quote:
So the article introduces Spooner by describing him accurately as an abolitionist who opposed the war against the South as unjust. What are you complaining about again?

It's a crafty sentence that introduces Lysander Spooner to the reader in a way that fits the narrative of the article, which is filled with random connections that portray Paul and libertarianism negatively. Look at this:

quote:
Some scholars affiliated with the Mises Institute have combined dark biblical prophecy with apocalyptic warnings that the nation is plunging toward economic collapse and cultural ruin. Others have championed the Confederacy. One economist, while faulting slavery because it was involuntary, suggested in an interview that the daily life of the enslaved was “not so bad — you pick cotton and sing songs.”

Who are they talking about? It's just random bullshite that they put in there to create a certain narrative.

The majority of the description of Spooner is about his opposition to the Civil War:

quote:
Lysander Spooner, a Massachusetts abolitionist who turned against the North in the Civil War, which he deplored as unjust aggression against the Confederacy.

1 word about his opposition to slavery. It's not inaccurate, but I don't think it's a fair description. The craftsmanship of an intellectual ideologue.

How about this - Lysander Spooner, an individualist anarchist who authored The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845, which argued that slavery violated natural law.

It's much more precise to associate Spooner with his own work, a pamphlet that he wrote more than 15 years before the Civil War, rather than a war that he opposed on principal. Also, look at how they open the paragraph:

quote:
But tucked into Mr. Paul’s lengthy monologue — its 76,000 words would fill a 300-page manuscript — was another narrative, told in a sprinkling of obscure references.

The article shifts from a positive tone to a But, as if he went off on some strange tangent by mentioning Spooner, an intensely moral, principled man ahead of his time.