Sam was a brilliant free-market anarchist who died at just 56 in 2004. He was the editor, in succession, of New Libertarian Notes, the New Libertarian Weekly, and New Libertarian magazine. He was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and An Agorist Primer. He founded the Agorist Institute and the Movement of the Libertarian Left. I admired him in life, and find myself more and more influenced by him now. To take just one example: Sam, you were right about not voting.

This weekend, after reading some extremely kind comments Sam had made about me, which a friend had shared, I was going over his Wikipedia articles, and realized I had never read what turned out to be a pioneer article mentioned there, Copywrongs, which I published today on LRC. And there is more SEK III to come.

This was Sam Konkin’s response, exactly two months after Total Federal Failure Day (9/11/01), to a neocon-libertarian who had denounced my refusal to join Bush’s neocon crusade and stepped-up police state. Wrote Sam:

I’m not going to give a you a point-by-point refutation [to your anti-Rockwell memo] because I’m putting my efforts (finally) into a [Movement of the Libertarian Left] webpage refuting wardog arguments and exposing disinformation. I thank you for refreshing me as to what those positions are; it requires such an alien mindset that I have trouble grasping them even to oppose them effectively.

I assume you could care less what a foreigner thinks [Sam had been born in Canada], but Lew Rockwell, in the face of the hate and calumny he has recently received, is an exemplar of American Revolutionary-time Patriotism, unlike the Tory Lobsterbacks supporting Imperial forces in a small distant state who does not want them and does not deserve them. It’s no accident that the Brits are having orgasms over current U.S. Policy.

I rank Lew with Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale.

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.