He keeps doing shit like that to me. First, here's what the Federal Trade Commission has decided to shred the First Amendment : Bloggers who offer endorsements must disclose any payments they have received from the subjects of their reviews or face penalties of up to $11,000 per violation, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday. And here's what Tom Knapp says in reply : Dear Federal Trade Commission: Go f--k yourselves. This is my blog, not your blog. I will write whatever I choose to write, I'll write it for whatever reasons I choose to write it, and I'll disclose as much or as little about those reasons as I damn well please. If you think you can squeeze $11,000 out of me over it, feel free to try. You won't get a dime you don't take at gunpoint, and the only way you'll stop me from continuing to write as I please is to stick me in jail or kill me. Yours in liberty (hah!), KN@PPSTER Somehow it just doesn't have any impact to jump up and down shoutin...

There is enough substance to Tom Knapp's latest post that I've stolen a whole big chunk and satisfied myself with putting my favorite key points in bold face rather doing an extensive commentary: First the Paul campaign got publicly pantsed over Paul's previous Rothbard/Rockwell-inspired attempts to hook into the "populist" racist right. Then the Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr, a candidate whose admirers, for the love of Pete, are now tagging him with a "populist" label ... and attaching the other end of that label to George Wallace. Principled populism pits the productive class against the political class, the awakening masses against the power elites -- not the white middle class against the black underclass or some mythical proud parochialism against some equally mythical indiscrete cosmopolitanism. To put it a different way, any "principled populism" of a libertarian variety is going to have to weigh on the left, not the right, side ...

Recently I posted about Missouri Libertarian Congressional candidate Kevin Craig , whose view that God hates homosexuals scares the crap out of me, and Tom Knapp corrected some factual inaccuracies about how Kevin got on the Libertarian ballot . In the course of commenting on that, Kevin posed the following question: Here's my question to you and the LP in general: On what grounds would someone oppose my candidacy and not ALSO oppose the candidacy of Thomas Jefferson, and (assuming he were a libertarian) George Washington? Both believed homosexuality was contrary to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBi...cles.asp? id=101 Any party that would refuse Jefferson's filing fee doesn't have a future, it seems to me. Certainly it doesn't have much of a future with the majority of Americans (especially Christians) who agree with me (homosexuality is sinful, but violent criminal sanctions are not appropriate, and those who belie...

Here . There's always a risk in commenting at a distance. And while Kevin may be a likable guy--Tom Knapp: I do, however, like Kevin Craig. He's a reader, and occasional commenter, on this blog. He seems like a personable individual. He seems to be inclined to be helpful when possible (for example, correcting my directions to readers on the location of a great Greek restaurant, and offering to webcast a controversial MOLP executive committee conference call). Batshit insane as regards the gospel, IMO, but not a bad egg as a person. ... that's not my standard for Libertarian candidates. I've got plenty of friends that I really like who have some truly whacked-out ideas: political, social, and otherwise. I'm sure you do as well. And while I'd have a beer with them or watch the occasional Rambo movie, there's no way in hell I'd vote for them or support their candidacy if they ran for office . As for Craig recruiting himself , as Tom puts it, I have no d...

Several Bob Barr supporters are giving Tom Knapp a work-out over at The Kn@ppster , not just because he dropped his endorsement of the Barr/Root ticket, but because he posted this image: And, of course, we wouldn't want to forget the boiler plate legalese: The image of Bob Barr above is used pursuant to the Creative Commons License under which it was released by author Stephen P. Gordon on behalf of the Bob Barr Presidential Campaign. The other images (of, from left to right, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Lester Maddox) are in the public domain . Doing a sort of six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon thing, it is Richard Viguerie who links Barr to George Wallace, with his 1976 attempt to take over the American Independent Party , which had been created originally as a vehicle for the segregationist Governor of Alabama. Wallace and Maddox, of course, were fellow massive resistance governors following Brown v Board of Education of Topeka KS , and spiritual descendants of Senator Strom Thu...

The main thing I like about Tom Knapp is that he is honest enough to follow logic where it goes, and he's willing to change his mind when the facts call for it. Tom initially argued that Libertarians should rally around Barr/Root because they represented the party's legal selection and should have the chance to prove themselves by running a real Libertarian campaign. He gave them three strikes and then withdrew his endorsement . I don't agree with him, but I respect the hell out of him for, first, taking and unpopular position, and--second--when the facts proved his position wrong (by standards he had set himself), he didn't waffle. He said, "I was wrong." As a Libertarian candidate for Congress, Tom is not mincing words, either. Here he is on immigration : "Know-Nothingism" is a perennial trend in American politics. It's a convenient tool for drumming up baseless fears and turning those fears into money and votes. Unfortunately, even a few Lib...