The politerati are all aflutter because GOP party hack Reince Priebus compared our President Incarnate to Francesco Schettino, the cruise ship captain who’s been charged with manslaughter in connection with the recent shipwreck off the coast of Italy.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Priebus’s counterhack on the Democratic side, called it an “unbelievable comparison,” opining that “for the RNC chairman to compare the president of the United States to someone who has been charged with manslaughter shows a dramatic level of insensitivity to the families of those victims.”

I agree. After all, Obama is guilty of actual mass murder against the civilian population of Pakistan. To compare him to someone charged with the lesser offense of manslaughter is dramatically insensitive to the families of Obama’s victims.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I have nothing much new to say, but you can check out what I wrote in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 (plus a follow-up), and 2008. And this year there’s excellent commentary from Darian Worden, Sheldon Richman, Tom Knapp, David D’Amato, and Jason Kuznicki.

On a cheerier note, today is also the ninth anniversary of the Molinari Institute – which has been a tremendous success. That success is due almost entirely to the Center for a Stateless Society division of the Institute (and thus due almost entirely to people who aren’t me), which has been placing market anarchist editorials every week in periodicals around the world (including some of the pieces linked to above). À bas l’état!

It’s also the ninth anniversary of this blog, which has likewise been a greater success than I anticipated. Thanks all!

I laughed when Nero’s minions sent
fire-tortured souls to the sky.
Without the walls of Pilate’s halls,
I shouted “Crucify!”

I roared my glee to the sullen sea
where Abel’s blood was shed.
My jeer was loud in the gory crowd
that stoned St. Stephen dead.

— Robert E. Howard

Even if the death penalty were morally legitimate (and I think it isn’t), and even if we could be justifiably confident that every one of those 234 executed prisoners was actually guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced (and I think we can’t), it would still be grotesque to react to those executions with cheers and applause, as the audience did at this week’s Republican debate. Surely a mood of solemnity and regret would be more appropriate. These Republicans howling and hooting over executions are the kind who formerly reveled in seeing Christians thrown to the lions. The fact that they now have the effrontery to call themselves Christians only adds insult to injury (literally).

He seems to be against them.

Christine O’Donnell tells Piers Morgan (shortly before bizarrely storming off his show in mid-interview) that her views on sex are not relevant to her status as a national politician “because there aren’t laws outlawing sex; and if there are, they should be on the local level.”

Speaking of O’Donnell, there ought to be something called Wiccan, Blynken and Nod. According to Google there isn’t yet, and that’s just wrong.

Dawn Kamin, who owns an optometry office in Germantown, Tennessee, received a notice that flying the American flag outside her office is a violation of the complex’s bylaws. … According to a letter sent to Dr. Kamin by the business condominium group that owns her building, she must take down the flag by Aug. 22 or face the consequences – fines and paying for the cost to remove the flag and staff.

What our soldiers do for us

“I have family in the military and we have really become aware of our freedoms and what our soldiers do for us,” she said. [You are permitted to gag here.] – RTL “It’s not tacky. It’s just out of respect for our military and the wonderful country that we have the privilege of living in.” …

Patriotic Americans are not the enemy! WE MUST POUND CONGRESS until they pass legislation that will protect Americans from encroachment on our Fourth Amendment rights and protections!

So in other words, however much conservatives may like to talk about private property rights, as soon as those rights come into conflict with the myths and symbols of the Federal imperialist leviathan demigod (which I’m sure is all one word in German), property rights get thrown under the bus.

(But wait, Roderick – do the condo owners have legitimate title to their complex under natural law? Well, I don’t know. But clearly no such questions are troubling the senders of these alerts.)

(And speaking of German, if Dawn Kamin is so patriotic, why is she living in Germantown? Wasn’t Americantown good enough for her?)

In an emergency meeting of the House of Commons, David Cameron indicated that the police could be given powers to shut down social networks during times of unrest, and widen officers’ remit to compel people to remove face coverings.

Remember how the Western political establishment spoke in a unified voice of condemnation when governments in Egypt and Iran shut down social media networks like Twitter in an attempt to prevent protestors from coordinating? Double standard, anyone?

“This is a time for our country to pull together,” said Cameron, praising those who had taken to the streets to defend their communities from thugs.

Cameron’s praise for those who “had taken to the streets to defend their communities from thugs” seems a bit selective. After all, the riots began as protests against murderous thugs in police uniforms; but I doubt that Cameron meant to be praising the protestors – or encouraging his subjects to take to the streets to defend free communication against Cameron’s own thuggish plans for censorship.