A remarkably silly response to my article from a blog called the Castillo Chronicle. The writer calls my article "a mish-mash of girlie-man thinking" and posts a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a dress with pig-tails and ribbons in his hair. Amusing picture, albeit quite irrelevant. His only verbal response is "Oh brother. Can you imagine the reaction of these long-suffering folks to this la-di-da way of thinking?" The link is to a news story about a fire on the Arizona border which is "suspected to have been started by illegal immigrants." Suspected.

Obviously if the fire was deliberately or negligently by illegal immigrants we should seek to find and prosecute the individuals concerned. We should not punish the millions of illegal immigrants in this country who were not involved. We should not punish anyone on the basis of mere "suspicions." A vast purge of millions of people from the country as a response to a fire in a border town, even if (some!) illegal immigrants were culpable, would be both disproportionate and ineffectual. Of course I'm stating the obvious here, but what is one to do? We have the misfortunate of sharing a country with people like Robert Faith del Castillo, who make arguments as unserious as this (unserious in everything except the harm they do when listened to) and then accuse me of a "la-di-da way of thinking." Contempt is an unpleasant business, but perhaps, someday, it will provoke people like this into using the faculty of reason. Or conscience.

Comments

[Nato]

That is a remarkably silly response, to which I found myself experiencing a sort of emotional deja-vu that was surprising in its intensity. After a bit of searching through my personal history, I was able to trace it back to the feeling I had when I was riding home from a Jehovah's Witness convention, the only atheist in a car full of very devout JW adherents. It was September 15, 2001, and we were passing through Los Angeles on the 405 freeway passing all the dealership advertising billboards and mall displays, every last one of which was set to be an American flag. No further commentary necessary, because we all understood ourselves to be Americans together.

The convention speakers had - following central JW doctrine - exhorted attendees to reject the world, including that common national life and identity. It was at that moment, as I watched a plane taking off that I was a patriot, and that I loved out country so damned much despite all its warts, because it really did stand for something wonderful. Yet the otherwise very nice people with whom I was riding didn't respect any of that; didn't even notice it.

That was how I felt when I saw the unthinking contempt the author exhibits for America's highest ideals. He thought he was being contemptuous toward merely Mr. Smith (and women, I suppose), but really, that's not what he was disrespecting.