Justin Raimondo says that the San Francisco thugs are giving the anti-war movement a bad name.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, Justin. Of course, in this case, you may have to clean off some retch juice, too.

Gee... That's just too bad. And the anti-war crowd wonders why it continually gets labelled "anti-American." Idiots.

Justin gets an honorable mention by John Fund in his piece on the paleos over at NRO. Good stuff.

I had the great... fortune of visiting downtown SF this afternoon. I avoid the city like the plague, but mass transit forced me to go there today.

I took a camera along with the vague hope of getting some interesting photos, even though I knew the excitement was mostly over. (I did get a few, but they're probably only of interest to myself as I can be entertained for hours by images such as "multiple huge bags of shredded paper" or "traffic cone field". I frequently make a more interesting photo subject as I'm trying to take photos with a 4x5" Speed Graphic while struggling with a crazed Dalmatian or two tied to my belt.)

After talking to some malingering leftover protesters it's clear few (if any) of them really know what they're doing or what they actually want. The only responses I could elicit were such helpful concepts as "war is bad", "innocent civilians must not die" and "Bush is a f&!^ing retarded bastard" (the last from a f&!^ing retarded bastard girl in her late teens). None of them actually seemed to know why war was bad or why Bush was a bastard. Seems they just want something to stand up for and believe in, something that isn't mainstream. I can empathize with that, but that doesn't make it right.

I found posters pasted on the sides of AC transit stops advocating the shutdown of the financial district... like that's going to help anyone in a city whose economy is already on the brink of destruction (go, .com implosion aftereffects, go!) My next-door neighbor lost a day's wages because the company he worked for shut down "in protest"... and he really can't afford it. I suggested he send a bill to either Saddam, Bush, or the crazed peace weasels, dending on how he felt about the war.

*sigh*

There is hope for these people. For example, the Sunday Telegraph has a heartwrenching letter from a Human Shield who woke the hell up when talking to some actual Iraqis.

What's hard to deal with is the fact that it took that much of a shakeup to get him to reality. Will any of his former comrades-in-arms read his words, or heed them?

Oh please. I have a major problem with folks who cannot understand that some of us actually have a principled stand against this war. Rand, it would be nice that you and some of your compatriots would actually debate the merits of our arguments instead of demonizing us. Of course, I do say the same thing for anti-invasion types who also engage in such nastiness.

RiShawn, please do state the merits of your case for those of us who are unaware of them.

Rishawn, this isn't about the merits, or lack thereof, of their arguments. It's about leftist thuggery in the guise of free speech. I would be critical of them regardless of their political beliefs.

However you weren't dealing with the thuggery of the protestors, Rand. You were cheap-shotting an anti-war type (Raimondo) who has a principled position against war (even if one disagrees with him on much else, as I do) after he actually made a principled stand against such thuggery. A cheap shot is still a cheap shot. I wish you would just admit it.

And as for MichaelT: Check out my Web site, where I have continuously stated my position against this invasion.

My point was that Justin has previously been happy to find allies wherever he can find them, including International ANSWER (I don't recall any previous editorials by him condemning them), and he shouldn't be so shocked when some of them show their true colors.