Wow, Irving's a nutcase. However, I gotta admit, I do wonder who called Brown to tell him not to fly...?

Or whether anyone did.

Ooh man, see 'cause Condi's black see, and so were the Huxtables. So so it's so funny and clever and witty like that! And see since Willie's black, she must have been sticking up for him 'cause they're both black like the Huxtables. See?

Who are the Huxtables?

The Huxtables were a fictional television family. (See http://gabbyhooch.tripod.com/id33.html ) The lead character was the popular comedian Bill Cosby. The point of David Irving's comparison was to make fun of the race of Condoleeza Rice, who, like the characters in the Huxtable family, is black.

Somehow I can't even try to comprehend any possible argument this Irving guy makes. All I can think of is a preschooler screaming "OOH COOTIES." Any rational statement that might escape that vacuum between his ears is drowned by the squeals of a toddler running away from his grandmother.

Is there any other reason for mentioning the Huxtables other than the fact that they were portrayed as an affluent, upwardly mobile middle class African-American family?

Tom, what on earth are you saying? That since Lew Rockwell mentioned an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on a topic that David Irving also wrote about, Lew must deny the Holocaust? Is that what you're inferring? How long did it take you to find that Irving article, anyway? If you type in Condoleeza Rice and Willie Brown into Google you get thousands of hits. Why assume Lew was acting as an "echo chamber" of anyone? Why assume he didn't read it in the Chronicle, as he says he did, and as thousands of others did?

Oh, and by the way, the link to Bob Wallace doesn't prove anything. Wallace did not say anything at all implying "that no one should find [the swastika] shocking today." He was pointing out that it was a good-luck symbol before the Nazis hijacked it. Did you not know it's true that Swastikas are still appreciated in much of the world, and that the Nazis indeed perverted the symbol? I'm half-Korean. My Korean grandmother had a swastika necklace, with Buddhist origins. Was she a Holocaust denier, as well? I've seen the symbol in Indian restaurants. Are they Holocaust deniers? Come on.

The Grand Rothbardian Strategy moves forward! Rockwell has infiltrated anti-war neo-nazis and added their vast membership (1-3 creeps) to the Libertarian Vanguard! The Revolution Will Be Soon!

Anthony,

I'm still checking sources (it doesn't take that much time, but you have to get access to a bigger database) for the alleged interview. Rockwell says the "Examiner," and the Chronicle is the only source I could find. The Chronicle article doesn't say a word about any alleged warning from Condoleeza Rice, but only a vague claim about "his airport security" and the quote that "Mike McCarron, assistant deputy director at SFO, said the Federal Aviation Administration 'routinely' issues security notices about possible threats. He said two or three such notices have been received in the past couple of months, but none in recent days."

Every source that mentions the claim about Condoleeza Rice leads back to....David Irving. Check them all out. That's where they all lead.

Now people who believe and repeat such claims are, how shall I put this?....kooks. And malicious ones, at that. Rice is responsible for promoting bad policies (duh), but I don't believe that she had foreknowledge about 9/11 that she shared with the Mayor of San Francisco. (The "look! they're both black, and you know how 'Huxtables' stick together" angle is hard to miss in the David Irving gossip.)

I added Mr. Wallace's strange little defense of cult-symbols-that-are-associated-with-evil because it's just the kind of thing in which a cultish person would revel. Is it any wonder that holocaust survivors would be upset by its use? Again, duh. That a geometric pattern was deliberately spelled out in potted plants is highly unlikely, but I also wouldn't want that in front of my house. But along come people who insist that it's really harmless. Just because some people still alive still have nightmares about being tortured by people who wore that insignia on their armbands....hey, grow up! It's time to move on.

Anthony, wake up. You've found yourself in the company of some pretty scary people. And the scariest one of them all is the one who's brought them all together, a process in which he tries to rub his dirt off on the clean ones and to make him and his agenda appear cleaner and legitimate by association with decent people.

Tom, I am astonished at the depths of dishonesty, calumny, and slander to which you will descend in your obsessive effort to smear LRC. To outrageously insinuate that I am some kind of Nazi sympathizer, which I suspect you really don't believe to be the case, based on my linking to and quoting from a mainstream Australian newspaper report about political-correctness run amok, is truly beyond the pale and jaw dropping. Surely the vestiges of your sense of decency must make you squirm with just a twinge of guilt for having resorted to this kind of tactic.

Your insinuation is completely dishonest, unprofessional, incivil, unfair, wicked, and inexcusable, and I think you know it. I take comfort in the fact that you harm only yourself in making such mouth-frothing charges.

Mr. Kinsella,
You may not have noticed, but above I mentioned Mr. Wallace's strange defense, not yours. Yours was merely odd, as if no one should be offended by seeing that in front of his or her house. But in any case, it is hardly calumny to mention that an eager defense (by Mr. Wallace, you'll note) of an offensive symbol is strange, and suggestive of cultish attachments.

More interesting and far more suggestive (and therefore not in a P.S.) is Lew Rockwell's affection for David Irving-inspired rumor mongering.

Mr. Palmer, you did mention mine, not just Wallace's. You said, "That a geometric pattern was deliberately spelled out in potted plants is highly unlikely, but I also wouldn't want that in front of my house. But along come people who insist that it's really harmless. Just because some people still alive still have nightmares about being tortured by people who wore that insignia on their armbands....hey, grow up! It's time to move on."

This of course is an attemp to put words in my mouth; to imply that I am endorsing the unpleasant things you state with sarcasm. The point of my post was to critique the notion of "inadvertent" racism; or the idea that something can be in "appalling taste" if it is done inadvertently, per this line, which I quoted: "'The arrangements, even if done inadvertently, are in appalling taste,'" Lord Mayor John So said."

In any event, you cannot glean at all from my post any sentiment that holocaust survivors should "grow up", or similar insensitive sentiments, etc. But then, you would have to read with charity. Any decent, mature person would retract and apologize, upon reflection; but I suppose, in your eyes, there are no rules of war. I have pity on you.

Mr. Kinsella:

One can reasonably argue that an "inadvertent" act cannot be in "poor taste" - though that depends on what sort of "inadvertence" is involved. (Did the gardeners not realize that they were forming swatiskas? Or did they not know about the association between statiskas and Nazism? Or did they not see any reason for anyone to be offended by what they themselves recognized as Nazi symbols? The news item is unclear on this point).

But let that be as it may. I think what's worrisome here is that anyone would consider this a particularly notable example of "political correctness run amok." Why would you and Mr. Wallace be sufficiently bothered by people being hyper-sensitive to display of the swatiska to bring it up repeatedly? It just seems like an...odd preoccupation.

