From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 9:51 PM
To: 'danny.chaplin@chaplinpr.com'
Cc: 'marketliberal@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: After Phoning For 3 Days, "She Drowned Friday Night"
Danny Chaplin digs himself deeper:
 
DC> If you believe in something then you should have the commitment to support it with action, not just words. <DC

So I only get to advocate the existence of crime-fighting and fire-fighting and needle-handling and drowning-prevention if I personally am a combination cop / fireman / doctor / lifeguard?  Sorry, your argument doesn't even pass the laugh test. You might as well say "if you love Iraqi liberation so much, why don't you marry it?".

DC> If you think invading Iraq was justified, then go do your bit over there. Don't ask other young men to sacrifice their lives for your philosophical beliefs. <DC
 
It's ludicrous to suggest that anybody is dying for my personal beliefs. It's equally ludicrous to suggest that any American soldiers are being singled out for suicide missions in Iraq.  American troops volunteered to join the military and to risk harm to defend liberty in any circumstances duly chosen by America's democratically elected constitutional leadership.

DC> Do you think the Louisiana National Guard boys would be interested in their [sic] sophistries? <DC

Pick any English-reading audience you want, and I'll be happy to show them how my arguments eviscerate yours.

DC> They joined the guard to protect their homes and families, which incidentally they cannot do because they're stuck thousands of miles away in Iraq <DC

There's nothing in the Guard enlistment process that promises the Guard will only be used on American soil.

DC> bringing colonial occupation and a system of government to people who never asked you for it in the first place. <DC
 
Colonization implies suppression of sovereignty and appropriation of natural resources. We have returned sovereignty to Iraqis, and Iraqi oil will continue to be sold at market prices for the profit of Iraq, not America.  The majority of Iraqis -- Kurds and Shiites -- are glad to be liberated from Saddam.

DC> Haha, I'd like to plonk you down in a unit of those Guardsmen and have you try to persuade them why they should be putting their lives on the line in Baghdad whilst their families are missing and homeless. They would tear you up for ARSE PAPER and I can't say I would blame them! <DC

The next time you have an idle daytime fantasy involving exclamations about other men's anuses, you might want to keep that information to yourself...
 
DC> But then again, people like yourself would never put yourself in that position would you. You're stupid but perhaps not that stupid. <DC
 
I would have no problem endorsing this mission even from behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance over whether I would be sent on it. (If you never got far enough past 17th Century Metaphysics to encounter Rawls, see here.) (Oh, and feel free to call me "stupid" all you want. In a duel of wits, name-calling is the equivalent of declaring yourself to be unarmed.)

DC> By the way, smug, comfortable twats such as yourself [sic] are the reason why Americans are detested throughout the world today, and rightly so. <DC

I'm prosperous and I'm right and I apologize for neither fact. I don't doubt that envious and guilt-ridden people around the world dislike people with such attributes.  However, as a libertarian atheist, I'm very very far from a typical American.
 
DC> I took a first class honours in Philosophy too by the way. My speciality was 17th Century Metaphysics and Wittgenstein. Your Blog doesn't impress me. <DC

Methinks you doth protest too much.  As for Wittgenstein, see here.

DC> But having done my degree, I got out into the world and actually got myself some experience of real life. I also have enough imagination and background reading to know and understand what living through the hell of war is like. <DC

Thank you for so vouching; that's four seconds of my life I'll never get back.
 
Brian Holtz
2004 Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley) http://marketliberal.org
blog: http://knowinghumans.net
book: http://humanknowledge.net