Letter 1
From: M
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019 11:00 AM
Subject: The Judge
Dear Professor Block –
For context, I don’t particularly subscribe to any ideology but I do find that the most convenient political labels for my point of view are libertarian bordering on anarchist. In short, I root for the secessionists.
As an almost twenty year reader of lewrockwell.org and, on occasion, mises.org I am familiar with your work and generally sense you’re a smart academic, which is far from redundant.
Given my opinion on your intelligence, I find it hard to believe you entirely missed the point on your ongoing series: “The judge is a really swell guy”. The original letter was really about a guy voicing his disgust with the judge. His tangent on being a “real libertarian” was just his lame way of presenting the fact. But you’re smart. You know that.
You can have ” Judge Andrew Napolitano is an Excellent Libertarian” Part M and it won’t change that most of us “libertarians” can’t stand him. This is the second time I’ve reached about this guy after to watching him post blog after blog of “Russiagate” bullshit. First time was to Lew. I’m a busy guy and it ain’t my business what you guys put on your sites. In fact its only the second time in the twenty years of reading LRC I’ve ever bothered at all. (The first time was about the joyless Laurence Vance – life of the party I’m sure)
Whether the judge is or isn’t a libertarian or “anarcho-capitalist” or whatever big-brain terms you conjure is beside the point. The point is: he’s a dickhead. A former agent of the state who has, along with bat-shit crazy left wingers, corporate media, Glenn Beck, Bill Kristol, et al., signed up for the anti-Trump brigade.
It ain’t hyperbole: there’s a war on. Like it or not (and I don’t fucking like it) you gotta pick sides. Does my side suck? On a lot of things: yes. But it beats the hell out of the alternative. Especially as the rats like Scarborough, Bill Kristol and George Will are shook out. The judge has chosen. He’ll find no quarter or rest with me, libertarian or not. There are more important things than ideology.
Now you know my opinion.
Cheers,
M
Letter 2
From: M
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2019 12:23 PM
Subject: RE: The Judge
Hey professor – given all of the judge nappy’s recent opinions, maybe you should run another “the judge is the greatest asshole libertarian of all time” version umpteen hundred.
M
Letter 3
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2019 2:41 PM
To: M
Subject: RE: The Judge
Dear M:
I’m a Trump supporter, vis a vis any of the likely democratic nominees (maybe with the exception of Tulsi? Probably not, although that’s close, for me; she’s the best of a poor lot. Great on foreign policy, horrid on econ).
So, I do disagree with my friend Andrew on this one issue.
But, I don’t apply your very stringent criterion: if you think a libertarian is wrong on one issue, you damn him to hell; you say he’s not a libertarian at all.
I revere Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul. Yet, I disagree with both on abortion. I’m an evictionist, the former is a pro choicer, the latter a pro lifer. If I adopted your policy, I’d damn both to hell, remove them from my list of libertarians.
I continue to think that Napolitano, along with Rothbard and Paul, are all magnificent libertarians, despite that fact that I don’t agree with them 100% on all important issues.
Best regards,
Walter
Letter 4
From: M
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2019 11:08 AM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: The Judge
Dear Walter –
Thanks for the measured email. I know you’re a busy man and probably receive a good amount of correspondence. Thanks for you kindness even though I vented at you.
I’m actually not a Trump supporter. I did vote for him (and I hadn’t voted for a president since Ross Perot). The thing to me is, not about Trump, but that he represented the “None of the Above” choice like in the movie Brewster’s Million.
I agree with you about Tulsi. If she somehow miraculously wins the nomination, I may vote for her. Not because I necessarily agree with her politics, but because she would be a breathe of fresh air.
I also agree with you about libertarians having different opinions. If one characteristic were to define the group, that characteristic would be we are autonomous thinkers.
In addition, I do not hold that judge nappy isn’t a libertarian. But I do hold that he is f*cking up big time. Not in holding the president accountable (although I think he fails to see most of us who voted for him could give two shits how “constitutional-ly” and “gentleman-ly” he executes the job) but that he fails to acknowledge the cancer while droning on about a common virus. Trump may be a nasty influenza virus, but he ain’t the stage 4 terminal cancer that is the two wings of the war party.
We can hold different opinions, but I think sometimes in history you just needed to be on the right side. A poor example I’m sure, but take 1917 Russia for instance. I don’t know whether two similar minded people could take different stances on bolshevists. To me (and I suspect a lot of similarly situated “country boys”), when the dust settles the judge is going to be on the same side of history as Adam Schiff and Mitt Romney. And even though he probably won’t need it, as a tv celebrity and former state agent, he won’t find any quarter or sympathy from us. Libertarian … maybe. More importantly, turncoat for the deep state – most likely.
Thanks again for your response in spite of my tactlessness.
M
Letter 5
Dear M:
We all get excited sometimes. No problemo.
I think what you’re talking about, what we’re talking about, is a litmus test. An issue so outrageous, that if you take the wrong position on this one issue, no matter how good you are on everything else, you’re not a libertarian.
For example, putting people in jail for smoking marijuana. Probably, if you were a consistant libertarian on every other issue apart from that one, your libt credentials would be in great doubt. But there must be very few such litmus tests. How about the minimum wage? Or compelling the Christian to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. I’m not sure.
But the legal status of Trump’s behavior, and abortion, and immigration, are very complicated issues. I think libertarians can disagree on those, and, still, clearly, remain libertarians on both sides.
Best regards,
Walter
2:17 am on November 25, 2019
