Even though I have posted on the subject of Tom Palmer's blog in an attempt to clarify what exactly it is I believe and why I believe it, a visit to his blog post attacking me and a glance at the comments there makes it obvious that everyone thinks I love death and killing. Truly, you have to be stupid or blinded by the glory of the stars and stripes to believe such a thing.

Here's what I believe: Life is awesome. I love eating fantastic food at a beautiful restaurant in a great city. I love to admire architecture and the great achievements of engineers and artists. I like gardening, I like painting, I like buying cool electronics and then playing with them. I like visiting places I have never been before, sampling the culture there, interacting with people. I'm going on a vacation in another country soon, but stopping on the way in New York to be with family for thanksgiving. I'll take in all the sights and sounds and flavors of those places, flying on great machines, all for a meager percentage of my income. Capitalism rocks. I just like the simple things in life, being nice to people, and doing fun and interesting stuff. I can't get any cornier now. You get it: I'm a normal person.

Peace is required for all these things. People who are not peaceful make me hate them for ruining the world and I want them to die for it. Got it? Simple. (I said before that it's mostly that the troops are scumbags and that if we're going to have a war, it's at least good that the most bloodthirsty and stupid segment of society is skimmed right off and thrown out. This is true, but I must admit also that I also just hate them for being or materially supporting killers, so it is partly a desire to see them punished, even though I said earlier that it mostly wasn't.) People who admire or even tolerate those who make war are the crazy, murderous ones. I am peaceful -- I have never attacked anyone physically and I'm not sure I could even kill in self-defense, though I would like to think I could.

As for Palmer's blog: I'm not even going to respond to the comments about Lew Rockwell or even Antiwar.com, since even though I work for the latter site, and even though my title is Senior Editor, this is really just padding the importance of someone who is mainly an html monkey and a data entrist -- I have nothing to do with editorial decisions there.

I'll just start listing some of the more asinine comments and responding to them:

At this point of history, ecrying the war in genearal is implying the slaughter and enslavement of innocent Iraqis by their former Baathist masters.

But Sapienza isn't satisfied with just that injustice...he wants American blood spilled too.

What a totalitarian slime.
Posted by: at November 10, 2005 02:17 PM

This is one of the dumbest posters to have poked his empty head up through the slime at Palmer's blog. Anyone who thinks that the continued presence of US soldiers in Iraq is making anything better does not read the news...like, ever...and has a general problem with logic. But to then say that because I oppose the war, and the troops who fight it, that I am a totalitarian is totally beyond the pale -- not my comments expressing my hatred for the swords of the State.

Then Palmer himself comments:

In what sense is it dishonest to point out that an allegedly "antiwar" activist is in fact in favor of jihadist victory and killing U.S. troops?

Well, dingbat, for one, I never EVER expressed a desire for jihadist victory anywhere. I think anyone who would kill for God should be ground up for fertilizer. But if terrorists from both sides want to murder each other, good fun (except for those caught in the middle). Since it's so obvious that al-Qaeda nutballs are eeeeevil -- we're needlessly reminded every single second of every day -- I filled the anti-state niche by pointing out that the troops are also violent religious nutballs: their religion is the State. Well, actually, hell, sometimes they admit they are invading eyerack for Jesus.

Actually, sorry, Palmer isn't a dingbat -- this was perfectly-planted lie, like every other word out of his mouth, to make me look like a hypocrite or maybe just a monster.

Then Greg N posts about one of my comments about the troops, where I say "All people are absolutely not created equal." But he said it was me commenting on "Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence." No, idiot, it has absolutely nothing to do with the slave rapist or his scratch of parchment.

Later on, he says "While the rest of us grapple with the serious issues about how to secure liberty in the Middle East, how to bring the troops home without leaving the Iraqis high and dry, and all the other tough questions surrounding foreign policy in the post-9/11 world..." Tough questions surrounding foreign policy, eh? Is "don't kill people who don't threaten you" a tough thing to wrap a mind around? Is the fact that "leaving the iraqis high and dry" is so obviously the absolute best possible thing that could happen to Iraqis since they got the electric lightbulb hard to grasp? No, it's not, but this Greg person is not a moron either, just a neocon whose libertarianism apparently extends all the way to wanting toll roads privatized, and no further. The fact that he's concerned with "securing liberty" in the Middle East exposes his imperialist neoconservative views. I have some advice on securing liberty: blowing shit up and angering a whole region doesn't generally do it.

...there is no libertarian principle that says it's ok for homicidal maniacs to blow people up, or kidnap and decapitate them, merely because they're part of a military that happens to be in a particular geographic area that you'd rather control instead.

...it is more than obvious that the "insurgents" who are killing children, beheading foreigners, and exploding bombs on roads to kill soldiers are NOT, in any sense, fighting to repel an unjust invasion. Rather, they are fighting to disrupt a process that would, if left uninterrupted, yield an outcome they find evil, to wit, democracy.

...Whether or not the war was justified or not is not the question here. The question is whether it is right--under libertarian principles--for madmen to kill soldiers merely because those soldiers are occupying the physical space that the madmen want for themselves.

So much wrong in such a short space. Quickly: I do not support religious nuts who want an Islamic state in Iraq. I do support the resistance that is made up of angry Iraqis who have been devastated by property destruction and the killings of relatives. There are plenty of news stories about regular Iraqis who plant bombs and take pot shots at US troops in desperation and a feeling like there is nothing left to lose. Furthermore, anyone who believes the military occupation of Iraq will ever bring about democracy is a complete idiot.

It's murder, and it's not libertarianism.

Apparently, murder can be quite libertarian if you ask Greg, Tom Palmer, and some of the other posters on Palmer's blog. When you hate people who murder, then you're just "crazy or evil." Mmm-hmm.

Tom continues:

My concern with the obscure bloggers is that there is a core of racists, anti-American boosters of jihadi monsters, and more lurking in the little nest of people that Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo are doing their best to promote on the web as representative of "libertarianism." That does concern me, as it discredits libertarianism, it discredits the case for liberty, and it discredits the case for non-interventionism to have such people involved as senior editors, "faculty," columnists, and so on. They aren't peripheral people, but people at the heart of antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com. In the wider world, they may be obscure, but in those little circles, they are at the heart. And for that reason they deserve some scrutiny, because they are involved in institutions that present a threat to the good name and the effectiveness of libertarians in general.
Posted by: Tom G. Palmer at November 11, 2005 11:48 AM

1) Not a racist. 2) Not a jihadist booster. 3) Neither Rockwell nor Raimondo boost me, and certainly not as a representative of libertarianism. 4) Palmer is an interventionist, I don't see how anything could discredit non-intervention more than interventionism itself. 5) Libertarians aren't effective in anything, at all. They are useless, their theories have zero impact, their organizations nearly no clout -- to the extent that they actually stick to libertarian principles. Jacking off with 4 Iraqi classical liberals does not a libertarian revolution make. How deluded.

Kenneth Gregg, in what is an outrageous final straw for me, says:

Sapienza, at least, doesn't hide under cover, and for that I am glad. Let people who are interested know who he is and what he thinks about killing people.--and be condemned for it!

What I think about killing people!? What, THAT I HATE IT? That deserved condemnation? Or that I like when invaders and attackers are killed? God what a moron.

Do you get it now? People who support and tolerate the military and the people who make it up are the ones who love killing. I am the peaceful one, bitch.

There's no reason to cry -- life is a carnival! It's better to live singing.
-- Celia Cruz