Matt and Brad and Patrick write about Martin Amis' book Koba the Dread and in doing so meander off into topics such as who was worse, Hitler or Stalin, and the usefulness of each as a rhetorical club with which to beat your ideological opponents. Having read all that, I thought this would be a good time for me to clear up a few points about myself.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Communist sympathizer.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a defender of or apologist for the Soviet Union.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a supporter of Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Castro, Peron, Guevara, Zorro the Great, Zorba the Greek, or Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf.

I therefore respectfully suggest that any attempts to blame me for the evils of Communism are at best misguided and should be avoided.

In return, I promise to not blame conservatives for the evils of Nazis in general and Hitler in specific, although I do reserve the right to single out those who have made public statements in favor of them.

If you find yourself in dire need of a rhetorical club with which to beat me, feel free to drop me a line and I'll help you find one. There are plenty of things that I've actually said, done, or believed in which are fair game. One of these days, I'll even get around to importing my Blogspot archives and adding a Search button so you can do this on your own. I'm a big believer in self-sufficiency, my liberal tendencies notwithstanding.

Thanks in advance for your kind consideration.