Maybe even a bit "cultish," as TGP puts it.

No-name Vinteuil, it is not germane whether you agree with me about whether this is an example of PC run amok; and why in the hell do you care why I would want to post it? Your stupid comment that it's an odd preoccupation is ridiculous and a transparent ad hominem. Grow up, you loser. You worm.

But even you acknowledge that it is arguable that it's a case of PC run amok. Given this, it's clear that it's completely unjustified to infer any of the other disgusting sentiments that Palmer groundlessly, outrageously, and immorally attributes to me.

Wow, and i thought your guilt by association tactics were bad before. Now you somehow accuse someone of being a Holocaust denier simply because they both happen to carry the same story. Now let's look at the FIRST SENTENCE Of Mr. Irving's post "ACCORDING to a report today Friday, May 17, 2002, on Pacifica Radio" Hmm. is it possible that Lew happened to get that information from, I don't know, Pacifica Radio? Now, I'm sure we'll have a post about how Lew Rockwell supports anti-American commies.

Like my fellow LRC columnist Mr. Gregory, I am also half Korean, and my mother also has a good amount of art that includes swastikas that My Jewish father never found offensive. Thank you for the warning about the "dangerous" people at the Mises Institute and LRC. When I give my speech there in March, I'll make sure to wear a bullet proof vest, lest all those ignorant rednecks from (gasp) Alabama try to lynch me.

I've been to several Mises Institute events and while the Mises Institute doesn't spend all its time talking about how social security "privatitization" will help elderly blacks, how racist it is that black hair stylists can't get certified, or how people who oppose vouchers and enterprise zones are no different than, I dunno, Sam Francis; there are often minorities there and from what I have seen all of them have been treated with nothing but the highest level of respect.

While many people at the Mises Institute criticize you and other Catoites, it has always been based on policy and philosophy. I have never read any National Review/ Southern Poverty Law Center type smears of how they are somehow unpatriotic or racist. If you have a problem with them, why not actually attack what they say, rather than what you think they think.

Mr. Kinsella is quite upset about my mention in a P.S. of the cultish interests shown on lewrockwell.com. He writes "I suppose, in your eyes, there are no rules of war." Now that's a bit odd coming from someone who posted comments on my web site under my name (not his) in the attempt to make me look foolish. I post under my own name, not under Mr. Kinsella's. (But then, it would have been delicious to have posted Kinsella's bizarre postings under his name, but even if that would have occurred to me, he beat me to it.)

But setting aside Mr. Kinsella's strategically selective invocation of strategy, let's put the fascination with insignia alongside the links and constant positive references to KKK sympathizers (Sam Francis of the pro-segregationist "Council of Conservative Citizens," known throughout the south for many years as the "acceptable face" of the KKK, quickly comes to mind), to crazy advocates of public stoning of homosexuals and "defiant children" (Gary North, a regular contributor to lewrockwell.com and a leading "light" of Christian Reconstructionist theology), and so on. It all adds up to a very ugly picture.

Mr. Kinsella: you're SO cute when you get all indignant! So...DOMINANT.

But seriously: whether or not I agree with you on this or anything else is, of course, not "germane." But then, I didn't suggest that it was. What *is* germane is the substantive question: is hypersensitivity to swatiskas, or is it not, a notable example of political correctness run amok? And if it isn't, why would anyone think that it was?

You write: "why in the hell do you care why I would want to post it? Your stupid comment that it's an odd preoccupation is ridiculous and a transparent AD HOMINEM [emphasis added]. Grow up, you loser. You worm."

I will always treasure these words. Rarely have I seen a deficient sense of irony displayed with such charming forthrightness. I hope that you will not mind if I reprint them liberally elsewhere. ; )

You continue: "even you acknowledge that it is arguable that it's a case of PC run amok."

Well, no, actually, I don't. I acknowledge that the mayor's words arguably embodied a bit of conceptual confusion (though neither of us knows enough be sure about that) - but a bit of conceptual confusion is a far cry from "PC run amok."

As for the rest of your remarks, I defer to TGP on the question of what sentiments he intended to attribute to you and on what grounds.

All I'm seeing is a libertarian website which, in the spirit of free speech, allows a plethora of different views to be brought forward without censorship.

Tom, perhaps you would convince people of your point of view if you spent more time dealing with your specific objections (like why stoning homosexuals is wrong) and less time hurling invective at people you find "scary."

Andrew suggests that it's merely a "specific objection" that I have to "stoning homosexuals," but in fact that's one reason (among many) that I find the little cult around Lew Rockwell to be "scary." I'm not sure whether Andrew finds the idea of being stoned to death "scary," but I find the people who advocate that to be plenty scary. (And I should point out that there is nothing "unlibertarian" about "censoring" your own website by weeding out crazy, anti-libertarian kooks from the writers. I get that response often enough and it shows a lack of understanding of what libertarianism requires. If I don't publish something in my magazine, it does not follow that I "censored" the author in the way that the state "censors" a publication by imprisoning the editors.)

In response to Mr. Epstein, I return to the original reason for my posting. What sane person believes that Condoleeza Rice actually "phoned him [San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown] two weeks before 9/11 and warned him to take no commercial flights until further notice"? The source of the rumor was none other than David Irving, the holocaust denier and neo-Nazi (but let's not be hyper PC about someone who merely teaches his children to sing Nazi marching songs and to give that oh-so-cute "Heil Hitler" salute) scumbag. Lew Rockwell's belief in unhinged conspiracy theories derived from neo-Nazi crackpots (like Justin Raimondo's belief that Jewish art students were somehow tied up in 9/11) only discredits any other ideas with which he may be associated. If you don't like Condoleeza Rice's policies, say why. And if it's because you think that she warned the mayor of San Francisco by phone not to fly around 9/11, it shows that you're a nut.

For decent people who would like to know about some of the other bizarre connections between Lew Rockwell and his truly scary friends and associates, you can find more links under "The Fever Swamp" category of postings: http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/cat_the_fever_swamp.php

Tom, you seem to be the one obsessed with insignia. And you're totally ignoring the fact that what Bob Wallace said was, in fact, true. Stephan Kinsella had simply said that something can't be in accidental bad taste. There was no "taste" about it. Of the dozens and dozens of columnists for LRC, including some of your associates and others that I gather you respect, and of the thousands of articles published there every year, you seem intent on taking any line you can, spinning it out of context, giving it the most uncharitable of interpretations, and -- presto! -- all of a suddent LRC is a hotbed for the KKK, Nazism and all that is evil. Of course, LRC also supposedly equates American military personnel to Nazis, according to you. So which is it? If LRC's "ugly picture," as you put it, is one of pro-Nazism, and yet LRC equates American troops to Nazis, and yet LRC also supposedly wants to see American troops die (as you also claim), does that mean LRC is pro-Nazi but wants Nazis to die?

