He also occasionally sends me messages—and he is far from the only one—like the one reproduced in part below. Usually, I let them pass—he probably doesn't care what I think about intellectual property rights, or other controversies within the libertarian movement. But on this occasion, he sent me some ideas I need to talk about.

Before I start, I should mention that my grandfather died in an Army camp near Waco, Texas, in 1918, a volunteer for Woodrow Wilson's "war to end war ... and make the world safe for democracy" who never got a chance to fight, thanks to what was then called the "Spanish Influenza".

In 1944, my father, who never got a chance to meet his father, was a bombardier, a young Army Air Corps lieutenant in the nose of a B-17 who flew something like 29 missions over Europe before being shot down over Germany. He was taken as a prisoner to Stalag Luft Drei for about a year, had many horrible adventures both before and after he was captured, and was rescued, with his fellow inmates, after the D-Day landing.