www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_sobran_lte.htm
To Dr. Sniegoski's article
"Joe Sobran:
Martyr for truth."
To the editor ...
I wrote this with forethought, usually one tries not to think ill of the dead, but when they cause scandal to some, as this man did to me (despite his talents), I feel one must say something.
I used to read Mr. Sobran's columns on a regular basis (before he retired from writing). You are correct, he was not a perfect man and he did pay a heavy price for his views. I found it distressing that such a "Catholic man" had in the inability to put himself, in the shoes of another, especially the despised "other."
Mr. Sobran had an undisguised animus against Black people, the usual kind. I remember writing to him one time after an article he had written in which he concluded that Muslim countries who imported African slaves didn't have a "black problem" because the African male was castrated effectively preventing reproduction of children that could cause problems thus I suppose only the children born to the Black female slaves (who would in all practice be Muslim and under the absolute control and loyalty of the father) would be the offspring dealt with. I basically took him to task in an e-mail over this very un-Christian, let alone un-Catholic point of view, going so far as to state at the time that would he have then castrated the male ancestor of Saint Martin de Porres? Now of course this saint was born to a Black woman/White father, but the mother certainly had had a Black parent. So to advocate genocide as it were, is certainly not Catholic.
Now, Mr. Sobran never wrote back to me about this issue possibly thinking it nonsensical,
but I pondered this thinking, well, I guess the Saint himself will ask Mr. Sobran about this
view someday. Of course, he was secure in his superiority as a White person, never failing
to express that also something else that the Church even before
I remember reading that he was going to retire from writing due to illness and financial issues (this was only hinted at by the gentleman) and only upon reading this article did the gravity of what he endured come to my complete attention.
I wonder if it was poetic justice, or more likely karma he became as those he unfairly despised, for if even a handful of people are bad, to relish the thought of genocide of all is quite, reprehensible. Perhaps the burden would have not been so heavy if he had stuck to the adage treat others as you would like to be treated if you were in their place.
This is doubtless not going to change your mind about him that was never my intention it was merely to express what I have been holding in my thoughts ever since I had heard about his death.
Some would say he did his purgatory on earth I think he's not done with purgatory yet I wonder what answer can he give the Saint now oratorical skills can't hide what is inside the soul and heart which isn't being hidden ... now.
Very Respectfully,
Patricia
October 14, 2010
(posted October 21, 2010)
Ronn Neff comments
Miss
She tells us that she thinks that Joe Sobran is not done with his purgatory. She has
qualified her statement by telling us that it is what she thinks. But I would like to ask Miss
I must also say something about Miss
As I read what Miss
"Now, Mr. Sobran never wrote back to me about this issue possibly thinking it
nonsensical," Miss
Let me suggest a possibility that Miss
Here's another possibility: If Miss
How about this one: Does it not occur to her that others' messages may have been much more interesting than her own? Not that Joe considered her message to be nonsensical, but that other people actually had something more interesting to say?
Anyway, those are just three possibilities I came up with without really trying very hard. I
hope that in her Christian forbearance Miss
Now let's get to the heart of the matter Joe's comments about how the Arabs treated their African slaves, his heartlessness, and his "undisguised animus" against blacks.
I would think that a woman with a sense of justice who was going to base a criticism of another on an article that other had written would have the courtesy to tell us what the article was and how to find it. It's not as though it is hard. All you have to do is go to the Sobran's website, scroll to the search engine, and use "castration" and "Arab" as search terms, and voila! Up come two possible columns (and only two). Don't know how to find the Sobran's website? Go to Google and use "Sobran," "castration," and "Arab" as search terms. The first two entries are the same columns by Joe Sobran.
