The following letter appeared in todays Opelika-Auburn News; its a rejoinder to a recent reply to my Uncle Grady letter.

To the Editor: Carol Robicheaux (May 15) accuses me of hubris, hypocrisy, and naivety for my preference for voluntary modes of social organization over coercive ones  as though personal attacks and name-calling constituted a refutation of my position. Cant we discuss differences of opinion in a more grownup fashion? Robicheaux seems to think that in criticizing taxation I am hypocritically attacking a system from which I benefit. But first, it would be rather cowardly for me to confine my criticisms only to institutions from which I do not benefit. And second, a market freed from plutocratic privilege would bring so much greater prosperity that universities could easily afford to pay their professors without recourse to tax funding. Oddly, Robicheaux seems to think I need reminding that the U.S. government is better than a communist dictatorship or a theocracy. Well, of course it is. A broken leg is likewise better than a broken neck; but thats hardly an argument in favor of breaking peoples legs. The reason the U.S. is both freer and more prosperous than those other regimes is that it is closer to being a voluntary social order, an anarchy. While Robicheaux recognizes that government is made up of people just like us, she writes as though it is really made up instead of magical super-people, since she implies that ordinary people would be unable to perform tasks like road maintenance, food inspection, college instruction, and police protection without rulers giving orders. As for Robicheauxs questions about how such services would be provided, if she is sincerely interested in the large theoretical and historical literature on these subjects, the best place to start is with the Stringham and Carson books I cited in my previous letter. Roderick T. Long

My original letter was apparently too long, so the O-A News, wonder of wonders, contacted me to ask me to reduce it, rather than cutting it themselves (though they still tinkered with it a bit more afterward). FWIW , heres the original unedited version: