[reprinted with permission of J. Neil Schulman]
----- Original Message -----
From: J. Neil Schulman
To: J. H. Huebert
Cc: Mark Skousen ; Samuel Edward Konkin III ; George
H. Smith ; Victor Koman ; Lew Rockwell ; Brad Linaweaver ; R. W. Bradford ;
Manny Klausner ; Doug Casey ; Jerry Tuccille ; L. Neil Smith
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 10:44 AM
Subject: Regarding your article "A Great
Institution in Freefall"
Dear Mr. Huebert,
I don't think my own contributions to libertarianism
are insignificant, considering that I started my libertarian career by founding
a college campus libertarian organization in 1972, have written for libertarian
publications including Murray Rothbard's Libertarian Forum, all of Samuel
Edward Konklin III's "New Libertarian" magazine incarnations,
anarcho-objectivist publications such as The New Banner, and less purist
publications including both Reason and Liberty. The Libertarian Alliance
dstributes some of my articles. My novels have won the Prometheus Award for
libertarian fictions.
As a book publisher, I've published books by
libertarians including Robert LeFevre, L. Neil Smith, Victor Koman, Brad
Linaweaver, and Jerry Tuccille.
I'm the recipient of the James Madison Award from the
Second Amendment Foundation and the Gun Rights Defender Award from the Citizens
Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. My contributions to pro-Second
Amendment literature are considered significant, as are my writings defending
human rights against those who would destroy them by granting rights to
non-sapient animals and trees, and my natural-law defense of property rights in
information content.
You'll perhaps remember that I was on the media panel
at the FEE National Comvention in Las Vegas last May, the only screenwriter on that panel to have had his
writing produced on prime-time network television.
I like Ben Stein.
In my 1995 book, Self Control Not Gun Control, I
reprinted a February, 1993 screed I wrote for the Writers Guild of America
Bulletin Board in which I described Mr. Giuliani as "a small-time fed with
ambitions of making a political reputation for himself as a Grand
Inquisitor" and stated in a footnote to the article, "Rudolph
Giuliani is one Republican I wish would go against the trend and become a
Democrat. He's a ruthless opportunist whose political career I hope stalls
where it is." Nevertheless, I don't think any mayor could have done a
better job than Rudolph Giuliani did following the attack on his city. His
post-911 performance won my respect, and I even began resenting him less for
his prosecution of Michael Milken once Ben Stein explained during his Q&A
why Milken was, after all, a thief.
What I most object to in your article is your phrase
"a panel on the war on terrorism where only one panelist, Harry Browne,
took the libertarian position."
Your statement is offensive, arrogant presumption.
Libertarians are divided on the war on terror.
Some oppose the war because they take a pacifistic
approach reminiscent of my old friend, Robert LeFevre. Some libertarians are
knee-jerk opposed to anything done by the United States Government. Then there
are libertarians such as myself who consider themselves American patriots in
the tradition of the founding fathers, who object to theocratic terrorists
hijacking our private-enterprise passenger jetliners and ramming them into our
office buildings, murdering thousands of our countrymen, and laying waste to
our country's oldest commercial trading districts and our national defense
headquarters.
We consider that Holmes Security (for which I once
worked as a guard) is not up to the job of hunting down and eliminating these
madmen, that prosecuting them as individual criminals (as did the Clinton
administration, when they tried it the first time) did not prevent this secret
foreign legion from doing it again until they succeeded, and that perhaps the
non-extistence of Rothbardian
anarcho-capitalist defense agencies leaves the United States government as the
only real-world institution capable of combating this ongoing threat from a
bunch of unreasonable dickheads who consider their grievances more important
than our lives and property.
I consider myself an isolationist. I did not support
the Gulf War, which I considered defense of a monarchy. I opposed every foreign
incursion made by the Clinton administration.
But when a secret foreign legion attacks my country, I
reserve the right to be a patriot and support effective national defense, and I
consider that, not kneejerk contrarian passivism, to be the true libertarian
position.
By the way, I applaud FEE for inviting Mr. Giulianito
speak. Unlike Mr. Read, and like libertarians ranging from Murray Rothbard to
Robert LeFevre to Karl Hess to Samuel Edward Konkin III, I consider that any
idea worth holding is worth defending in lively debate. Mr.Giuliani just might
learn in that setting why he should read Human Action.
Sincerely,
J. Neil Schulman
--
"Aslan is on the move."
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