Wayne!

First, great pictures from the signing! I wish I coulda been there! It was great to see what you looked like amidst all the other cool tattoo kids, man.

I'll have to take another look at the essay regarding "doing nothing". It probably centered on what was justified Consitutionally for any response to the terror attacks, and even there, I might have been open at that time to more of a free hand to let Bush use letters of Marque or to see Congress declare war on the terrorists and then get into Afghanistan. I'll look it over this weekend and write more in reply to your thoughts.  You can probably tell that a lot of the essays in "Live Free or Die" show how my libertarian views grew into anarcho-capitalist views as time went by. Seems to me that I probably should have included more on how the US government international policies helped bin Laden recruit people to his cause.

That said, I believe that there is always just self-defense on a personal basis. Beyond that, there is never any justiication for government-based war, because there is never any moral justification for government. Even a so-called "defensive" war cannot be justified if it is conducted under a governmental system. Now, one could ask how a private system would work, and that's a great topic for exploration, due to the interesting things one can consider. For example, if a person is an invalid, how can he or she defend him or helself? What abotu kids? Clearly, the answers are easy for people like us who recognize the key role of markets to provide things to people who would not be able to provide them for themselves. Things such as car care, medical care, home building, etc, are things most of us would never be able to do, either due to time constraints or intellectual differences of physical limitations, but that does not preclude us or prevent us from getting those services on the market in ever cheaper (in the case of medicine, the areas where medicine costs go ut are those where the gubment is involved through payment or regulation, where it isnet involved such as with laser eye surgery, the costs go down with producitity advances, as you know, but some reading this as first arrivers might not)... ANyway, I shall write to ya more, but wanted to respond ASAP!

See ya!

G!

Gard, that's what I gathered - and I have enjoyed watching your thoughts process develop as time goes by within the book - it makes it even more of a personal account, I think, and that's what separates your work from any other Libertarian work I have read, to date.

As a 'recovering liberal', I can fully appreciate the need to grow and learn, and intend to grow and learn further, myself. This podcast and message board (along with your book, Gard - my bible of Libertarian thought!) is a great aid to that growing and learning process.   

Thanks for the reply - Oh, and hey, why not write a 'Live Free or Die Part deux'? :-D