I discovered Ludwig von Mises in the summer of 2000 after bumping into an old classmate at a junior college I was then attending. The gentleman was pouring through a hefty tome, diligently rereading it for the forth time. As an outspoken civil libertarian and fiscal conservative, he mentioned that I would enjoy the book immensely as it would provide a theoretical backbone to my educational experience at the University level. That book of course, was Human Action and despite its publication some 60-years ago, I continually find useful nuggets to digest, none of which show any sign of aging.
As a member of the Always-On Generation (i.e., my peers are always connected to the Internet in some form or fashion), I did some research online and discovered that although he died more than 30 years ago, his vision and ideas still live on in the hearts and minds of his students. One organization in particular that stuck out among others was the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Upon reading several daily articles and noting that they had a seminar for college students coming up, I requested a packet of information to understand more of the motives and goals that the Institute had.
Although I never attended that summer session (note: I later learned that Mike Ewens did) I continued to follow the happenings at the Institute with much interest. The daily articles acted as a viral hook as both their brevity and poignancy crystallized much of my own research and expanded it into areas that kept me awake at night.
2000 of course was an election-racket year and earlier in the spring I spent time working for the election committee during the primary and run-offs (the same gentleman that introduced me to Mises was an election judge, I worked as his assistant). Having grown tired of a lack principled candidates (at the time I considered Alan “Lincoln-is-my-daddy” Keyes to be a diamond in the rough…) I sought out and found both the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party.
At the time, the CP seemed to have many of the same domestic and foreign policy goals as the LP, with the biggest division stemming from the fact that the CP was down with g-o-d: they were kicking their campaign in a Jesus approved fashion, or something to that effect. Their organization was relatively small and their Dallas office was non-existent. So, I convinced a friend of mine (an old Ag) to visit a meeting of the Libertarian Party of Dallas. That was perhaps the most depressing sight I had seen since watching a bunch of kids wipe out into a wall while skateboarding in junior high. The only thing these LP guys (along with the token militant female activist that spurned sexual reproduction) seemed to want to do was smoke pot, legalize it, talk about it on the radio and register people to vote for legalizing marijuana. They were like, Ludwig von who? Non-aggression what? Inflation is caused by Alan Greenback?
That fall I worked as a paper-pusher at the general election and never joined a Party. I did however, come across numerous other organizations, such as Cato, IHS, the now defunct Free-Market.net and several other non-profits that promoted free-trade and various libertarian-esque policies. However, none of them had what I saw as a pure unflinching, unapologetic and uncompromising view towards the State and towards personal liberty.
Another professor at the junior college mentioned another organization that dealt with libertarian thought and “Austrian economics,” the Foundation for Economic Education. As a follower of the Claremont School Of Hard Chicanery, he mentioned them with some reservations as he apparently found the writings of Mises to be brilliant yet anti-Christian, or something along those lines (he still works at the college and still feels the same way).
So in March of 2001 I attended a FEE student seminar and felt somewhat out-of-place. Donald Boudreaux (he maintains a great blog) kicked off the session by discussing the “I, Pencil” essay from Leonard Read. This was all fine and dandy and quite interesting if one is not familiar with decentralization, specialization or the division of labor, however this was about as “radical” as the academic discussions got. Being the hot-headed rash Texan I argued with Burt Folsom and others over the need for taxation and other superfluous conditions in what Lysander Spooner aptly called the Constitution of No Authority. However, Mawell’s Demon persisted in this case and the State left a bad taste in my mouth (be sure to check out the blog “analysis” maintained by Sheldon Richman and Jude Wanninski of FEE).
With this background (there is much more where that came from…), I would like to pose a question to individuals such as Tom Palmer, Radley Balko, No-Treason bloggers, the SPLC and other organizations and individuals that feel that the Mises Institute is anti-liberty.
I am willing to listen to any criticisms you have of the Institution, the published books and journals, etc. I really do not have time for ad hominem attacks though, as I am too busy making fun of frat boys, so keep the personal attacks in your little black book for another time. I have no vested interest in the Institute financially or academically and consider both libertarianism and economics to be fanciful hobbies – neither of which I intend to make careers out of.
