Is Hamilton Bashing Productive for the Liberty Movement?

[Aratus]

if by the grace of their critics both sec. alexander hamilton and potus andrew jackson were thought to have napoleonic ambitions and neither man in his life took french monies, unlike perhaps (monsieur?) veep burr...?

 

[John Taylor]

How so? What if you are like many who have read the Federalist Papers in law school, but don't know much about American history? Show us where in the Federalist Papers it argues for an elastic interpretation of the general welfare or commerce clause. Show us where the Federalist Papers support the war on drugs or the war on terror? Show us where Hamilton argues for the department of education? Or Obamacare? The NEA? Etc.

Precedent. Read Col. John Taylor's comment on Hamilton's constitutional construction regarding only one issue, the tariff, below in my signature line. Precedents kill written constitutions with a thousand cuts, for no constitutional usurper will ever admit that HIS actions are usurpations, yet at the end of the day, a mountainous amount of precedent allow for the law to be turned on its head.

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Precedent. Read Col. John Taylor's comment on Hamilton's constitutional construction regarding only one issue, the tariff, below in my signature line. Precedents kill written constitutions with a thousand cuts, for no constitutional usurper will ever admit that HIS actions are usurpations, yet at the end of the day, a mountainous amount of precedent allow for the law to be turned on its head.

Hamilton didn't set any precedents. He was just a cabinet official.

 

[Aratus]

george washington defined our presidency's customs by his actions...

 

[FreeTraveler]

Aaron Burr acted 30 years too late.

Hamilton was scum. Digging up his grave to pee on his bones wouldn't be out of line.

Productive or not, some things just need doing.

 

[TNforPaul45]

Hamilton didn't set any precedents. He was just a cabinet official.

Bull larky.

Hamilton was a member of a large group of people who held loyalist tendencies to the mother country and the monarchy, but had the common sense to keep their mouths shut and follow the flow of the times when the liberty movement started up.

The precedent that Hamilton started was that he was one of the first to start actively injecting central state policies into government structure, and those quiet loyalists in hiding started to slowly come out and follow in line behind him. They thought that they could be clever and just slowly move the country back to a English government, but this time they would be the monarchy, and hold all the power.

This is the precedent that Hamilton started, one that exploded in the civil war when the right of a few to govern all was decided at gunpoint, and continues to explode today as the federal imperial state continues to grow and suck the marrow from our bones.

The Hamiltonian lack of faith in their fellow man is the very spark of logical reasoning that leads a person of that disposition to believe that they must force obedience of others for "their own good." This is the curse, as Dr. DiLorenzo so eloquently put it in his book on Hamilton.

 

[Aratus]

when potus george washington has thomas jefferson and alexander hamilton debate... did he do this for a reason...?

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Bull larky.

Hamilton was a member of a large group of people who held loyalist tendencies to the mother country and the monarchy, but had the common sense to keep their mouths shut and follow the flow of the times when the liberty movement started up.

You mean the Federalists and the people from the Hartford Convention who tried to sabotage the War of 1812?

Check.

Or do you mean this?

The REVOLUTIONARY WRITINGS OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON
Liberty Fund Books
http://www.amazon.com/REVOLUTIONARY-WRITINGS-ALEXANDER-HAMILTON/dp/0865977062

Hamilton was not a late comer to the Revolution. He was a trusted assistant of George Washington and was already there during the crossing of the Delaware in 1776.

 

[Travlyr]

Hamilton has been demonized without proper evaluation. All the founding fathers intentions should be analyzed.

Bashing Hamilton without full knowledge of the facts is counter-productive.

 

[ClayTrainor]

Hamilton has been demonized without proper evaluation. All the founding fathers intentions should be analyzed.

Bashing Hamilton without full knowledge of the facts is counter-productive.

Well said. The same logic should apply for anyone we choose to criticize, really...

 

[Anti Federalist]

Hamilton opposed the war on drugs. Nothing degrades our liberty more than the evil Drug War.

