I wanted to say this myself. I thought it best to hold my tongue, so I did. Let me be the first to second this sentiment and say that whatever our differences they are probabaly less irreconcilable than we make them out to be.

Yes, well, the reason I'm back, and the what you can expect if your insulting diatribes resume, are articulated in the thread below. You blow hot and cold, but when hot, it is really pissy, LWM.

You are confusing me with a corporatist (and most libertarians are not that) if you think I defend "what routinely happened to union organizers, SCLC voter-registration workers and sitters-in, or bonus-marchers, or residents of Hoovervilles?" Reason magazine was founded opposing both the excesses of the Black Panthers and other violent radicals of that era (c. 1970), but also despising police brutality. Libertarians -- real ones of whatever stripe -- have always straddled left and right, but been with the left on civil liberties. I have NEVER been a "law and order" conservative. Impeaching Earl Warren was never on my agenda.

You say: what actual crimes Koresh and his followers committed, if any, isn't really the issue for me.

They should be. Unusual new religious groups in America are still Americans, and unless and until they break a valid law (like killing people, falsely imprisoning them, stealing from them etc) ought to be left alone. And most leaders of new religions are not Charles Manson. That's just wrong as a matter of sociological fact, and leads to hysteria and bigotry against "new religions I don't like."

Whoa. You have some issues! Glenn and I do not "blow each other off," for reasons you would not understand. He and I tell each other the truth as we both see it, good or bad, which is a valuable thing. And I do not know what this means: "I know you are bitter. I know your son's death influenced your already bitter feelings to AHNL. Leave it. You can." That acronym is not familiar to me, but I do not know what my son's death has to do with any issue on the table, and cannot imagine why you would bring it up. Really, that's sick -- it is irrelevant to anything being discussed and can only be intended to disturb me.

And btw, neither I, nor any other single human being, unduly influences Glenn. He is the ultimate independent thinker.

You should be disturbed. You brought him up. You used him for your own purposes. You have used your own son. And you call out LWM and WT. You used your son's death to make a point.

A very long time ago, when someone questioned that I had any right to claim Cindy Sheehan was not acting rationally. I "used" him for the purpose of validating that I know exactly what kind of distress and imbalance that grief can cause. He really died, that's not using him; he'd want me to tell the truth of the impact of it on me as it relates to other mothers and understanding the dynamics of such a loss. I've "used" him to the same degree Mary Tillman has used Pat Tillman.

That isn't what you meant, however, and no, I'm not looking up the acronym -- you employed it, if you don't care to announce what it means, then I don't care. You accused me of some sort of ongoing bitterness abut my child's death and a purported need to "let it go." What utter gall. A thoroughly gratuitous piece of advice, using my son's death as a sword, in a manner that has zero to do with any topic that has been discussed at Glenn's blog in something like a year, all because you are upset that I played a minor supporting role in his last book, and whoever you are, you seem to think I displaced your proper role.

Your whole diatribe in this thread is very creepy. You seem obsessed with the fact that I have a cordial and working relationship with Glenn; why that should bother you, I do not understand. And somehow, anything I write that is snarky relates to my son's death and my "bitterness."

That's all pretty foul, and please stop.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Yes! They could have served that on him at any of the many times he left the compound. The fiasco the feds turned that into was absurd. Reducing that place into a bombed, blazing inferno was never necessary, except for folks who get all irrational about unorthodox religious groups.

The proof of how absurd it was is that Janet Reno had to resort to claiming "child abuse" was going on inside -- that is wholly beyond federal jurisdiction, but plays well with the Oprah audience. And oh, most of the "abused" kids died in the federal effort to "save" them.