This is ludicrous. To slam a bunch of libertarians and anarchists as Nazis is way over the top.

Maybe the real truth is that the LRCers and the Mises folks, with some debatable exceptions concerning a handful of the columnists, are indeed distinctly libertarian, taking the position that the initiation of force is wrong no matter who does it or for what reason. You might say there are issues like immigration where some (but not all) of them seem to make unfair exceptions. But to the extent that immigration is an open-and-shut case, I would say it's even clearer on the issue of war -- including the Afghanistan war, in which lethal force was initiated on thousands of innocent people.

On the Justin issue, have you read his stuff on the subject? Or are you just assuming he's bent on anti-Semiticism? You say "Jewish art students," but I think Justin's point has more to do with the state of Israel. I don't think he cares one iota about the ethnicity, race or religion of people involved, only the political implications of the Israeli art students. And, as you should know, Justin bases much of his research on the 4-part series done by that bastion of antiwar, leftist, anti-American Islamofascist sentiment -- Fox News. Fox's Carl Cameron, shortly after 9/11, raised these questions about Israeli art students sneaking into government buildings and cheering at the sight of the falling of the Twin Towers. I remember the reports. Is Carl Cameron anti-Semitic as well? Is Fox News an anti-Iraq War center for Holocaust denial?

As a libertarian, you should probably be most concerned with the initiation of force, shouldn't you? And what is it that is the greatest source of such aggression in our own country? The U.S. government, of course. And what is the most aggressive thing the U.S. government has done recently? The war. You say you opposed the Iraq war, but you seem so much more concerned with bashing libertarians than you do with condemning atrocities and mass murder committed in all of our names.

Why is that? (And the term murder shouldn't offend you. You yourself used it to characterize Clinton's wars when you said, "When Democrats murder innocent people by sending cruise missiles to blow up pharmaceutical factories in Africa, who among that crowd [of Hollywood leftists] even notices? It seems that party affiliation means more than one might expect.") If you say Clinton's war was murder -- and it was -- but Bush's war isn't, perhaps there is some partisanship going on here?

http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/009875.php

correction: the people dancing at the sight of the Twin Towers may not have been reported by Fox News as the same "art students" who were looking into government buildings. In my haste, I strung the two groups together in the context of Fox News reporting, but I honestly don't remember if it was Fox News that reported on the cheering crowd. Fox did, however, do a 4-part series on the Israeli art students.

Mr. Palmer: No, I'm not really that upset at all; how could what you do upset me? But that does not mean I cannot demand that you stop your unjustified, immoral claims and then see how you respond, out of mere clinical curiosity. You can run around all you want maliciously and outrageously equating (like a good collectivist) certain conservative libertarian individuals with anti-semites, one web site with another, and continue to change the issue, muddy the water, and evade and try to wriggle out of your previous comments, but the bottom line is--be a man. Admit you were wrong, at least in my case. Apologize. It's that simple.

As to Vindiesel--

"You write: "why in the hell do you care why I would want to post it? Your stupid comment that it's an odd preoccupation is ridiculous and a transparent AD HOMINEM [emphasis added]. Grow up, you loser. You worm."

"I will always treasure these words. Rarely have I seen a deficient sense of irony displayed with such charming forthrightness. I hope that you will not mind if I reprint them liberally elsewhere. ; )"

I will grant you that is funny. BTW, the "worm" comment was from an infamous Crossfire episode several years back when ex-KKK guy David Duke of my home state Louisiana was on and was being attached by Michael Kinsley, and Duke looked at him with derision and said, "You worm," totally nonplussing Kinsley. (Go ahead, Palmer, have a field day with that one.)

Now I'm beginning to feel like the people at lewrockwell.com
Tom is not content to slime them, he has to slime everyone who disagrees with his apparently baseless opinions.

"Andrew suggests that it's merely a "specific objection" that I have to "stoning homosexuals,"

Wrong. I never wrote the words "specific objection" yet you slander me by attributing that to me. In reality, I acknowledged that you have "objections" and asked that you elaborate on them in a scholarly manner. Notice the difference in meaning between the words I actually used and the words Tom attributes to me.

Of course stoning homosexuals is wrong and repugnant. However, Tom has failed to draw a link between Rockwell and the belief that this action is just. Anyone can build up and knock down straw men, as Tom is demonstrating again and again.

Furthermore, I see little difference between a libertarian site which allows one man to write for it while believing in the zany idea that homosexuals should be stoned; and a libertarian site which allows writers to support the zany idea that the Iraq war is compatible with libertarianism. And Tom accuses me of not understanding the concept of private property.

The above post should have contained my name, sorry.

Quick point about being pro-war vs. pro stoning. While I personally find Christian Reconstructionism quite odd, as far as I know Gary North has never written on that topic. I strongly disagree with his the implications of some of his religious beliefs, but most of the stuff he writes on Lewrockwell relates to economics and other libertarian concepts. In contrast, Cato and other groups give an open forum to pro-war speakers to speak on the war.

As for your point on the Conspiracy Theories. Obviously some conspiracies exist, others are made up by kooks. I don't know about this one, but I personally would err on the side of waiting until there is a good deal of evidence supporting it before I would repeat it. HOWEVER, the purpose of your post was to link Lew Rockwell with Holocaust revisionists, not just conspiracy theorists. It would be one thing if you said,
"Look at this nutty conspiracy theory Lew ROckwell is promoting", but it's a completely different thing to say "Lew Rockwell is parroting this conspiracy theory he must have got from David Irving"

I'm puzzled by Andrew's response. He wrote "your specific objections (like why stoning homosexuals is wrong)" (check above). What I did was to write that the "specific objection" to smashing people's heads in with rocks is one reason why I find the lewrockwell.com site "scary." Maybe in the excitement he forgot what he wrote.

In any case, it's interesting that not one person has stepped forward to defend Lew Rockwell's crazy charge that Condoleeza Rice "phoned him [Willie Brown] two weeks before 9/11 and warned him to take no commercial flights until further notice." I've checked various databases and cannot find any place where Willie Brown made such a bizarre charge. All I could find is a charge made by a professional racist and holocaust denier, David Irving, which cites a radio broadcast. There is, as far as I can tell, no other source of the story. All lead back to that, not to "an interview I [Lew Rockwell] read in the SF Examiner." But one question is: what kind of person would repeat such a wacko charge? [Answer: David Irving and Lew Rockwell] And another is: do crazy charges like that detract from or add to substantive criticisms of Dr. Rice's policy prescriptions? [Answer: Duh. Figure it out.]

Mr. Kinsella: Do you know? I think that is the first time that ANYone has EVER admitted that ANYthing I EVER said was funny!

So I am in a charitable mood.

And, in the spirit of charity, may I (gently) suggest that it might not be the best of all possible ideas for you to borrow rhetorical devices from David Duke? Or to admit it when you do?

Must've been an interesting episode of Firing Line, though. Sorry I missed it.

Here is a Blast from the Past. Apparently Rothbardian-Rot continues on with his twisted little cult at LewRotten.com:

www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/obj_cult2.html

ââ?¬Å?After failing to impress Rand, Rothbard tried to forge an alliance with the so-called New Left. He presented himself as something of a guru to the extremists in radical Left groups like Students for a Democratic Society. His willingness to lead them into an anarchist paradise was shunned. He then joined the new Libertarian Party but also had a falling out with the LP because he accused them of selling out to the Right. He then split from the LP and joined the very Right wing he had recently attacked. He, along with Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute, announced that they were paleo-libertarians and actively courted the Right. One of Rothbardââ?¬â?¢s contacts and friends on the Right was Samuel Francis, a man who easily worked with various racialists and anti-immigration activists. He was, for some time, a conservative newspaper columnist, but his dealings with racists lost him much of his support.ââ?¬Â

ââ?¬Å?Rothbard has a history of creating false stories. He held to a Stalinist interpretation of political strategy and believed that a ââ?¬Å?vanguardââ?¬Â of radicals would lead an anarchist revolution. Rothbard saw himself as the intellectual center of the vanguard. For this purpose he helped form a radical group entitled the Radical Caucus which published a newsletter Libertarian Vanguard. Oddly, all of these people pretty much followed Rothbard into the Republican Party when the LP rejected his ideas. One of the favourite phrases of RC members was ââ?¬Å?smash.ââ?¬Â They always wanted to smash something. Sometimes they wanted to smash the state but all too often then just smashed other libertarians.

The radical vanguard didn�t hesitate to attack other libertarians because they vied with them for control of the party. Under their Stalinist strategies they were required to control the party. Thus they frequently spent a great deal of time attacking anyone who competed with them for control of various libertarian organizations and the party itself. This strategy seemed to be behind Rothbard�s constant attacks on competing influences within the libertarian movement.�

Note the P.S. update added to the original posting above, on Mayor Brown's denial that he had said what Lew Rockwell (without attribution to David Irving) said he said. And further, there's no evidence of the existence of "an interview I read in the SF Examiner."

You know, I can't say for sure, but how do you know he didn't confuse the two papers, like I did in my first post, and like I have ever since I've lived in the SF Bay Area? Maybe he was referring to the Chronicle article you linked to above?

It would make sense, considering that the two papers have a historical relationship, and that they share the same Sunday edition, "The San Francisco Examiner/Chronicle":

"On November 22, 2000, the newspaper landscape in San Francisco shifted dramatically, and SF Gate changed with it. On that date, the transfer of the San Francisco Examiner from Hearst Corp. to ExIn Inc. was completed. At the same time, the existing staffs of the Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle merged to produce an expanded Chronicle, owned by Hearst Corp."

http://www.sfgate.com/examiner/
http://www.namebase.org/sources/DS.html
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/chronsale.html

Anthony,

Note that the article that did appear in the Chronicle doesn't mention Condoleeza Rice or any phone call from her to the Mayor. The only place that does is the David Irving site and a few other crazy places, all of which link directly to David Irving. In short, there was no interview in which Willie Brown made that statement. Lew Rockwell didn't read it in the Examiner and he didn't read it in the Chronicle. He read it chez David Irving.

Let me ask you, just how likely do you think it is that Condoleeza Rice would call the Mayor of San Francisco before 9/11 to give him a personal warning not to fly? Does that seem likely to you? What kind of person would believe such a story?

Let me address your earlier comment above. Do I think that state murder is bad? Yes. Does the Bush administration practice it? Yes. Should we be angry about the torture scandals and the crazy decision to go to war in Iraq? Yes. Am I angry? Yes. Do I want to see a stop to it? Yes. How do we do that? Well, we don't do the various things that I've pointed to that appear on lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com. We don't "toast" the killing of American troops. We don't denounce Iraqi police recruits as quislings and -- despite Raimondo's coy denials -- call for them to be killed by "the resistance," which is as evil a gang of killers as you could possibly imagine. The more successful the elections, the earlier our troops will leave. That's a fact. The tactics of Lew Rockwell and of the self-described "Rockwellite" Raimondo do not advance an agenda of peace. Not one inch. Saying you're for peace and advancing it are not the same thing. When I was active in the anti-draft movement we had to deal with the fringe kooks who would march up with banners saying "All Hail the Red Army" and with flags displaying the hammer and sickle. Of course the reporters went straight for them. They did not advance the antidraft movement, no matter how much they said that they were there to defeat the draft. They did as much to advance the cause of conscription as any pro-draft politican. The same goes for Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo. What they do is to discredit critiques of interventionism by tying them to utterly crazy causes and statements, such as the claim that Rice warned Mayor Brown by phone not to fly. Think about it. Would you put any trust in the analysis of someone who would promote such a crazy rumor? And associating the cause of "peace" with anti-Semites (Joe Sobran), crazy pro-stoning theo-cons (Gary North), racist segregationists (Sam Francis), and other trash sets back the causes you obviously believe in. You are doing yourself and your values no favors by working with Lew Rockwell. Think about it.

P.S. Yes, I have read Raimondo's crazy theory of "art students" and 9/11. No, no serious person should put any stock in it. Conspiracy theory of that sort is, ultimately, for losers. It's the preferred pasttime of people who don't intend to and won't have any positive effect on the world, people for whom all the bad things that happen are the results of shadowy forces that only they can perceive. Losers in every sense of the word, but most especially in the sense that they aren't going to and don't intend to win for the causes with which they are allegedly connected.

Tom,

Your last post there actually had some substance to it, and it's good to hear you finally address what apparently has really been bothering you.

As a regular reader, I have noticed a few uncharitable and overly harsh statements on LRC, and even a few associations that at least made me feel uncomfortable. But I think your blanket dismissals are just over the top. The LRC folks are very much like me, and probably you as well: they are used to disagreeing with just about everyone in the world. I think that might mess with your head a little bit. You might say some things or believe some things too readily, mainly because they AREN'T what everyone else believes, so you are positively disposed to them.