Not really all that complicated. Miss
I suppose it's possible that Joe considered Miss
I'm afraid the problem with most of Joe's writing is that it was intended for educated and
literate adults. He was forever being accused of having said things he simply hadn't said
by people who shouldn't have been reading adult literature. What he wrote required a
thinking reader, a reader who could detect the connection between one sentence and the
one that followed. A reader who could appreciate paradox and delight in spotting
absurdity. Since the purpose of the American school system is to create conformist hot-button reacters, not adults capable of critical reading, that particular skill is no longer
taught in schools (or, alas, in most families), and hasn't been for rather a long time. Thus,
the only people who were qualified to read Joe Sobran were the failures of the American
education system. Miss
"Most of history's saddest victims died unpitied, with no descendants, no memorials, and no liberal mourners." Thus wrote the genocide-relishing, bigoted Joe Sobran with his undisguised animus toward blacks.
October 21, 2010
Ronn Neff is senior editor of The Last Ditch.
A reader comments
My response to Patricia
Gaurav Ahuja
toryanarchist@gmail.com
(E-mail address included by request.)
Posted October 23, 2010
A reader comments
Appreciate your response to the woman. Woman's thinking mechanism is triggered by emotion, by which they are led. The bigger problem is that many men, having been feminized, operate the same way, which is why we have the present-day leftism.
I appreciate also y'all's way with words. You apparently have the same gift that Joe Sobran and Sam Francis had. Keep it up.
Brandon Martin
North Carolina
Posted October 23, 2010
Sir:
I did get a chance to read your response to my letter as well as other people's responses. In your response, there are many excellent, constructive, critical remarks and I thank you for them. More examples of why I have an opinion should be given and I shall remember to do so. However, I will equally consider the limitations that a website similar to yours might wish to place on the length of one's letter, which might render it impossible to fulfil your expectations of accurate and intellectually sound correspondence on controversial issues.
Remarks about my race, gender, intellect, etc; all in the negative in total, as stated by you and the subsequent responders to my letter do not interest me very much when one cannot win one's arguments, one can always call your opponent names, or otherwise belittle their abilities, without seeing in oneself the same paucities that you accuse the "other" of possessing. Gentlemen, I shall depart for a lady knows 2 things one: that one cannot reason with the unreasonable and two: when to leave ...
All the best to you ...
Miss Patricia Mc Coy
October 24, 2010
Posted October 27, 2010
Nicholas Strakon replies
Our guidelines for letters to the editor may be found at www.thornwalker.com/ditch/lte_contents_note.htm. In them, I do not establish any specific rule for the length of letters, though I do urge a writer to consider trimming if he approaches 1,000 words. In any case, I'm always prepared to negotiate, and if Miss Mc Coy felt constrained in terms of length, I wish she'd told me about it. After all, bytes are cheap.
On the other hand, she writes in reference to sites "similar to yours," and not, apparently, this actual website; so I am left somewhat at sea on this point.
Miss Mc Coy refers to negative "remarks about my race ... stated by you and the subsequent responders to my letter." "You" apparently refers to Mr. Neff. (In the guidelines, by the way, I urge letter writers to use the third person in such references.) I have to point out that neither Mr. Neff nor our commenting readers knew our correspondent's race.
Further, she lumps Mr. Neff's reply together with the replies of our readers, but I find nothing in our senior editor's comments that could possibly be interpreted as adverse criticism of any race of people. The same goes for negative remarks about her "gender," or as we say here at TLD (preferring standard English), her sex.
Just as Mr. Neff regretted that Miss Mc Coy was not specific in referring to Joe Sobran's writings, I regret that she is not more specific here in terms of who wrote what.
I thank Miss Mc Coy for her thanks, and with that, leaving a few mysteries unsolved, I close this correspondence.
October 27, 2010
Nicholas Strakon is editor-in-chief of The Last Ditch.
To the editor ...
Sniegoski complains about Rich Lowry proposing that we threaten to nuke Mecca in retaliation for a terrorist attack. He is of like mind with Adam Ozimek, of Modeled Behavior, who calls Tom Tancredo "crazy" for echoing the idea. But as pointed out in the comments section there, that is just the course of action that Thomas Schelling's analysis of games would suggest. An optimal threat would actually even lead to fewer Muslims being killed than under Uncle Sam's current strategy.
Albert Nock
October 23, 2010
Posted October 29, 2010
Back to Dr. Sniegoski's article.