LOS ANGELES - Presidential longshot Ron Paul beat the one-day fundraising record Monday afternoon when a special pledge drive yielded over $3 million in an 18-hour period. The record was previously held by fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Paul, who stands out as the singular opponent of the Iraq War among the major candidates of both parties, rose to prominence following controversial remarks made during the Republican debates regarding the events of September 11th. The Paul campaign has seen a steady rise in popularity in the months following, highlighted most noteably by his frequent victories in online polls. Paul's popularity among the online community gave rise to early accusations of online poll tampering, leading to speculation as to the actual size of his constituency. Supporters hope Monday's fundraising results will put those accusations to rest.

For drug possession.

I feel so much safer knowing that the 73 year old legend has been busted along with Tony Sizemore, 59, St. Cloud, Fla.; Bobbie Nelson, 75, Briarcliff, Texas; Gates Moore, 54, Austin, Texas; David Anderson, 50, Dallas. Obviously, all are seasoned and dangerous criminals and subversives.

Let's face it, if Willie can corrupt the kick ass All-American Toby Keith, then could the fall of Western civilization be that far behind?

Ok, so really it's only one reason that I'm going to write about here but I have two stories to tell.

First, a few months back I received an email from a Chinese businessman who lives and works in mainland China. I have been dealing with this man and the company that he represents for a couple of years now and most correspondence has been pretty typical. This email was different.

He was so excited to tell me, and probably countless other business acquaintances, about the birth of his first child, a beautiful little girl. I could sense his jubilation in the way that his already broken English seemed more broken than usual, as if he had written this message on the fly, perhaps writing from the hospital or in a stolen moment in the office before he rushed home to be with his newborn. And to top it off, this proud papa attached some absolutely adorable photos. (After seeing the photos I asked my wife if I could have a Chinese baby. She said, "NO".)

Though simple in nature, it was a remarkable experience for me and I was happy that he took the time to share his joy.

The second story I have to share happened just this week.

For the last few months my company has been doing business with a firm in Austria. They are building some custom machinery and tooling that we will be using in our factory. It is some really cutting edge stuff and we're excited to get our hands on it.

Last month a few of my coworkers went to Austria to test the equipment and to make the final arrangements. They had an amazing time. The Austrians were great hosts and spent a lot of time and effort entertaining our guys after hours. All had a great time and many alcoholic beverages were consumed.

Then, this week we finally received our shipment of tools and equipment from Austria. We were already excited to crack open the crates though we had no idea that the contents were far more pleasing than we imagined. As we looked into the open containers we found that our Austrian friends had taken great care in filling all of the empty spaces with milk crates full of beer.

This Friday, after work, we are going to have a beer fest and take lots of photos to send back across the puddle to our new best friends in Austria.

So, that is why I love international trade. It gives us the opportunity to see people from across the globe, not as scary and threatening foreigners who are a part of the monolithic "Chinese" or "Europeans", but as fellow humans, individuals, parents, children, businessmen, innovators, friends and drinking buddies.

Provision must be made for the poor. Throughout human history, this has been the refrain of the compassionate. Indeed, generosity towards the poor is one of the most universally recognized virtues, it is present nearly without exception in religious and secular philosophies. I know there are people who will, if for no other reason than to play devil's advocate, argue against it until they're blue in the face, but for the purpose of this article, let us start from this premise: that a virtuous man has a moral obligation to help the poor.

Yet in the modern era, we find something very different. Instead of starting from this individual's obligation and following it through to the consequence of generosity, we live in a society where the poor are said to be entitled to this provision merely for being poor. The individual moral responsibility may yet exist, but it is purely academic: the state will see to it that by hook or by crook this entitlement is received.

This has actually perverted what has long been a pretty much universal human virtue. The people who mere generations ago would have tirelessly worked to provide for the poor now largely work just as tirelessly to create new entitlements for the poor.

In my opinion, this is largely to blame for the knee jerk negative reaction of many individuals when the notion of helping the poor arises. Painful history tells us that the man who casually holds out his right hand in a modern call for compassion is usually far busier with his left hand, rifling through our pockets for whatever we might through greed or necessity see fit to withhold from him.

And to what end? None, save making the burden of that compassion easier to bear. The curse of the virtuous throughout history has been that, no matter how much good they really do, it never seems like enough. Modern society has sought refuge from this by collectivizing the burden. If the poor are not sufficiently provided for, it is society's fault for being selfish, not the individual's fault for not trying hard enough.

In the end, it is the poor that suffer. Between the inefficient and ofttimes downright malevolent ministrations of the state and the glib dismissal by respectable members of society who have already "done their share" in paying their taxes, it's no wonder that so much of the world's population remain mired in nearly inescapable destitution.

The state welfare office will never be the loving benefactor that the poor need, for much the same reason the prison warden will never be the caring reformer that the criminal desperately needs. They not only owe their livelihoods to the continued existence of their respective charges, they stand to benefit greatly from an increase in the problems they are expected to solve.

The poor may receive the basic necessities of survival from the state. The state may even be exceedingly generous with creature comforts that distract them from their station. And why shouldn't they be? A percentage of the money spent will inevitably trickle into the pockets of various bureaucrats along the way. Besides, it's not their money to begin with.

But whether they're kept on the brink of starvation as in the developing world or carefully sequestered in the shabby government housing of the west, the message is clear: the provision is being made, your tax dollars at work. Moreover, if it seems insufficient, petitioning the government is the correct course of action. The individual just can't have that big an impact.

At least, not anymore. When approaching the average well-meaning individual to assist in some private scheme to help the poor, one is met with a mix of incredulity and indignation. "I gave at the office", my obligation has been met, and how dare someone approach me and say it's not enough. When one considers how much that average person is giving to the government, and what an emphasis "helping the poor" generally gets in the government's various propagandae he must imagine he's already been exceedingly generous.

But when one examines the fact of the matter, he likely hasn't. The government has taken a few thousand dollars from him, but only a few dollars of that was dispensation for the poor. Of that, much is eaten up by bureaucracy, so that he may find, if he were permitted to follow the money trail, that he has given mere pocket change.

Most likely, if he were left to his own devices, he would give more. Even if not, when presented with a request for aid he no longer can delude himself into thinking he has already provided it amply. That is perhaps the greatest harm done by the modern welfare state, for it has salved the consciences of those who have done precious little, and discourages the well-meaning individual from thinking he can affect change in the lives of others on his own.

Everyone is crazy but me! I’ve been known to use that line but it's always been a joke. Now I'm starting to wonder.

I'm really tired of all the sleepless nights – no pun intended. Tossing and turning, turning and tossing, ugh, who needs to sleep anyways? It's easier to turn on the computer than to talk myself into a slumber.

I've reached a point in my life where my most frequent self-description is “apathetic.” I used to be pretty evangelical about…well just about everything. I had all sorts of opinions that I was overeager to share. But now - now it's a different story.

About a month ago, I went out to dinner with a bunch of family. I was sitting next to my uncle, a Commander in the US Navy turned aerospace engineer, whom I don't see but every few years. He considers himself a conservative free market man. He recently attended some educational seminar where they had read and discussed, among other things, Bastiat's “What is Seen and What is not Seen.” After he and I shared a brief discussion of Bastiat, he took a little more serious tone.

“What is this I hear about you being way out on the far left?” he asked.

My younger brother overheard, gave a good laugh and busted out “Joel on the far left? Not quite.”

“Well” said my uncle, “I hear that you are an anarchist.”

“Yes” said I, “that is true.”

I could see the wheels turning as this proud patriotic military man tried to bend his mind around this new information. I knew that he was searching for the right words but all that came out was a sort of grunted “Wha?”

Someone, I couldn't tell who, added “So does that mean you're left wing or right wing?”

The look in my uncle's eyes confirmed that this was his question too. So I answered him, “Look, I'm not left or right. I'm nothing. It's like I've reached political nirvana. I'm just hanging out in some void. I don't care for politics and I don't want to play anybody's silly games. I just want to live my life.”

Luckily, right then, my mom in her infinite wisdom chimed in with something totally unrelated and successfully changed the subject. I could not have been happier to oblige. I really didn't want to talk about it, nor did I want to talk about any of the potential spin off topics. I didn't want to discuss the war in Iraq, the war on drugs, torture, wire tapping, burdensome economic intervention, private roads, private defense, intellectual property or whatever. I just don't give a shit enough to care anymore and I especially don't care enough to “cast [my] pearls before swine.”

At least that's what I tell myself when I'm awake. In the middle of the night it's a different story.

Most people would consider my insomnia a disease but I look at it as a sign of my health. It shows that I do still care. All of the bullshit is still getting under my skin. I'm not entirely apathetic. When I can't sleep I know that I am still in touch with reality, that I still have my humanity and that I still have my very own conscience.