But you really do view everything in about as negative a light as you can, and your dismissive "bunch of crazies" talk overlooks the fact that quite a lot of good thinking and logical points are discussed on LRC, even by Gary North and Lew himself. I started as a libertarian leaning Republican, transitioned over to a Cato Libertarian and now find myself somewhere in between David Freidman's anrcho-capitalism and the general LRC view of the world. The reason for the shift is that these people and this position makes sense, and their arguments are often very compelling.

Raimondo seems over the top sometimes, but so do you, and so does just about everyone in the Republican party these days. I'm sure I do too! We care about these issues deeply, and it's very human to see those who fail to understand what we do as crazy or unreasonable or even evil.

So come on. Just stop the hyperbole, and stop the hunting through every little blog entry for connections to undesirable people. Let's get back to real things we should be talking about, more like your last post.

Anthony and Steven, if you're still reading, this does apply to ya'll as well. The big government libertarians are misguided, no doubt, but could we tone down some of the accusations and edge case behavior and stick to the important stuff?

I doubt Rockwell reads Irving's site sympathetically, he seems to have threatened legal action against Irving recently, via Kinsella.

http://tinyurl.com/4wwan

Palmer: "The more successful the elections, the earlier our troops will leave. That's a fact."

By what standard of success? Do you mean if 99% of the people vote the U.S. will leave sooner than if 30% vote?

The U.S. doesn't plan to pull out until there is a solid government in place and election day isn't going to tell you much about that prospect.

Then again, saying this is a fact amounts to saying major policy changes are impossible. Is that your view?

Since I do not read your site, I did not know you were discussing, and lying about, my comments about the swastika, until I was informed about them. If you had bothered to read my past articles, you would clearly know what I think about Nazis. You are a dishonest man, and a liar. Obviously, you hold people in such contempt you apparently think they'll fall for your lies. That's all I, or anyone else, needs to know about you.

Let's have a look at last night's mail bag.

John Long certainly raises some reasonable points, but I would encourage him to think a bit more about the question of whether Lew Rockwell harms the ideas that Mr. Long holds by associating them with A) crazy and unsubstantiated claims right out of the fever swamp, such as that just before 9/11 Condoleeza Rice personally phoned the [black, get it?] Mayor of San Francisco to warn him not to fly, and B)truly sickening racist/neo-Confederate/holocaust-denying/pro-stoning kooks. It's worth a thought.

John T. Kennedy brings to our attention something I had not known; at least David Irving is a reader of Lew Rockwell. A smart person would want his name off of David Irving's site (there is no legal action that can be taken against linking, but restrictions on "passing off" seems a reasonable minimal standard for demanding that one's work not appear in certain forms). It seems all the more likely that the David Irving site is *the* source for Lew Rockwell's otherwise unsubstantiated and truly crazy belief that Dr. Rice phoned Mayor Brown. Every kooky web mention I could find of the alleged call (try it for yourself) links to David Irving, who seems the source for the claim and who reproduces the SF Chronicle story (which makes NO claim of any such phone call from Dr. Rice).

Mr. Kennedy also poses a good question about U.S. policy in Iraq. Yes, I think that if 99% of the people were to vote, that would be a very strong step toward creating an Iraqi government that could take on the insurgents. That is a step toward withdrawal (although precise numerical ratios between election turnout and likelihood or speed of withdrawal are impossible to specify). There are both objective and subjective conditions for a U.S. withdrawal. Certain policy constraints are fixed, or so close to such that they should be taken as given. One is that "Americans don't like to run." Whether rational or not, some justification for a retreat other than "we were beaten" is a necessary part of promoting withdrawal to the American people. Another is that the current government (and any likely successor) in the U.S. is not going to pull out and leave Iraq as a merely failed state that would be host to terrorist training camps. Rational or not (and I think that there are good reasons to fear such an outcome), that's a fixed constraint. Given that, what is the best possible (not logically possible, but likely) outcome? We are likely to see less loss of life and an earlier withdrawal if the elections produce a government with the (sociological, at least) legitimacy to combat the insurgents effectively. Further, people who glorify those insurgents as "the resistance" and who denounce Iraqi soldiers as "quislings" and who "toast" the deaths of American soldiers make it harder to promote withdrawal among Americans, not easier. They play the same role as the Spartacist Leagues and their ilk did during the anti-draft debates, by discrediting other voices for withdrawal.

Finally, Bob Wallace has distinguished himself (if that's the term) by rather casually using the term "Nazi" an awful lot in his columns, as in his reference to "the proto-Nazi Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons disguised as airport screeners" (at http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace57.html ). I'm a bit more careful in calling people "communist/Stalinist" or "Nazi" when they do things I think are immoral, unjust, or irrational. Call me old-fashioned. I found Wallace's strange rehabilitation of the crooked cross to be, well, strange, and a sign of a rather limited understanding of why people in fact find it offensive. (In my post script above: "Two examples of Rockwellite appreciation for, um, harmless, traditional insignia that no one should find shocking today.") Wallace offered precisely the sort of twisted rehabilitation that is found on all of the holocaust denial sites. (Go and search the Irving site, or the Institute for Historical Review site, or the others; then wash your hands.) It reminds one rather directly of those right-wingers who bang on and on about how "they" have taken a perfectly good word ("gay") and "now we can't use it any more to describe a delightful time or occasion without people thinking of sex!" They don't mention that "they" have also taken a perfectly good word ("straight") and "now we can't use it (e.g., he's a real straight-arrow) without people thinking of sex!" But they've got no animus or agenda, mind you! The same goes for those who express mock surprise that black men don't like being referred to as "boy" ("Hey, what's wrong with 'boys'? It was a term of endearment and a sign of how good race relations really were before all those civil rights activists started to make trouble.") Attempting to rehabilitate a symbol that flew over an empire of hatred and murder shows a lack of appreciation of the significance that symbol has acquired, just as Mr. Wallace's reference to "Charles Lindbergh, who was about as close to a true hero as America produced in the 20th century" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace190.html) -- without mentioning that there is evidence that he was rather anti-Semitic -- shows a lack of appreciation of the significance of such matters. But, oh, how thrilling it feels to be naughty and to shock the "ultra PC" crowd, those people who get in such a froth at evidence of anti-Semitism, holocaust denial, racism, and the like! What fun it is. Well, Mr. Wallace, it isn't fun and it isn't funny and it reveals a childish and immature person.