With that said, I should note that I did attend the Mises Summer session this past summer and had the time of my life. I went in half-expecting it to be like a FEE seminar mixed with a twist of some militia meeting or the South-Will-Rise-Again scheme. It was in a league of its own, quite entertaining, informative and professional – and a number of the students had just attended a similar event from Cato (they felt the organizations are like apples and oranges, but are both good in their own right). I should also point out that on occasion I do blog at Mises.org however I do not receive any kind of compensation or request for autographs from fans (neither Cato nor FEE have blogs I can post at). I also wrote several articles for LRC back in 2001, however I had them all removed for personal reasons (I also wrote for Playboy and Penthouse…).
A couple pre-emptive rebuttals that deal with recent topics, first I think Abraham Lincoln and just about any other politician (Ron Paul being the only recent exception coming to mind) is a douche bag as defined by Eric Cartman. Grant was a choad and Sherman was a man-whore. I have no relatives that fought on either side of the war, nor am I an honorary member of any southern or northern or masonic heritage group. So, you probably will not win too many points by pointing out that Lew Rockwell or DiLorenzo or Stromberg has a fetish with the South (much to the dismay of Jaffa, neither Rockwell or DiLorenzo donned on KKK masks during my stay at Auburn, I will keep you posted though). I am also not a fan of the State, so trying to justify its existence or why humanity should try to streamline it to make it better, faster, cheaper will not win any points either. And, I have no clue what is going on in the Ukraine and frankly I do not give a rats ass, I have enough work to keep me busy on this side of the Red River, let alone some other land with dragons, unicorns and magical dermatologists.
One last point: try to separate your beef with LRC and antiwar.com from the actual Institute – they are three separate entities and you should presumably have enough Jerry Springer dirt on the later to not need to worry about the two former.
In a nutshell: I want to know why I or anyone else should not be affiliated with the Mises Institute at all because of their supposed anti-liberty stance and maybe why I should join the ranks of other enlightened libertarians in whatever spiffy movement they are involved with. I honestly do not want to waste my time working with vagabonds, so free me from their tyrannical shackles por favor.
I’ve got to agree with a lot of what you’re saying. The bad rap the Mises Institute has with some libertarians was somewhat shocking to me. I too attended their summer course in August, and it was far and away the best experience I’ve had in a long, long time. I didn’t realize that some people apparently thought the Institute is not only anti-freedom, but a hotbed unscholarly racists and southern sympathizers. Amazing. I can vouch for the fact that nobody doned a KKK hood, nor even a rebel flag or any other confederate regalia. I didn’t witness any ad hominem attacks, childish behavior, or the infamous “Hoppe raspberry.” I don’t know where these guys cook this stuff up…
Comment by Barrett Snipes — December 19, 2004 @ 1:31 am
Tim,
I don’t see any particular problem with you or anyone being affiliated with the Mises Institute. They publish and archive some interesting stuff. They often have a overblown sense of importance, but so what? And oh yeah, a number of the contributors indulge in various levels of paranoia. But again, so what? Knock yourself out.
I don’t have any movement to sign you up for and I never will.
Comment by John T. Kennedy — December 19, 2004 @ 2:36 am
You and “Auburn” are probably made for each other, Timmy. I’d encourage you to become one with True Blue Confederate Lew . It is your destiny. Jerks of a feather should flock together. (Stephan Kinsella will be unhappy to hear that you’re supposedly down on frat boys, though. That will surely brand you as a Trotskyite.)
To hell with all of you, for all I care. Go ask your questions somewhere else, you miserable little anklebiter – since you can’t read.
Comment by John Sabotta — December 19, 2004 @ 3:10 am
You had a different experience at your local LP meetings than I did at the ones I attended. At mine, we weekly met to discuss economics and law, both in the US as well as in far flung places like Somalia. Sure, the war against some drugs was discussed, but it didn’t dominate- the artificial economic restrictions the government makes on political speech broadcast and publishing as well as discussions on the meaning of the non-initiation of force concept came up regularly. Just because you had a group of single-minded folks doesn’t mean anything other than that.Don Boudreax, of George Mason, has an excellent blog in Café Hayek. One of his recent posts ( http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2004/12/peace_and_free_.html ) discusses why capitalism spreads peace- in short, killing your customers tends to cut profits.He doesn’t go so far as to say that all war is unnecessary and wrong. The Mises Institute does. http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1189On that page, there is some that is honest and rings true: “Within a world of free trade and democracy there are no incentives for war and conquest. (Omnipotent Government, p. 3)”
Unfortunately, this is not a world of democracy. This is a world with countries whose leaders and large portions of their populations are interested in imposing religious law upon the rest of the world (yes, all of it) and either subjugating the rest of the world’s people as second-class citizens, converting them all, or if they resist, killing them all.It may come as a surprise to some readers, but this does not describe America or the recently elected Bush administration, however objectionable current economic policies and the notion of legislation intended to find and punish those who would fund and commit exceptional acts of violence intended to change political policy.Given that there are a large number of people in the world opposed to democracy and opposed to free trade (completely rejecting trade with Israel, for existence, to the point of punishing those in such societies who do) Mises’ is again right: “If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace. (Omnipotent Government, p. 15)”Given that those people exist, it is only just to respond to those threats, particularly ones that funded those initiating force against us or our allies. After all, when your neighbor’s house is on fire, you go and help him put it out rather than wait for the ashes to catch your roof on fire too.
You look for an unflinching position against the State and for Personal Liberty. I can have no Liberty if I’m to be subjugated by others intent on imposing a theocracy. The columns and blogs at Mises Institute seem to largely take an anti-war position, not just on Iraq (which really did fund and train terrorism against US allies, whether or not you can stand to believe they might have been agitating against the US or not.) Mises got it right, there can be no peace as long as folks adhere to beliefs that they can blame Jews (Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/634 ), take over the world as the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist brother organizations wish to do- http://www.ummah.org.uk/ikhwan/ , or deny that there is any just and right response to violence committed: See Arun Ghandi, who on a recent visit to Israel suggested that the Jews should have simply laid down and resisted Nazis so many years ago, nevermind that the Nazi, Soviet, Khmer Rouge, and Hutu genocidists never allowed the passivity of their victims to slow them down, not for a minute.
Mises gets it right, there can be no peace as long as some use others as the excuse to kill, such as Palestinians who would rather their children die killing Jews than to live, as long as people like Saddam Hussein was fund terrorism, and countries and ‘brotherhoods’ talk and work towards overthrowing democracies and subjugating those they overthrow. Unfortunately, an observably large number of articles (including blog entries) at the Mises Institute get it wrong, going on the notion that war is objectionable, period. War is objectionable: being subjugated or attacked is far more objectionable. There is such a thing as a just war: Do the writers for the Mises Institute website know this? I hope the answer is yes, but I fear the answer is no.
Comment by Victor Marks — December 19, 2004 @ 3:47 am
For what its worth, John Sabotta has been PO’ed at me for awhile: http://www.no-treason.com/comments.php?id=675_0_1_0_C
My dad is a Husky too, go figure.
Comment by Tim Swanson — December 19, 2004 @ 4:31 am
Victor,
Democracy is fundamentally incompatible with free trade. When property rights and free trade are respected there is nothing for you and me to vote one. Democracy always interferes with free trade.
Oh and yes, they know about just war, but the only war I ever hear them call just is the Confederate side of the Civil War. (This usually happens on LRC rather than Mises.org.
Comment by John T. Kennedy — December 19, 2004 @ 6:07 am
Let’s get this straight: Tim Swanson is asking for people to be nice to one another? It is to laugh!
I doubt that I’m going to start being nice to, say, Hoppe’s writings any time soon, Tim, unless that “senior fellow” (whatever that implies about “liberty”) of the Institute changes his tune regarding using the State against immigrants. As for LRC and AWC, yes they publish a large amount of foolishness, and yes I’ll continue to point it out when I feel like it. I’ll even continue to point it out when I see something I like.
Thing is, Swanson, I can make distinctions between people that are associated with people like Hoppe and people that endorse people like Hoppe. I’m unsure what your concern here is, I think that everyone understands that there’s a (likely unwritten) code of conduct that LVMI’ers have with regards to one another. We won’t hold it against you if you’re strangely silent, now, when the Rockwell/Hoppe/Wallace crowd at LRC restarts their crazy talk about brown-skinned folks. We don’t hold it against you that you don’t include any Confederate generals or politicos in your little list. We will hold it against you if you turn out like Kinsella, but that won’t happen to a principled, thoughtful fellow like you, will it?
Partially shutting you mouth is the price of joining a libertarian movement, and trust me when I say that I have no desire whatsoever to rescue you from movementarianism.
Comment by John Lopez — December 19, 2004 @ 4:08 pm
John Sabotta,
I am, like Tim, a big fan of the MI. I can’t stand reading LRC, for what it’s worth. Besides not liking Lew (who always seems to be just kind of hanging around in the background to me) what’s wrong with the MI? Guys like Mark Thorton, Jeffrey Tucker, Roger Garrison, and others make that place really stellar for me, even if Hoppe gets all the press.
Comment by Randall McElroy — December 19, 2004 @ 4:53 pm
Very well said, Tim. Just a few comments:
Whether you like the Mises, LRC, or STR crowd or think they are armchair intellectuals, the original articles published by the Mises Institute are a breath of fresh air in a sea filled with copy-cats and compromisers. Hell, Mises was like a swan in a ocean full of sharks during his day. It is not easy to enlighten the scared masses (Just ask Giordano Bruno, Brahe and others who were burned and tortured for their efforts at educating people).
It is people like the above mentioned that have brought us a step closer to understanding and freedom. Rather than praising them and lecturing people, we need to take it a step further. Each individual should speak for liberty in their own special way. Parrots die repeating stuff that was said before, but the words of a wise man live on.
Let us find a ground in which we all can agree on; the other stuff we debate about. Whether we hang together or hang seperately, it only matters that we bring freedom one step closer to realization.
Comment by John Lee Gallows — December 19, 2004 @ 6:39 pm
Nice work Tim,
Im down with MI, AS, and LRC… I naturally dont buy everything said on all sites, but I must admit I really love the articles on MI also.
Comment by Jerry Mitchell — December 20, 2004 @ 12:05 am
Agreed,
I love both MI and LRC articles (not unconditionally, of course). I am not an American (and that probably makes me less sensitive to some strange cultural notions about the whole North vs South etc issues) and I really don’t understand these petty quibbling and strange tribal warfare.
John Lee Gallows, not very good examples of the oppressed “educators”. Tycho de Brahe was the Imperial Mathematician at the court of Emperor Rudolph II. He died there in 1601. The legend has it, that he died from urine poisoning at a formal dinner party held by the Rudolph II, because ha was afraid to ask whether he may go to the toilet and his bladder couldn’t take the load and ruptured. Painful, yes, but not a result of torture but over-decent table manners.
And as for Giordano Bruno, well he was executed, but it is not very sure why (most likely not for his defence of Copernican system but for “theological errors”); overall he wasn’t a very nice fellow, and in certain circles it is maintained that he was actually burned for murder and embezzlement of church property. So there.
Comment by Lemuel — December 20, 2004 @ 6:48 am
Swanson’s Open Letter to Critics of the Mises Institute
Tim Swanson opens up some nice debate here, in spite of the blowback he knew it would produce from the usual lurkers. Despite some of the charges made by the lurkers, granting a certain Institute, website, or group of ideologues…
Trackback by KarenDeCoster.com Web Log — December 20, 2004 @ 9:51 pm
De Coster writes: “Tim Swanson opens up some nice debate here, in spite of the blowback he knew it would produce from the usual lurkers.”
Um, I think the only reason No Treason contributors noticed this entry was because Tim asked Shonk to pass it along to NT.
What exactly does De Coster mean by “nice debate”? Does she think critics of TMI have made any good points?
Comment by John T. Kennedy — December 21, 2004 @ 12:12 pm
“They often have a overblown sense of importance, but so what?”
Here they are publishing books, posting actual intellectual content on their website and putting out scholarly work, and you have a website where people make jokes about “poo”. It would seem they ought to feel as though they are more important than you and the monkeys who post on your website.
Comment by Pete — December 21, 2004 @ 4:28 pm
By this reasoning, anybody with an advanced degree should rightfully feel more important than you. Do you really believe that?
Comment by shonk — December 21, 2004 @ 4:41 pm
That doesn’t follow at all shonk. Who said anything about advanced degrees? That has nothing to do with it, it is a complete non-sequitur.
Are poo jokes more important than articles about economics? Are pictures of ugly broads more important than Mises.org economics syllabi?
Or are you just trying to brag about your heroic math degree?
Comment by Pete — December 21, 2004 @ 5:32 pm
Bah. All this infighting in the libertarian movement gets under my skin. You know what? Outside of this movement no one gives a flying you-know-what through a donut that the people at libertarian group don’t like some other libertarian group.
Let me state that once more for clarity:
No one cares.
For crying out loud the Libertarian Party is lucky if their presidential candidate gets used as the amusing last-minute kicker in a news cast. With coverage like that, do you honestly think that even a somewhat politically astute everyman is going to be aware of differences within the movement, let alone care?
All this infighting is nothing more than worthless dick-waggling that only serves to marginalize an already marginal movement.
