Are liberals like Joseph Tutton always so weak-minded?

My friend and blogfather Don Luskin forwarded me an e-mail from some Tutton guy whose e-mails to me kept getting bounced. I couldn't have remembered for the life of me who this Tutton guy is, but he e-mailed Don a while back, and Don and I separately countered his China-bashing.

My Dear Mr. Luskin:

I hate to ask a favor, but I will -- would you please forward this to Eidelblogger. Sending to his address listed on his web site has given me a Postmaster message that it is permantly disabled. The address I sent it to was eidelblog@gmail.com.

Since he gave me the extreme insult of calling me a "liberal", for God's sake, I thought I must respond. I sent a copy to you, but Postmaster said it wasn't delivered to him. So, if you can, send it to is new address, if you have it. And, if you can't find an address for the loser, I would ask you to think about posting this reply on your site, so he might read it.

Peace (through strength), Joseph Tutton

Ah, my fault there. When I redid some colors for my blog a while back, I created an image file with "eidelblog" rather than "eidelbus" as I should have. Seriously, are liberals like Tutton really that clueless that they think I did that deliberately, so I couldn't be e-mailed? The simple truth of the matter is, and I say this almost with a blush, I didn't notice my mistake until now. Even when my friend jk said his e-mail to me bounced, I thought he had mistyped the address. I use an image file, not text, and it's not "mailto:" hyperlinked, to prevent spam.

And if all else fails, which jk figured, leave a comment so I can initiate an e-mail conversation. I require registration for comments, however. which helps cut down on spamIt's mainly because of spammers, but also anonymous NYPD cowards who were inundating me with the most vulgar things you ever read.

On a side note, I never did register eidelblog@gmail.com, and I figured I had better in case someone decides to start impersonating me. Curiously enough, Google says that "eidelblog" is unavailable, and a message just now got bounced back. So the ID isn't in use, but it can't be used for a new account: it truly is disabled. That's a nice touch for which I'll give Google a lot of credit, preventing a certain ID from being registered on Gmail because it's presumably the same as an existing ID on Blogger.

Well, here's the e-mail that Ranting Liberal Tutton wanted to send me. I think he's been breathing too many coal mine fumes, don't you think?

Meiner Lieber Eidelblogger:

"I make no value judgment either way..."

I did not see your "enlightened" response to my e-mail to Don Luskin when it first came out. But let me now express my appreciation to you for articulating the ueber Kapitolistischer

Is he trying to impress me or something, throwing in German words just because I call myself "Eidelblogger"? I don't speak more than a few words of German, if you can call that speaking. My father may have been half-German, but he was raised by his French mother and aunt and thus learned a bit of their ancestral tongue.

Tutton really presumes too much. I used to call myself "The Eidelblogger" simply as an English neologism, until Jack Yoest referred to me as "Der Eidelblogger." I liked the sound of it and changed my blog's masthead as appropriate.

opinion that it is indeed, not only acceptible, but good, to have children working in coal mines and other dangerous manufacturing scenarios. Man, I could not have asked for a better response.

In fact, I never said any such thing, and I wonder if it's Tutton's rabid paranoia at being called a "liberal" that prompted him to put words into my mouth.

What I originally said was here, and I've also blogged about child labor. I was perfect correct, not to mention truthful, in saying I make no value judgments either way. What I do observe is that some societies are so poor that adults alone cannot produce sufficient economic output to feed the family, so there is no choice but to have children participate. Throughout human history, it's been everything from herding sheep to farm chores to digging. In some developing countries today, it's making clothes and semiconductors. Nobody wants to see children, because it's the ideal that they can go to school and grow up happy, but no matter how much Tutton sticks his head in the sand, we can't avoid the reality that certain poor societies just can't afford to have only adults working. When two parents can't grow enough crops by themselves, or tend enough animals by themselves, to support several children. Poorer families already tend to be larger, and consider that more children in the Third World are reaching adulthood thanks to vaccinations and sanitation.

My father, not even a teenager, could work to support his family during the Great Depression. How will Tutton explain that his beliefs applied in the 1930s would have condemned my father to literal starvation? It's just another way that modern liberalism insists on saving you from saving yourself, even if it kills you.

It wasn't government that stopped child labor. No matter what people want government to do, government cannot make people produce more than they are already capable, no more than it can decree water to be less wet. The reason, the only reason, that the United States and developed countries don't have child labor is that we don't need it, thanks to technology. Parents in the United States generally can earn enough to feed their families. Parents in Zimbabwe generally cannot, and if a child has an opportunity to work somewhere to earn money so the family can afford to eat, the logical choice is not to send the child to school.

But, you were mistaken in saying that I am a "Liberal". I was cured of that disease a long time ago. I am a Nationalist. But, Gott sei' dank', I am not a Socialist.

Is he capitalizing words, thinking he's speaking German? Regardless, one can be a nationalist (big or small N) and still a liberal. Larouchers are liberal, but they're as "nationalist" as any classic fascist. On the other end of the political spectrum, one can be a nationalist and still a socialist, just like Lenin and all his successors.

Liberals believe in government control of the economy, but maybe Tutton really isn't. I'm starting to wonder, especially with all the German words he's throwing around and now his self-professed "nationalist" ideology, if he's a modern Nazi a la Pat Buchanan.

What is your excuse for wanting children in the mines? Whose kinder, sag' mir?

Once more, I never said I wanted children in the mines. In an ideal world, not even adults would have to work in such dangerous places.

In Tennessee, as well as Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, und alles, the whites from Scotland and Germany, Czech und Poland worked along side the black Schwarzeneggers in the god-awful hells of the coal mines of Appalachia. East Tennessee fought for the Union of this Country. Not for any goddamned union organization. If you had any idea of how many people died for indiv idual freedom, you would be slower to accuse someone of being a "liberal" because they oppose slave labor in China. But thanks for expressing the slave-owner mentality so well. N'mie wieder, liebchen. Versteche'?

Talk about your non sequiturs! Two different ethnic groups worked together, half of Tennessee aligned with the North during the Civil War instead of fighting for unions, people died for what they mistakenly thought was "individual freedom" (the Civil War was not fought over freedom, but over the federal government's authority), and ergo, Tutton says, I'm like a slave owner because I recognize some societies are really poor and need children to pitch in.

Tutton has a warped notion of "individual freedom," which he tacitly defines as what meets the limits of his acceptance. True "individual freedom" is my right to transact peacefully with another willing party, harming no others, no matter what Tutton or others say. This is whether I'm running an energy company that ships coal from Tennessee to Tallahassee, or buying goods that were made in a factory in Shanghai. Don has always been right to emphasize that we can't defend the ideals of liberty by pointing out that they're more economically efficient: our defense must be on the grounds that they are the moral choice.

Liberals would say that "moral" is to have laws preventing children from working. No, that's fantasy. "Moral" is not preventing children from picking up a shovel or scythe to help feed their families.