Finally, what is most revealing to me is that all of the outraged and angry comments from lewrockwell.com columnists refer to the post script about Mr. Kinsella's and Mr. Wallace's childish attitude toward a symbol that is (justifiably) a red flag to many people. Is there no one who will defend Lew Rockwell's belief that he read an interview in the San Francisco Examiner (or Chronicle) in which the Mayor of San Francisco said he received a phone call from Condoleeza Rice warning him not to travel? There is NO evidence of such an interview. The article to which I linked in the Chronicle contains NO mention of any such call. The only source of it is David Irving's web site, which evidently (note link above from Mr. Kennedy) Lew Rockwell does read, just as David Irving reads Lew Rockwell. NO serious person would believe such a crazy claim, and certainly not when there is NO evidence that it was made. Is Lew Rockwell a kook for believing it and trumpeting it in his desire to take down Condoleeza Rice? Can *anyone* defend that kind of insanity? Does it detract from serious criticisms of Rice's policy prescriptions? Any takers?

Palmer: ". It seems all the more likely that the David Irving site is *the* source for Lew Rockwell's otherwise unsubstantiated and truly crazy belief that Dr. Rice phoned Mayor Brown."

I don't follow that at all. I assume that Rockwell threatened to sue Irving because he didn't want his material associated with Irving's site.

From what I can piece together I gather Brown popped off on 9/12 with something vague about a warning from his "people at the airport". Somehow this got garbled over time to include two weeks notice and Condi. This story is floating around, I see little reason to doubt Rockwell saw it in some newspaper.

The real story there is how gullible and credulous Rockwell is, believing any anti-Bush conspiracy theory he happens upon.

While I think Rockwell may have seen *something* about this Brown/Condi connection in a newspaper you're quite right that it almost certainly could not have been in an interview with Brown. Seems clear to me Brown never made such a statement about Rice.

So his blog entry is at least credulous and grossly inaccurate. I can understand why some would take a less charitable view.

Tom Palmer wrote: "I'm a bit more careful in calling people "communist/Stalinist" or "Nazi" when they do things I think are immoral, unjust, or irrational. Call me old-fashioned." Ah. But you will insinuate someone is a Nazi sympathizer, or anti-semitic, or at the very least unsympathetic to victims of Naziism ... because of a quote to a mainstream newspaper article reporting on a minor brouhaha about a flower garden that inadvertently resembles a swastika. I see.

"Is Lew Rockwell a kook for believing it and trumpeting it in his desire to take down Condoleeza Rice? Can *anyone* defend that kind of insanity?"

What is insane is Mr. Palmer's apparent desire to think every personal opinion of Lew Rockwell's needs to be investigated by Palmer. Lew's suspicions regarding Rice and Brown are in no way unlibertarian or evidence of the racism and anti-semitism of which Mr. Palmer repeatedly, outrageously, accuses him. Who is Palmer to demand that Rockwell "defend" his opinions an suspicions to Palmer, or that others do it for him?

Several people have written me who are not really one-sided on these issues--even some who fondly remember the reasonable, likeable, rational Palmer of years past--and quite seriously wonder if Palmer is literally insane.

Tom,

I think you're just being obtuse now.

First off, I do not understand your obsession with this one reference to an unsubstatiated internet rumor. I've seen good friends of mine, family, left-liberals, right wingers and a whole lot of others stupidly pass on information that they saw that immediately seemed plausable to them. Often, these bits of information had unsavory final sources. You continue to harp on this one instance of Lew quoting something that happened to originate from a Holocast denier.

It was a BLOG ENTRY, so just grow up! He probably saw the internet rumor once that mentioned Rice, read the Examiner article (or was it the Chronicle? I can NEVER get those two straight in my head) and mentally confused the two. It seems entirely reasonable, but you want to make some direct connection. STOP! You are just looking stupid now. Why not try to make some other points, if LRC is as bad as you think? There's gotta be plenty out there.

Regarding " B)truly sickening racist/neo-Confederate/holocaust-denying/pro-stoning kooks.", please provide links. I don't know WHAT you mean by racist and particularly Holocast denying. Are you referring AGAIN to this one damn post you can't stop obsessing about? Neo-Confederate I can understand as a mischaracterization of the belief that the US would be better off if the Confederates had been allowed to secede. I haven't heard anyone talking about how great the Confederacy was. And pro-stoning... I knew Gary North's religious positions before I started reading LRC. It bothered me, as I disagree with him on it pretty strongly (from a Christian perspective). But his articles have been on balance some of the best I've read, and he hasn't mentioned stoning homosexuals once. I figured he either doesn't believe that anymore or he doesn't find it very important. In any event, how is LRC promoting stoning?

Now, if any LRC'ers had come here and denied they're being far too creduous and are assigning evil motives far too often, I'd be reading them the riot act too. But so far, they haven't. But you have responded, and I really hope you can do better.

Mr. Palmer,

I believe everyone is entitled to his quirks, but your sentiments towards LRC (etc.) are bordering on obsession. Would it be too much to suggest you seek professional help? (The title of this post speaks for itself.)

I do enjoy your non-LRC posts very much, but your irrational and hateful outbursts really put me off.

More mail in the mail bag.

Let me start by pointing to a few previous posts where the weird and creepy connections between Lew Rockwell and apologists for post-Soviet Strongmen (BHHRG), Confederate and segregationist revivalists (Sam Francis and many others), and much more are detailed, complete with links. Start in the category (on my main page, on the left side) of "The Fever Swamp." Especially filled with documentation are: "Something Is Rotting at the Periphery of the Libertarian Movement.....," "Very strange Behavior from the LRC crowd," and "Gary North, Lew Rockwell, and the Politics of Stoning Heretics and Homosexuals to Death," but there other posts with documentation on Lew Rockwell-related mattes that should be disturbing to rational people.

Mr. Kinsella's feeble defense of Rockwell's paranoia, which manages to go beyond even Michael Moore, is revealing: "Lew's suspicions regarding Rice and Brown are in no way unlibertarian or evidence of the racism and anti-semitism." Rockwell did not voice any "suspicion" (which would frankly be weird enough by itself), but a statement of fact that is simply false and that only a crackpot would believe. The conversion of a statement of belief to a "suspicion" is then combined with a true but trivial claim: yes, believing that the Earth is being controlled by space aliens who run the UN, or that Rice phoned Brown before 9/11 to warn him not to fly, is " in no way unlibertarian or evidence of the racism and anti-semitism." Yep. But that does not go to the fact that Rockwell has in fact in many other places tied in libertarian ideas with some of the nastiest racists and anti-Semites in America today, including Sam Francis (if you doubt it, check out his web site and check for his many references on lewrockwell.com) and Joe Sobran (ditto -- and check out his speech at the neo-Nazi Institute for Historical Review). The fact that Rockwell believes in alien visitations or in Rice phone calls is not evidence of such belief; the enthusiastic praise for racists and anti-Semites is.