Comment by Otisimo — December 21, 2004 @ 5:41 pm
Re-read what you wrote. You implied that the LvMI is more important than NT because it produces a bunch of scholarly material. You didn’t say anything about whether what they produce is correct, merely that it is “intellectual” and “scholarly”. PNAC produces its share of “intellectual” and “scholarly” work too, but I’ll take poo jokes over that rubbish, thank you very much. The point is, don’t fetishize the academic merely because it is academic; scholarly nonsense is still nonsense. Now, whether the LvMI falls into the “nonsense” category is another issue…
Uh, no. First of all, the most advanced degree I have is a B.S. And second, if I ever do produce scholarly work, I’ll expect people to judge it on its merits rather than merely proclaiming it important because it is scholarly.
Comment by shonk — December 21, 2004 @ 6:00 pm
Shonk, clearly you and I have different definitions of scholarly.
Comment by Pete — December 21, 2004 @ 7:35 pm
Pete,
I don’t imagine NT has much importance to anyone beyond me. Many TMIers seem to think they’re part of a movement that’s changing the world when in fact they’re not even making much of an impression on the field of economics.
The assertion that articles from TMI are scholarly is not very useful. Is the bulk of this material well respected by scholars outside TMI? Not so much. Now that doesn’t tell you whether they’re right or wrong about anything, but what’s the point of calling this scholarly?
Comment by John T. Kennedy — December 23, 2004 @ 2:27 pm
I am generally fine with the Mises Institute, but I have very serious misgivings about LRC. As an example of this, on two separate occasions, I found links on the LRC blog to anti-semitic sites. In one case this was a link to an essay which discussed the “genetic predispositions of the Jews to cultural inflitration and statism” and the other page was full of pro-Hitler propaganda, claiming he had been unfairly maligned, etc. In both cases I pointed these links out to Lew by email, and he removed them. Nontheless, that they were posted at all concerns me enormously. Joe Sobran, too, is well known for having addressed a holocaust revisionist conference. My family lives with my Grandmother right now, and her entire family was exterminated in the holocaust. This sort of thing bothers me more than words can say. Two friends of mine at a Mises conference the year before last heard a drunken Stephan Kinsella ranting about how “Only ‘we’ (unclear who that we is) told the truth about the Jews”, whatever the hell that means. I actually very much respect Kinsella’s work, particularly his anti-IP stuff, but still. It is for reasons like these I am extremely reluctant to identify myself with the LRC crowd.
Mark
Comment by Mark — December 29, 2004 @ 9:21 am
Sabota: I am not a frat boy nor do I like ‘em especially. Lopez, you are a loser.
Mark, your hearsay is utter bullshit. I may be many things but anti-semitic is not one of them. I would never say “Only “we” (unclear who that we is) told the truth about the Jews” even if drunk, because I simply don’t think that way. I don’t really give a flying rat’s ass whether you or your craven, loser friends believe it, since people who are prone to shout “anti-semitism” are just thin-skinned mindless idiots.
In fact, the wacko anti-semite types like The Birdman and others attack LRC for NOT identifying “The Jews” as the problem in various analyses. Moreover, Sobran is not anti-semitic. I personally get sick and tired of hearing all the anti-Jewish conspinracy theories, and my eyes roll at hearing anything having to do with The Rothschild bankers, the trilateral commission, zionism, post-millenial pietism, whatever–it all annoys me. Of the few things I’ve written on Israel or Jews, they are if anything pro-semitic–e.g., my college editorial, overly influenced by Rand, “Israel: Victim of Bloodlust in Middle East?“, and this LRC piece, “New Israel: A Win-Win-Win Proposal,” for which I received a ton of hate mail from anti-semites who don’t like my proposal to relocate the Israelis to Utah. If anything, what your two alleged friends allegedly heard would have been me mimicking or making fun of the stupid anti-semite types; but then, the dour, chip-on-shoulder anti-anti-semites are too humorless to grasp sarcasm.
It’s pathetic that the critics of LRC have to make up lies about it to smear it. I guess it shows how little real there is to criticize there. All you lowlife scumbags who would baselessly accuse me or others of anti-semitism can go fuck yourselves, as far as I am concerned. I’m not gonna play your game. I’m not afraid of your stupid lies. Like John Galt, I have a face without pain or fear or guilt. To any of you who would dare accuse me of anti-semitism: Fuck you.
Comment by Stephan Kinsella — December 30, 2004 @ 4:01 pm
Well, my response to the above was deleted when I tried to post it due to an error.
I will summarize the Stephan related things I wrote thusly:
1) If it was a joke, I apologize. I am not “humorless”, and joke about ethnicities all the time, my own included. My friends, upon being asked, say that they did not THINK it was a joke, but as you pointed out, they could have been wrong.
2)They DO say you definitely said it, however. They were sitting right next to you.
3) Even if it WASN’T a joke, it concerns me the least of the things I mentioned, and I do not believe one thing said in a drunken moment makes one a racist. It concerned me much more in the context of the other things I mentioned.
4) What DOES make one a racist is either of the two links mentioned above, and they DID exist and WERE posted on the LRC blog. I *think* it was done by either one of two people or both of them, but I do not know which. Note: Mr. Kinsella is not one of them.
5) I despise that Sobran spoke at a conference of holocaust deniers. I think it was utterly despicable. Both my grandparents lost nearly everyone, and it messed up my grandfather’s mind so much that it ruined my mother’s childhood. At the end of his life, he would run around and scream that the nazis were after him. You may QUIBBLE over what precisely Sobran believes, but I DESPISE ANYONE who would align themselves with these FIENDS, and by speaking at their conference he DAMN WELL DID align himself with them.
continued below-
Comment by Mark — December 30, 2004 @ 8:20 pm
continued-
The subtext of Mr. Kinsella’s post is that I am merely one of a long line of people who smear LRC and company with the word anti-semite, reflexively screaming it to silence all opposition. I must dissent. Mr. Kinsella may be surprised to learn that I am not what he thinks I am. I personally despise many, many things the State of Israel has done, and rank them as only barely better than the Palestinians they fight. I CERTAINLY do not want the US to have anything to do with Israel. I am not even in the least offended by the idea of relocating Israel to Utah. I likewise have noooooo problem with the word neocon, and do not see it as any kind of “code word” for Jew, etc. I am sorry, Stephan, but I am not who you think I am. I am just as disgusted by such people as you are. Sorry, No-Treason types, I am afraid that this means you. I agree wholeheartedly, for example, with your post on the LRC blog today.
I like plenty of people on the LRC Blog, for example Lew, Jeffrey Tucker, Ms. De Coster, etc. But NONTHELESS they affiliate themselves both with Sobran AND with the people who posted the above links, people who are STILL AROUND, and THAT is why I cannot identify myself with them in good conscience.
Comment by Mark — December 30, 2004 @ 8:30 pm
One more thing: if you (Stephan) do not believe the links I mentioned above ever happened (as there is no longer any evidence of them), all I can say is this: Ask Lew. I do not believe he will lie. I remember he said something in the email like “I am sorry about that, thank you for telling me, I would never want to be associated with these evildoers!”. If he does not remember me, maybe that phrase will ring a bell.
note- though I appreciate the sentiment in Mr. Rockwell’s message, nontheless, the people who LINKED to those evildoers continued to enjoy blog posting priviledges. Perhaps to him they were not worthy of removing blogging rights, but I very much differ.
Mr. Kinsella, please look at this from my point of view. I had so respected and appreciated the stuff I found on LRC- stuff I found pretty much nowhere else. I had defended it against the ridiculous accusations levied at it from all sides, not the least from within within the movement itself. And then I saw this shit on the blog. And then I heard about Sobran. And then my friends told me what you said. It disturbed and saddened me enormously that there could be any TRUTH to the bullshit allegations.
That’s it. I’ve said enough. Sorry for taking up everyone’s time with my ranting, but I felt I needed to explain myself better. Having said what I did, I owed that much to Mr. Kinsella and the LRC folks.
Comment by Mark — December 30, 2004 @ 8:43 pm
Especially nowadays, a charge of anti-semitism is extremely serious to make. It should not be made lightly. That it is made lightly by some is despicable, but that does not warrant others picking up the habit.
This whole obsession with who is morally pure, etc., is just ridiculous. Whatever happened to raucus, fun, freewheeling lively debate and expression? Some may be cowed by the PC hall-monitors; others of us have a bit more stubbornness.
Comment by Stephy baby — December 31, 2004 @ 12:15 am
Dave…
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…
Trackback by Unwritten Law — November 2, 2006 @ 2:32 am
I just ran into a girl who knows for a fact that John Sabotta is a chronic methanphatamine user. His wit comes out of a white powder. She also said he leads two lives. The conservative on top and the crack addict hidden under. He’s like that gay minister that was outed and had to quit.
Comment by young winston — January 28, 2007 @ 1:00 pm