I guess I just can't nod off all comfy and cozy in my bed while knowing that innocent Iraqis are being killed by the bombs, bullets and violence that have been imported by the American Empire and it's allies. I find it especially hard to sleep when, in my nightmares, the faces of Iraq children become the faces of my own.

I can't help but think of the money and resources being drained away from productive individuals and funneled into the pockets of the wasteful, lazy and corrupt. I wonder about the extent of the damage and whether it will, someday, cause me to struggle unnecessarily to feed my children or if they will have to struggle unnecessarily to feed theirs.

I worry that the future may hold in store a wonderfully dystopian tyranny. Will my progeny not even know the meager freedoms that I possess today? Often, in my sleepless state, I get myself up and make my way to the bed of each one of my children where I can joyfully watch them sleep in peace and innocence. I can only hope for the best in their future.

As I count my sheep, I ponder upon the psychosis of many of my friends, family and neighbors who have all but turned in their sanity. Like kidnap victims with Stockholm syndrome, I watch them embrace and defend their captors, their exploiters. I listen as they faithfully recite every lie, as they repeat every piece of propaganda. There goes individuality; there goes reality right down the memory hole. Trade it in for a collective identity; trade it in for officially sanctioned truth. And then, at the end of each day, like the good sheep running through my head, they lay themselves down with a clear conscience and a false sense of security and they enjoy a good night's rest.

In the end, I know that I should let it go. I know that my sleepless worries aren't going to change a damn thing but I am thankful that, for me, letting go is not so easy. I am grateful that when I am unfortunate enough to fall asleep, it is my conscience, it is my nightmares that return me to my healthy state of insomnia.

"In the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better."--Michael Crichton

It all started with the cavemen.

Wait, let me back up: it all began with men.

From the very beginning, we've been runners. Those biologists and anthropologists who don't argue that we're aquatic apes will tell you that we're running apes. It's unlikely that anyone had to invent running; the brisk joggers were simply weeded out. This much, at least, is genetic. Nature, not nurture.

The running subsided somewhat with the discovery of shelter, also unlikely to have been invented (hell, maybe shelter even came first). Our ancestors found holes in the ground, dirt-eroded tree root structures, crude canopies, and occasionally even caves, and set up base camp for the next few years -- make that 200,000 years, for those families lucky enough to find caves. There, our ancestors developed a taste for the sedentary life. Sure, they still hunted and gathered, but they left the wandering to the nomads.

That's where evolution and circumstance end and invention begins. That's where the most significant changes to the human condition stopped being chromosomal and started being societal, occurring inside a generation at a time. Someone came up with the sharpened rock, music, money, campfires, the scorch-tipped wooden spear, the arrow, the plow, language, storytelling, jokes, and religion.

Someone also invented not killing, and not injuring, and not stealing. Or someones, rather; it didn't happen quite how the libertarians like to imagine. We didn't draw up agreements not to kill each other; even something that seemingly basic is still having the kinks worked out. Slavery was still practiced explicitly in Niger in 2003. For much of history, "no killing" enjoyed unilateral enforcement; that is, no one had to bother inventing the idea of "don't kill me." That idea occurs naturally to each of us. The union of "don't kill me" and "I won't kill you" has been almost geologically slow going. In fact, we can still witness the evolution of this seemingly commonsense tit-for-tat concept today in philosophy lecture halls, on the morning news of the world, and on C-SPAN. People still do not get it.

Every few centuries, someone makes an improvement. But as philosophy and its subset political theory are neither exact sciences nor formal systems, the best one can do is type up a treatise, get it published, and leave the rest to fate.

In this way, every improvement to the original invention of rights has not been a start from scratch, as is frequently the explanation. Rather, each spasm in the human condition has been an upgrade to the configuration of rights. It's all open source. Wiki-rights. We've come a long way from the early "Usenet" world of warring city states and Hobbesian pharaohs. Hammurabi's code, Greece's democracy, Plato's Republic , the Magna Carta, Locke's Second Treatise, the US Constitution, even Marx's Communist Manifesto -- each with varying success and arguable merit, some mere flights of fancy, others the very stuff of the global polity.

The greatest conceit, to me, is the belief that nothing will come next. Humans have a need to be part of a climax, of the End of Days, the conclusion of civilization. Maybe to give their own lives closure, maybe to witness firsthand what it is that gives humanity its purpose, but whatever the case, people want to believe there's nothing new under the sun and everything worth saying or doing or making has been all of those things and too often. Nobody wants to be obsolete, so here's to hoping nothing gets better.

