I've had this thing in my "to do" box for many months, so yes, it is old. It's from December's attacks on me, Lew Rockwell, LewRockwell.com, etc., and it's from that strange bunch of Republicans known as the paleowatchers. Someone sent me this back in December or thereabouts, but I typically don't give a hoot about these birds, and I really hate to bother with their attacks, so it has sat idle since then.

Typically, these types strike up online "friendships" with the blogrolling, blog-a-rama, and Beltway "libertarians," then they call themselves "Austrian or libertarian sympathetic," in order to gain web access and increased "popularity," and they hate that the diehard, anti-state libertarians, such as myself, do not engage them, or sell out on the war or Big Government issues. This, apparently, keeps them awake at night.

All in all, I am really bored by the obsessive attacks from these lunatics; they quickly became redundant. The Internet attack scene really does not interest me, so that is why I rarely waste my time engaging these pro-war, pro-big government, attention-seeking, blogrolling, clique types in back-and-forth goings-on. But I'll waste 20 minutes, here, and say a few things, and defend myself, and that is because this guy is such a blatant fool, and I'll show it all too easily.

This nutty attack is from a Steve Verdon (if I have that right)? Some of these bloggers either don't make their names known, or, they never make them too obvious. Gee, I wonder why that is?

Well, time to make the doughnuts......

Note the "panties" remark, in the very first sentence, that makes apparent some "gender issues" here.......it seems like my Republican, blog-a-rama "fan club" 'round the net can never quite get over my being a woman (gasp!), in an arena of mainly men, and henceforth, here we are with the usual (and yes, often said) comment of "has her panties in a knot." Find a new expletive guys. Try to get more creative. How about a bra remark fellas? That'll be hilarious, won't it? This was the first sign of high school "charm" from this dufus.

Says Steve:

I don't care much about Lew Rockwell. I don't care if he is living a wonderful life or not. My beef is with the general view of the War on Terror as expressed not only on the Mises.org blog, but the main site as well. I'm sure Karen thinks Lew Rockwell is the center of the universe, but in reality he isn't.

I guess Steve doesn't have a problem attributing thoughts to me that I did not express. But quite honestly, LRC is the center of libertarianism in the Internet, and it's a site that I write for. And actually, he does care about Lew Rockwell, as he voluntarily joined the Rockwell Attack Club (see more about that here, including links to the "paleohaters"). But here's the funny part: if these guys "don't care" about Rockwell, why are they constantly focusing on him, berating his every antiwar/anti-state word, and attacking him in gangbang fashion? Have I ever proactively bothered with these guys? Has Rockwell? 'Nuff said. Steve might want to remember that it was him and his blogrolling clique that attacked us, and me, and not the other way around. So I guess we know who cares about whom. Oops -- small facts hurt Steve.

Then says Steve:

Actaully (sic) I think part of the problem is link envy. See, Karen is ignored by most of the heavy duty bloggers such as Glenn Reynolds, the Volokh Conspiracy, and others.

Oh yes, I so desire to be "linked up" by the big government types in the Blogrolling Clique Community, surely. You know, those that gather 'round the mental fireplace and pat one another's backs and say "Amen brother!" Of course, Mr. Steve doesn't care to mention that I do not blogroll on the side of my blog, I do not belong to a "fashionable" blogrolling community, and it's entirely because I couldn't give a you-know-what. And lastly, Steve neglects to note that I have absolutely nothing in common - ideologically - with the "heavy duty bloggers" that he names. Try again Steve.

Then comes the big lie from this high schooler:

Further, the above quote is misleading. The person she is referring too who hasn't read Rothbard is Robert Prather. Robert admits he hasn't read Rothbard and that his comments were more about Rockwell. As for the rest of the completely fabricated language in De Coster's post, Robert said nothing about a "dirty, corrupting pig." De Coster made that up herself and then applied it to Robert's comment.