 

[CCTelander]

Hamilton was a mercantilist scumbag who deserves no respect whatever.

 

[Misesian]

Yes we should, but libertarians know how to properly "bash" in order to make a point. A local Austro-libertarian elected official makes a joke that Aaron Burr would be the greatest American ever if he had shot Alexander Hamilton 20 years sooner.

I "bash" Lincoln appropriately to Republicans even though that's risky since they worship him, and even though the guy was on our side by opposing the Mexican American war. However there's so many negative grounds that we have to enlighten people about individuals like Hamilton and Lincoln and it's counter-productive to this revolution to pussy foot around it so we don't offend people.

Don't make things personal, don't come off as a pompous-@$$, BUT to ignore how Hamilton was a key figure in likely destroying our Constitutional Republic before the ink is even dry is a huge disservice to liberty. Were it not for Hamilton we might not have even had Lincoln (War of aggression on the south would've have been able to be financed w/out the central bank). Just like I tell Republicans that were it not for Lincoln there likely would've been no FDR (due to secession).

Our end here is LIBERTY, if we must "bash" even Jefferson for unconstitutional land acquisitions and his moments of warmongering then we must too, though keeping things in perspective Jefferson really was a libertarian.

Also, I'm personally not all ecstatic about these people reading the federalist papers, after all those were the papers designed to expand central government. What we need to get these people to understand is, that the ANTI-FEDERALIST papers are the ones they also need to read especially since these were the "limited government" pro-liberty wing of the framers.

 

[Aratus]

lets do keep in mind good ole george washington could have had a roman sucession
that established a kingship if he defined the succession by his cousins rather than by
an innate jeffersonian meritocracy. not until gen'l andrew jackson do we have direct
elections for our presidents. it also took a while for our senators to be directly elected.
slinging political "mud" in full at treasury sec' hamilton sorta splatters gen'l washington.

 

[Rancher]

If Hamilton haters will bash him with facts and logical arguments, then do it. But mostly what I see in this thread so far are emotional ad hominem attacks.

 

[Travlyr]

However there's so many negative grounds that we have to enlighten people about individuals like Hamilton and Lincoln and it's counter-productive to this revolution to pussy foot around it so we don't offend people.

It's not about pussy footing around and offending people, it's about honesty. Hamilton may be accurately portrayed as an elitist, yet as Secretary of the Treasury his coinage of money was consistent with sound money techniques. When and how is Hamilton responsible for the fiat money system?

The Original U.S. Dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar

On April 2, 1792, Alexander Hamilton, then the Secretary of the Treasury, made a report to Congress having scientifically determined the amount of silver in the Spanish milled dollar coins that were then in current use by the people. As a result of this report, the Dollar was defined[6] as a unit of measure of 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams) of pure silver or 416 grains of standard silver (standard silver being defined as 1,485 parts fine silver to 179 parts alloy[7]).

In section 20 of the Act, it is specified that the "money of account" of the United States shall be expressed in those same "dollars" or parts thereof. All of the minor coins were also defined in terms of percentages of the primary coin — the dollar — such that a half dollar contained ½ as much silver as a dollar, quarter dollars contained ¼ as much, and so on.

"to ignore how Hamilton was a key figure in likely destroying our Constitutional Republic before the ink is even dry is a huge disservice to liberty."

In order to believe this statement, then you have to be in the Constitutional Republic is destroyed camp. I disagree. The Constitutional Republic is alive and well, the people are still ignoring their duty to correct the wrongs, but the people still have the final say. That is the definition of a Republic.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=republic

republic
c.1600, "state in which supreme power rests in the people," from Fr. république, from L. respublica (abl. republica), lit. res publica "public interest, the state," from res "affair, matter, thing" + publica, fem. of publicus "public" (see public).

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today
- Thomas DiLorenzo

in other words, Di Lorenzo doesn't have the balls to go at George Washington.