This, of course, goes beyond cynicism and into the realm of willful ignorance. We'll get better. When this is said about science, technology, medicine, wealth, economics, and the human standard of living, we accept it as obvious to the point of redundancy.

And yet, for some reason, when we broaden the scope of our definition to include merely one more facet of the human condition (indeed, a vital facet if we are to assess the whole of human experience), argument and denial endure. The facet of the human condition to which I refer -- freedom -- depends just as much on the ingenuity, innovation, and capacity for reason of our brightest minds as all the other facets mentioned above. Freedom, just like the other facets, has an intimate relationship with both science and philosophy. The collection of inventions called human rights have not been fine-tuned quite to perfection, just as other sciences have not been. We still have kinks to work out, not only in its execution but in its very conceptualization. Of all people, anarchists and libertarians should recognize this.

Humankind's demand for freedom only becomes stronger the greater our potential for happiness. Every innovation that adds a day to our life expectancy, makes us safer, less likely to suffer, or improves our strength, stamina, or health, gives us a greater incentive to refuse the state's services. Any creation that subtracts a minute from the labor necessary to survive, or cuts the daily commute, or other wastes of time, ups the stakes. Any invention that provides me with something else to do with my time increases the value of a day of my life , just as surely as an increase in the supply of alternatives for how to spend a dollar increases the value of that dollar.

Relative to its position 1000 years ago, the state has almost no power. It's grown, to be sure. It has developed new technology, like the rest of us have. It can do things it couldn't do before. But I ask: what would the state need, today, to carry out what it has done in the past? What state is currently capable of conquering the entire known civilized world, like Macedon did (under Alexander) and Rome did (it's important to "curve for inflation" by making a relative comparison rather than speaking in absolute terms on matters of government vs. humanity; obviously, for example, modern states can kill MORE people now, but even 60 years ago, the Nazis couldn't even accomplish something as historically routine as genocide, while they still managed to kill 12 million people, 6 million of them Jews, in the Holocaust)? What would the state need in order to tie people to their land and have them working as serfs? Will the state ever have the control it once had over the mass media? International trade? Domestic affairs? Sex? Religion? The Taliban wasn't a sign of things to come, it was a spasm of nostalgia.

And what of tomorrow? We're at the cusp of the information age, already having experienced unprecedented accessibility of knowledge. We have the genome cornered; it must soon come out with its hands up. On the brink of nanotech, we have nowhere to go but forward into immortality.

And man's liberty index will react to these developments as it always has: it will rocket into the sky, ever upward, on its current path, its steadiness broken only by an occasional acceleration. We'll continue to get older, healthier, wealthier, wiser, stronger, faster, and prettier. With it, we'll only get more stubborn with our rights and more precise in our demands.

Let me finish where we started, with cavemen. All of humanity descends from a single ancestor -- called Eve by geneticists -- who lived in Africa 2 million years ago. Oh, there were other hominids all across the globe, to be sure. Our ancestors merely spread rapidly over the planet and "displaced" them, with virtually no intermarriage. Human history, you see, began with a global, and 100% successful, genocide. And all of us are descended from the perpetrators. Violence, it would seem, was at one time the rule rather than the exception. Aggression, the spirit of statism, in those days included all of us. I think that fact best illustrates how far we've come.

What will our descendants say about us?

Many people on ASC seem to be limiting the scope of their broader philosophical thinking to libertarianism, and in terms of further exploration or debate limit themselves to the dwindling dicussions occuring on the ASC forums. In this milieu debates over fine points of the non-agression principle, like who owns the airspace above your house, assume cosmic importance.

Though some may mistake its originator Murray Rothbard for a messianic figure, the NAP doesn't answer all ethical questions. It is unnecessary to take it to extreme lengths, and defend it with such zeal. There are of course situations where it will not work well, and these especially come in to play when defining what is your property, and what exactly is "aggression".

Really, the NAP is just a more specific application of Kant's Categorical Imperative: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law." Of course, a libertarian would act in accordance to the NAP, while a communist would not. That is what distinguishes a libertarian, and why the concept of the NAP is a good way to understand libertarian thinking. But by being more specific, the NAP can become more inflexible. Sometimes we have to decide things based on a specific situation and not just refer back to a general principle. Can you really know how hypothetical cases judged by hypothetical judges in a hypothetical market anarchist society will play out? Go ahead and try, but if your head explodes, don't blame Rothbard.