He is entirely dishonest here, and blatantly so. When he posted my paragraph, he nixed my links, and conveniently so. Here is my original post that he cut-and-pasted from:

"And here, the guy who makes this statement: [right here I have a link to Robert Prather's statement, and now, that statement appears to be permanently deleted] "The lesson: read the Mises Blog if you like (I do), but go to the source if you wish to know about Austrian Economics and the libertarianism it's based upon. Don't let Rothbard and Rockwell lead you away from Mises and Hayek," admits here [here I link to a blog where Prather leaves a comment that he has never read Rothbard] that he's never even read Rothbard."

So, my blog is *entirely honest*, with links to follow being intact in my own blog, and Steve lies outright that I was "misleading." Even the Catallarchy blog has a link to that statement, where it is now nixed (see first para).

But Steve gets better:

In reading a post like that it is easy to see why many people see the Austrians as being like a cult.

So, similar intellectual interests = "cult?" So what does that say for any like-minded intellectuals anywhere? A school of economics is a cult now? And especially, what does that say for Steve and Robert Prather, who are part of a blogrolling cult that constantly promote one another, link to each other, and quote each other? They are not only culty, but it's more akin to high school popularity club stuff. Now here comes the personal flamer bit:

And they all pale in comparison to Hans-Herman Hoppe. Hans-Herman Hoppe is so amazing he has a hyphenated first name...or is it that he has two last names? I dunno...and don't care.

Does Steve give a reason for this 2nd-grade, ninny-like attack on Hans Hoppe? I don't see one. So I am "gushing" over Hoppe because I said "Alas, we have Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the greatest living Austrians-theorists today; perhaps the greatest?" Bertrand Russell and George Santayana (and many, many others) make me "gush," as well, due to their massive output and incredible minds, in spite of my drastic difference in political philosophy and core ideology. So what's the point about "gushing?"

Perhaps this intellectual output is why I see Hoppe as a great and prolific theorist. I cannot think of a living libertarian that has this kind of output, except maybe Walter Block. Here, Steve has arrived at the point of self-mutilation. It's here that you realize he's being entirely puerile, disingenuous, and engaging in personal attacks merely for the sake of attacking those that he disagrees with ideologically.

In the end, this is the amazing part: I never, ever went out of my way to acknowledge these people (the Republican-warmongering blogrolling clique) or to attack them, until well after they attacked me and LRC many, many times over, and I replied with my "paleowatcher" post. It was they - Steve, Prather, Bainbridge, etc. - that went on the offensive and attacked me, Lew, Hoppe, the Mises Institute, LRC, etc. But yet, on the Internet, the attitude still remains that says "I attacked you, surely, but how dare you attack me back!" These types are plain nuts.

To conclude, these guys are like the Flamers, those that spend their days sending hate mails to those they disagree with, and act shocked when they get a bite in the ankle back. Once again, as I've blogged before, here's the typical email from a Crazed Flamer, to a writer:

I read your column you &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!!, and I ^%#!&*^$#@!!!! you &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! and &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!!, so &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!!, and &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%YOU$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^YOU %$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! so don't you dare say&^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! YOU &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! because &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!!.

So &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^%$#@!*&%#!!!!! &^*^ and you can go to %$#@!*&%#!!!!!

And only occasionally, a writer such as myself will answer back:

Dear ******

Have a nice day.

And the typical response, then, is pure insanity, the whole "how dare you say that to me!" bit. Honestly, it's wild, and these LRC attackers are no different. If they don't agree with us theoretically, or in regards to historical truths, so what? But I guess the fact that they are losing sleep over it is their problem, not mine.

Just for fun, to summarize Robert Prather's (who appears to be a ringleader, with Verdon just tagging along) ideology, he believes in perpetual peace through perpetual war (see the T-shirts he advertises), and he longs for the day when lying bastards like FDR had no media or photographers to capture the truth, and therefore, all the populace had to go on was the lies of the one man, as told via his radio speeches. FDR, says Prather, should be Bush's "role model." Prather is the square peg that fits in the square hole of modern-day, FDR-glorifying Republicans. Do such clueless non-thinkers like this really exist? Surely they do.

End of wasting my time. I went over my allotted 20 minutes.