the decision, and it was designated “not for publication.” There have been recent attempts to limit the extent to which federal judges can issue unpublished decisions because it is believed that judges are less accountable to the law if they know their decisions will not be widely read and inspected, notes Leichty.

Only if Zündel was found to have entered the United States under the VWPP could the authorities have even thought about arresting him without a hearing, says Leichty. Typically, persons alleged to be deportable get hearings in front of immigration judges. Moreover, Leichty adds, even as to visa waiver entrants there are no published federal court decisions in which a court has ever denied jurisdiction over a habeas petition filed by someone who overstayed his visitor status.

Leichty states that at the time of Zündel’s arrest, INS had a policy of not taking deportation action against immigrants awaiting permanent residence through U.S. citizen spouses, even if they had overstayed visa waivers. Zündel had been given work authorization in the United States and permission to leave and reenter. Because a Knoxville judge and now the Sixth Circuit have claimed not to have jurisdiction, however, he has never been able to present those arguments. When Zündel challenges the latest decision, that will mean that he will have legal challenges pending in three countries. He has appealed his German “thought crime” conviction, and is also hoping to benefit from a recent Canadian Supreme Court decision which held that the “security certificate” proceedings under which he was detained in Canada are unconstitutional, because they permit secret evidence.

After a Canadian court declared him to be a national security risk, the Canadian government spent over $100,000 on a charter plane to fly Zündel to Germany, where he was promptly arrested on criminal speech charges for views expressed in Canada and the United States.

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The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death. And yet we know that there have been those in all ages who for the sake of preferment, or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay to destroy, their country . . . . This is what every man who values freedom ought to consider. He should act by judgment and not by affection or self-interest; for where those prevail, no ties of either country or kindred are regarded; as upon the other hand, the man who loves his country prefers its liberty to all other considerations, well knowing that without liberty life is a misery. . . .

Within minutes . . . Foxman had begun to advance up his scale of spleen. He was shouting about Auschwitz and six million and then ticking off the litany of Jews who had been killed in recent years only because they were Jews: congregants in Buenos Aires, the journalist Daniel Pearl, a volunteer at a Jewish charity in Seattle — “and now Ilan,” whose kidnappers assumed that all Jews are rich. “I still hear the good people” — Foxman uses the word good in this context to mean “saps” — “coming to us in the A.D.L., saying: ‘What are you worried about stereotypes? They’re words! Big deal.’ We sat with the minister of education in Spain not long ago, and she said to us, ‘When we say Jews are rich, when we say Jews are successful, it’s a compliment.’” Foxman was now full-out screaming. “And I looked at her and I said: ‘Your Excellency, no thanks. Those are words that helped pave the way to Auschwitz.’” (James Traub, “Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Semite Problem?,” New York Times, January 14, 2007. Here is the notice The Flogger took of this revealing portrait.)

Prior to the “we” that results from the mutual love of an “I” and a “thou,” there is the earlier “we” that precedes the distinction of subjects and survives its oblivion. This prior “we” is vital and functional. Just as one spontaneously raises one’s arm to ward off a blow against one’s head, so with the same spontaneity one reaches out to save another from falling. Perception, feeling, and bodily movement are involved, but the help given another is not deliberate but spontaneous. One adverts to it not before it occurs but while it is occurring. It is as if “we” were members of one another prior to our distinctions of each from the others.

Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, New York: The Seabury Press, 1972, p. 57

One of the really remarkable features of post-9/11 political life was that in the first months and years after the attacks, scarcely anyone called for America to abandon Israel, though it is hardly difficult to argue that our support for the Jewish state has cost us dearly in the Islamic world.

Where is it being debated? In the universities, on the airwaves. Advanced by whom? Harvard, the University of Chicago. With Pat Buchanan, it wasn’t legitimate. Who cares about David Duke? It is now a legitimate debate.

Foxman was accused [last October] of intimidating the Polish consul general in New York into canceling a talk to be given by Tony Judt, a highly regarded professor of European history at New York University and a supporter of the “Israel lobby” view — which seemed to confirm Judt’s thesis. . . . Foxman says he will not be intimidated; people all across the Islamic world already believe every kind of pernicious fantasy about the Jews and about Israel. And now here come credentialed American — even Jewish! — scholars saying, as he put it, “The Jews control the media, control the government, control Congress.”

They [the Iranians] are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons, Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf.

spent literally years adding to, revising, and checking the entire article, so that it would pass the highest and most rigorous standards. His friend, the Pearl Harbor expert Commander Charles C. Hiles, helped immeasurably in repeated reading and checking over the material. We have been delighted and honored that Harry chose the pages of Left and Right to present what he proposed to be his final word on the subject, the culminating synthesis of a quarter century of revisionist inquiry.

Now that George Bush’s marbled columns of support have turned to sand, there is talk of impeachment and, perhaps, even his criminal prosecution, along with that of his coterie of unprincipled administration thugs and advisors who helped turn America into the 21st century equivalent of 1939 Germany. If Bill Clinton was to be impeached for lying about his oval office peccadilloes, the bill of particulars against Mr. Bush and his fellow barbarians rises to exponential levels of insistence.

I refuse to take part in this whooping and hollering. It is driven by the same refusal of men and women to examine what they have made of themselves that allowed Mr. Bush to mobilize their “dark side” energies into murderous attacks upon hundreds of thousands of innocent people; to torture and detain – without hopes of trial – anyone the administration saw fit to deprive of their liberties; and to turn America into the kind of dystopian police-state that was beyond the fertile imaginations of Messrs. Orwell and Huxley. It is, in a word, just another collective exercise in scapegoating.

This is not to suggest that Mr. Bush and his fellow butchers and plug-uglies are not deserving of punishment. While “justice” amounts to little more than the redistribution of violence, those who consider themselves called upon by God to slaughter, torture, and otherwise destroy the lives of their fellow humans, need to be held accountable for their actions. But I resent any notion that they ought to be answerable to the same people who, over the past five years, could not find enough flags to wave, bumper-stickers to attach to their cars, or angry vitriol to direct at what few of their neighbors retained a sufficient sense of maturity and integrity to resist the collective madness that now defines America. . . .

Dear Tony, That doesn't matter. The point is that people voted based on an ideal rather than their perceived economic self-interest. In any case, the handling of the war and the war itself are inseparable, same as socialism and the handling of socialism.

complete redeployment of our troops out of Iraq over a period of time. . . . They could go to Bahrain, they could go to Kuwait, they could go to the periphery. We’re not deserting Iraq. What we’re doing is sending our troops to the periphery where they can go back in if [Iraq's turmoil] endangers our troops or if it endangers our allies.