So the WSJ’s James Taranto thinks Ron Paul isn’t a real libertarian because he holds a view of the so-called Civil War that is at variance with the Official Version of History everyone is supposed to accept. Until about 25 years ago, it was still considered all right for conservatives and libertarians to dissent from the Official Version, but these days, forming a historical judgment not vetted by Doris Kearns Goodwin or Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. amounts to thoughtcrime.

Another non-libertarian, by this logic, is Lord Acton, the great nineteenth-century classical liberal who also opposed the war. We then have the little problem of Murray Rothbard (.pdf): we are to believe that Mr. Libertarian wasn’t a libertarian?

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