M. Bryan from Strike-the-Root alerted me to a post made at Liberty Belles accusing me of holocaust denial, and that it had since been taken down. Ever the curious one, I simply searched for the post in google. Turns out The Eunuch wants more beat-down (or more links to Liberty Belles). Rockin'

More Nuggets of Wisdom from Jeremy Sapienza

In the comments thread of Clara's most recent post on the Alito nomination, Jeremy Sapienza wrote,
"Whatever loser, we want more Sapienza".

Since we're approaching the Holiday season, I am happy to oblige!

Hehe, thanks! I was just being goofy and trolling you guys though. I didn't think you'd post literally every single comment.

Here's Jeremy flirting with Holocaust revisionism:

It was said by one of the talking heads in Washington that Walker turned his back on his country, and that now he would pay the price. For the record, I don't disagree that Walker is a criminal. He was fighting to cement in a State that was one of the most oppressive to its subjects in the world. But he's no more criminal than any other brainwashed idiot that kills the innocents of his own and other countries for the glory of his government. Yes, this includes you, US military men. Your government has killed more people around the world than the official statistics of the Establishment say were killed in the German Holocaust.

I use the term "flirting" becuase I can't quite tell if Jeremy is either (A) baiting people to call him a "Holocaust Denier" or
(B) actually implying that the "Establishment" (meaning 99.99% of historians) is lying about the number of individuals killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

I will reserve my judgement until Jeremy himself responds.

You're in luck, buddy, here's my response:

After crunching numbers one day in an attempt to prove a holocaust revisionist wrong, I realized it would have been nearly impossible for the Nazis to have purposefully murdered as many people as is claimed. I do not doubt (specifically) the number of dead, only that they were killed in a deliberate act of murder by a person. I simply think that most died from hard labor and the disease that must have been absolutely rampant in those disgusting camps. And just to preempt idiot comments (though it didn't seem to have worked last time) -- Nazis baaaaaad. Kay?

However, if you want a good idea of how outside the mainstream "B" is, here's Steve Sailer's take on the matter:

I am totally against Holocaust Denial. It’s bogus. The facts have been documented ad infinitum. More of this and I’ll have to pull my link to your website.

Sailer posted this comment on the white nationalist blog, Majority Rights, in response to some of it's posters expressing doubt about the number of individuals that perished at the hands of the Nazi's. It goes without saying that no one would ever accuse Sailer of being politically correct.

How do you even have this kind of information handy? Does this guy routinely lurk on right-wing racist websites? What, does he work for SPLC? Feh. Besides, this guy could just be proud of the numbers.

On another note, here's Jeremy taking a shit on Rosa Park's grave:

Because she becomes less of a random tough old lady and becomes a smooth political operative -- she was already sucking MLK's dick at this point. And as you suggested, it files down the horns of evil whitey just a bit if it took a whole year for some asshole to show up and demand she vacate her seat.

For the entire context, click here.

I wonder, is he speaking of this action in the literal sense or the figurative sense?
Either way, it's pretty repugnant.

Um, literal -- she was MLK's mistress. What, dead people automatically deserve respect no matter what? or is it that black people deserve respect no matter what? Sorry, I don't play that game. I meant exactly what I said -- it cuts the coolness factor in her actions because she was a slick political operative and not a tough-as-nails old broad.

If this is the future of libertarianism, please allow me to jump ship.

November 13th, 2005 at 01:37am The
Eunuch

Don't worry, it seems you already have. Just look at that pathetic soft-National-Review blog you guys have.

Anyway, I stopped calling myself a libertarian a while back, so you can keep calling yourself whatever stupid name you wish.

---------

So I guess the only thing I'm wondering is: why was it redacted? I have a few guesses: 1) Someone said to the Eunuch "Jeremy's Jewish" or 2) The LB chicks saw it, thought it was asinine, and told him to nix it. Of course there's one that someone else offered: 3) a simple chickening out.

I'll let the comments thread deal with this mystery.

Linux is sticking to its roots. IBM, Sony, Red Hat and a few more have joined forces to form the Open Invention Network because, in their own words, "impediments to collaboration on the Linux operating system seriously jeopardize innovation." The method: newly-formed OIN will share their patents royalty-free with any company that agrees not to assert its own patents against Linux. Furthermore, they plan to purchase new patents and open them up for free, as well.

According to Gerald Rosenthal, this maneuver is "not a money-making enterprise. Our goal is to enable the Linux ecosystem to grow.”

Fortunately, Sony and IBM are on board, along with more than one homo economicus. So we know that someone, some day, somewhere down the line, expects to make money off this. Maybe Hollywood will learn a thing or two from this campaign as it develops.

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