www.thornwalker.com/ditch/ssw_lte.htm

To the editor ...

Congratulations to both Mr. Strakon and Mr. Wright for re-sounding that clarion of the West, good, hard, and clear.

Especially felicitous is Mr. Wright's observation that "the very arguments that Mr. Skye uses are based on Western ideals," et seq. It is equally true that the very logic that Mr. Skye uses, or attempts to use, in making his case is a logic originating in Classical civilization and, as Mr. Wright might put it, "received by the white West." Other civilizations were — notoriously — not so receptive.

I invite Mr. Skye to name for us the leading Zulu logicians and philosophers of Liberty. Meanwhile I shall be scouring my CD catalogue for the greatest symphonies of the Han.

Watson Burdette
Fort Smith, Ark.
March 24, 2003

Mr. Skye's first premise is about as deep as the bumper sticker I once saw: "A mind is like a parachute. It works best when open." I have personal experience with the kind of suffering that can result from not giving a tinker's damn about one's ancestors.

When my husband's brother's daughter was 15 she took up with Mexican gang members who were inundating the Kansas town where they live. My brother-in-law took the usual steps to put a stop to it; nevertheless the girl became pregnant. Her father's suffering was awful. He talked to no one. At one point he chopped a small tree in his yard to bits in sheer frustration over his daughter's "joyous" situation.

I assume Mr. Skye might say that my brother-in-law's suffering arose from close-minded bigotry rather than from love for his daughter. But now I shall express some judgmental bigotry of my own. I think Mr. Skye's "open-mindedness" is typical of what I call MTV hedonism. It knows nothing of really caring for anyone; it's just easy come, easy go. Perhaps that's what happened with Mr. Skye's "vibrant" Vietnamese girlfriend who came and went.

By the way, my brother-in-law became a kind and attentive grandfather, making swings and hobbyhorses for the little boy born to his little girl, who is now following a very hard road. It is not a road that any man would want his child to tread.

Shari Lemon
March 26, 2003

Mr. Skye certainly has some nerve, trying to use the threat of Balkanization as one of his arguments! Kudos to Mr. Wright for throwing it right back in his face.

J.C. Albright
Charleston, S.C.
March 26, 2003

To the original exchange.

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