{"id":8815,"date":"2015-10-05T15:40:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T19:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=8815"},"modified":"2016-09-29T11:18:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T15:18:15","slug":"my-afghan-twitter-firestorm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/05\/my-afghan-twitter-firestorm\/","title":{"rendered":"My Afghan Twitter Firestorm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday afternoon, I read about how the U.S. had bombed the only hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which was being staffed by the French volunteer group, Doctors without Borders.\u00a0 I recalled the 2004\u00a0U.S. bombings of a hospital in Fallujah.\u00a0 So I tossed out a tweet &#8211;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Blowing up that Kunduz hospital is a small price to pay in the greater campaign to rid the world of extremist violence.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; James Bovard (@JimBovard) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard\/status\/650366816624226304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 3, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Nattie Roman responded with a great quip &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/TsarKastik\/status\/650492430249250816<\/p>\n<p>Her tweet got lots of pickup &#8211; boosted\u00a0after I replied, &#8220;Close enough for government work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then Wick Allison, the chairman of the board of the American Ideas Institute, the publisher of the <em>American Conservative<\/em> (where I&#8217;m a contributing editor), replied with a message aimed at\u00a0me and <a href=\"http:\/\/clarkstooksbury.blogspot.com\/\">Clark Stooksbury<\/a>, another <em>American Conservative<\/em> contributing editor who had retweeted (or favorite) my original line:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@JimBovard<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/clarkstooksbury?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@clarkstooksbury<\/a> Sorry you weren&#39;t in it. Might have introduced  a different  perspective.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Wick Allison (@wickallison) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wickallison\/status\/650446550284406784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 3, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Allison later clarified that he lives in an &#8220;irony-free zone&#8221; and missed my attempted humor.<\/p>\n<p>After Angela Keaton @antiwar2 kindly retweeted my original line, the topic reheated. Here&#8217;s an insightful response\u00a0from a twitter user named DJkilllist<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/djkilllist\/status\/651106462324781056<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday Kevin McKenzie replied to my original tweet, so I tossed out another line exonerating all government killings:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KevinMckenz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@kevinmckenz<\/a> Govt. killings are never extremist because they are done for the good of the people.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; James Bovard (@JimBovard) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBovard\/status\/650503883937218560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 4, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Alas, this was not well-received by\u00a0Twitter users calling themselves Anarchoantihero and Lo<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/anarchoantihero\/status\/651107178896560128<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hey, kill yourself. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/l5wzp5St9s\">https:\/\/t.co\/l5wzp5St9s<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Lo (@Lo_b_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Lo_b_\/status\/651109864085721089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 5, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Regardless, I continue to have unbounded hope that social media will cure all the ills of Attention Deficit Democracy.<\/p>\n<p>If nothing else, my Twitter account will increase the number of people who dance at my funeral &#8211; or who at least do cartwheels upon hearing of my demise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday afternoon, I read about how the U.S. had bombed the only hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which was being staffed by the French volunteer group, Doctors without Borders.\u00a0 I recalled the 2004\u00a0U.S. bombings of a hospital in Fallujah.\u00a0 So I tossed out a tweet &#8211; Blowing up that Kunduz hospital is a small price to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,62,464,274,736,735,734],"class_list":["post-8815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghanistan","tag-assassination","tag-atrocities","tag-buffoonery","tag-doctors-without-borders","tag-internet-rage","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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