I'll leave aside the multiple suggestions that I am "literally insane" and will leave it for others to mull over whether pointing out how Lew Rockwell has dirtied the libertarian movement by associating it with malicious enemies of liberty of the sort documented in my other posts is a mark of "insanity" or an effort to warn people of what they're getting into when they step into Rockwell's hot tub. He has created a steaming pool of anti-libertarian, anti-American, conspiracy-mongering, Confederate offal and tipped in the works of Ludwig von Mises to attract the unwary. (As someone who has learned much from Mises and who respects his memory, I find that shocking enough by itself. Unfortunately, it's not only the reputation of the late Mises that is at stake, but the reputation of libertarianism and classical liberalism as a whole.)

For Mr. Long, I encourage him to check out the entries I cite above. Visit those web sites and see for himself what Lew Rockwell has brought into a movement that should stand for liberty, for property, for toleration, for the rule of law, for free trade, and for peace.

Someone has to blow the whistle on the cult that Rockwell has created, the energy for which seems to pour out of his disturbing affection for the Confederate States of America, an institution founded to defend and promote the most horrifying of human institutions, chattel slavery. He can't get over the fact that the CSA was defeated by the USA. That's evidently the source of his incredible hatred for the USA. If he'd rather be ruled by hereditary monarchs than by representative government (he's praised monarchy over republicanism repeatedly, as has his clownish intellectual hero, Hans-Hermann Hoppe), that's fine with me. He can hive off to Ruritania, crown as Emperor HHH, or one of Otto Habsburg's kids, for all I care, and obey them unquestioningly. Whatever. But I am convinced that people who believe in the value of liberty and the importance of advancing libertarian ideas should not let those ideas be discredited by the crackpot notions of Lew Rockwell or his little band of kooks, who are intent on connecting those ideas to segregationism, white separatism, anti-Semitism, and all the rest. Decent people should know that A) if they get tied up with him (or with his far more shrill comrade Justin Raimondo) they are helping to slime and discredit the ideas that they think they are advancing, and B) that they harm their own reputations by becoming associated with such trash as Sam Francis, Joe Sobran, Gary North, and their ilk. Before getting into what might look like an inviting hot tub with Lew Rockwell, check to see what might be floating in it. For the sake of the future of liberty.

Whether or not LR *knew* that his story came from David Irving is, in the end, entirely nugatory. The fact that he found it plausible enough to *repeat* without (obviously) bothering to check it out is simply damning. Where are his powers of judgment?

Vinteuil, a blog is not a news site; a blog is opinions, rumors, gossip, hunches, trivia, links -- and only *sometimes* news.

Mr. Palmer,

Joe Sobran is not an anti-semite and anyone who suggests he is is simply a scumbag.

There is absolutely no cult gathered around the Mises Institute or Lew Rockwell; you either do not know what you are talking about, or are just trying to stir up shit for some evil motive. You are beginning to resemble more and more the (inevitably inefficacious) cackling evil wizard stirring pygmie skulls and lizard lips in a bubbling cauldron. This is not meant to be an argument, just a friendly F-Y-I. Might want to check that before it gets out of hand.

Vindiesel, you vile moronic worm, you are insulting one of the most tireless and principled advocates for liberty in our time. Shame on you. Shame. .... Father forgive him, he knows not what he does. (just for your cult theories, Tom, wink wink)

I check out the Lew Rockwell site sometimes. There's some good stuff there, but some ugly, angry stuff too.

What I just can't take is the crazy sh*t. The swastika's cool? Tell that to the victims. At Auschwitz. Last week.

Abe Lincoln was the most awful monster who ever ruled a country? Tell that to blacks in the South.

Bush and Rice were in on 9/11? Really? I don't believe that. And I'd be embarrassed to tell my friends: "THIS is libertarianism." I just can't think of a better way to scare them away Big Time.

Mr. Palmer, I am not afraid to send people to your site. Thanks.

Poor Mr. Kinsella.

For anyone who's interested enough to read this far (and there can't be that many), just go to Google and put in "Joe Sobran Anti-Semitism." You'll get quite a list of items. Check out a few, such as these gems from the quite openly neo-Nazi "Institute for Historical Review": "Killing Gentiles" (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v21/v21n2p32_sobran.html ) and "For Fear of the Jews..." (http://www.ihr.org/conference/14thconf/sobranconf.html ). Read the 1991 exchange between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Joe Sobran in National Review (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n24_v43/ai_11810753 and http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n5_v44/ai_12037683 ). Generally, read Joe Sobran's columns (e.g., "Capitol Hill is 'In Our Hands'" and "Judaism and Jewishness" at http://www.radioislam.org/historia/ihr/janfeb99/sobran.htm ). Make up your own mind. Here are few items to consider: 1. Publishing in a known neo-Nazi journal is not something that non-anti-Semites do; 2. Being obsessed with "The Jewish Party" is what anti-Semites do; 3. Being obsessed with Israel, and going on and on and on about it, and identifying it as the most terrible evil on the planet shows a complete misunderstanding of said planet. (And no, being critical of Israel is not dispositive evidence of anti-Semitism; being exclusively critical of Israel and using anti-Semitic vehicles to express that criticism and asserting that the "Jewish Party" controls the world....that is evidence of anti-Semitism.)

Mr. Kinsella's rhetorical skills are singular. But he still can't answer the charge that he hangs out with anti-Semites. No, that doesn't necessarily make *him* an anti-Semite, but it does say something about him, nonetheless.

"There is absolutely no cult gathered around the Mises Institute or Lew Rockwell"

How ironic seeing this from one of Lew's high priests. Have you ever questioned Lew? Has anyone? Nope, because the Lew Rotten Cultists are:

1) cultists

2) worthless in the market (i.e. "activist" parasites who live off the polical process and charity and not scholars or any other legitimate marketable profession) and know who butters their bread

Mr. Kinsella: what's this "diesel" business?

Are you trying to call me a thespian?

Mr. Palmer (can I call you Tom from now on?)-

http://reason.com/9811/col.olson.shtml is the article about G. North and stoning, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, but how do we know for sure that it is true?

Mr. Palmer,

The points you make simply do not show Sobran is an anti-semite. All the factors you adduce could only show, at most, that, in the absence of any more information about Sobran, he would appear to be more *likely* to be an anti-semite than your typical person; but we do kniw more about him, in particular he is a prolific writer. So the kneejerk reaction is dispelled by reading what he actually writes, by listening to what he actually says. You can pore through his hundreds of columns and find no anti-semitism in there (well, of the many I have read, I have never seen any), but only lots of serious thinking. It is really as simple as that. You should find something he writes or says that clearly demonstrates anti-semitism, or withdraw your scurrilous charge.

By the way, Mr. Palmer, I actually do not hang out with any anti-semites. Not a single person I "hang out" with on a regular, or even casual, basis, is anti-semitic, for the same reason I don't hang out with white trash. All those toothless, paranoid, crude types disgust me. Or do you mean "hang out" in some loose fashion, like happening to post or publish in some forum with another person... ? But even your own blog allows open commenting, and I imagine you would accuse at least some of your commentors as being anti-semtitic, so you would be "hanging out with" them by such a loose standard.

Vindiesel--I can't remember your weird ID, Vin Diesel is easier to remember.

Lew Rotten--I am one of Lew's high priests? This is just stupid. I'm "worthless on the market"? How clueless are you? Have I ever questioned Lew? About what? Do you mean do I disagree with Lew on anything? Of course, there are substantive matters on which Lew and I disagree. So what?

Adam,

Of course.

On the veracity of Walter Olson's article, I can assure you that he is a reporter of the highest credibility and integrity. (You may wish to visit his web sites at http://www.overlawyered.com or http://www.walterolson.com .) He took his quotations from publications bearing the name of Gary North and the others cited in the article. (Some of that material used to be available on North's weird web site, but oddly....it's all been taken down.) He did not make up those quotations, I can assure you. (Who could be that imaginative, anyway?) North and his colleagues are truly strange and frightening people who openly yearn for the day when they can put most of the rest of us to death. That he is a regular contributor to lewrockwell.com says something. (No, to my knowledge he has not tested out his hobby on any actual heretics or homosexuals and it remains merely a topic of fantasy for him, as is also the case for the anti-Semites and white separationists who buzz around Lew Rockwell.)

ADDENDUM ADDED LATER: You can find some of the bizarre North claims in his book "The Sinai Strategy", available to be downloaded at http://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/sidefrm2.htm .

As to Mr. Kinsella, we must have different standards of what constitutes anti-Semitism. If writing about "The Jewish Party" and appearing at neo-Nazi conferences isn't evidence of anti-Semitism...well, what can one say?

Mr. Kinsella's standards of argumentation and inference have been shown in many other cases. (I'll set aside the tactic of posting comments on my own web site under my name and the names of other actual people, which is certainly indicative of his views about veracity.) To take but one small example, when his hero Hans-Hermann Hoppe (the one who pooh-poohed Nazi crimes in his book review at http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3638&;printable=Y ) gave a comment at a Mont Pelerin Society conference attacking the late Don Lavoie's paper he (Hoppe) led off with a vicious ad hominem attack -- suggesting that Lavoie was on drugs; Kinsella defended Hoppe's despicable behavior (using his online pseudonym of "Jim B.," which Kinsella has bragged online about using) as follows:
----------

Was this Lavoe character not a drug user? In other words is it incorrect to imply that he did lsd or is it just factually wrong?

Posted by Jim B. at September 26, 2004 12:06 PM

At http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/014584.php
----------

So for Kinsella the only evidence that would show that Sobran is an anti-Semite is to find a sentence in his writings that reads as follows: "I, Joe Sobran, am an anti-Semite."

I'm glad that Kinsella's not my lawyer. If he were to apply that kind of standard in his legal practice, he'd be laughed out of court. And as to his attempt to parse the term "hang out," I leave it to the reader to notice what an evasion that is. Finally, Vinteuil is a rather famous name, in a way that Kinsella (based only on the behavior of this particular bearer of that name; there must be others who do it more honor) is unlikely ever to be.

Mr. Palmer,

You're taking the Hoppe comment out of context. He didn't "pooh-pooh" Nazi crimes, by which I guess you meant the Holocaust. Instead he compared what each did "From 1929 to 1939, in peace time" before WWII and the Holocaust began. I will save the reader some time and take out the 'read between the lines' and say that I believe you are calling Hoppe an anti-Semite because of your comment.

Here's that Hoppe quote:

"From 1929 to 1939, in peace time, Stalin and the Bolsheviks killed about 20 million Soviet citizens, for no predictable reason. Hitler and the National Socialists ruined the businesses and careers of hundreds of thousands of German citizens, but the number of people killed by them before the outbreak of the war was only a few hundred..."

???
I guess according to Hoppe, Jews, homosexuals, et. al., aren't people.

According to Hoppe, and other timelines

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html

Jews, homosexuals, and the rest weren't systematically rounded up and murdered until 1939. Jews were denied rights, their businesses were taken away from them, and every other action was taken against them up until that time (1939).

The idea of them not being people is absurd.

Well, this thread is starting to get away from the original issue -- the complete craziness of Lew Rockwell's spreading a wacko claim that Condoleeza Rice called Mayor Willie Brown to warn him about the 9/11 attacks. What do we call people who spread such rumors? Kooks -- for starters. And certainly not the sort of person who deserves to be taken seriously.

But I just can't help rising to the bait regarding Hoppe's pooh-poohing of Nazi crimes. (And, no the holocaust is not the only crime of the National Socialists; there's, say, invading Poland, depriving Jews and Gypsies of civil rights, confiscating property, starting a horrifying war, and on and on and on.) To take but one example, the campaign of pure terrorization of the Jews of Germany popularly known as Kristallnacht was November of 1938 -- before the war. But I guess that was terrorizing just some businessmen. Hoppe's suggestion, also, is that somehow the war was responsible for the mass killings: "the number of people killed by them before the outbreak of the war was only a few hundred." Implicit in that is a denial that there was a criminal policy against those victims. The war came and then....they died. Somehow, there's no sense that the murder was a continuation of a policy.

In any case, Hoppe's sickening revisionism concerning the persecution of Jews and others is (and it seems strange to write such a thing) just one small item among a huge heap of others, all of which indicate that Lew Rockwell is one sick hombre (or maybe a better and more charitable characterization would be "one very twisted and destructive man") who's done his level best to pollute the libertarian movement with his malignity.

But I think that this is about as much as even I can stand, so I'm going to close up this thread. If anyone has anything really pressing that they really think has to be said, email me and I'll post it for you (and Mr. Kinsella, you can even post it anonymously....just not using my name, please).