I swallowed a couple of bugs. Pt. 1 by JonnyQuest

JONNYQUEST'S BLOG

JonnyQuest

I swallowed a couple of bugs. Pt. 1
Monday, October 2, 2006

Now the first thing to know about swallowing a bug is that your mouth has to be open in order to do it. I am well-aware of the old saw, “When your mouth is open, your ears [and/or mind] are closed.” I hope that anyone needing to get my attention will be able to do so.

Okay, so the EID stamp email is an OLD bit of snooze, but it achieved new relevance—for me anyway—because someone sent it to me the same day I ran across the Letter to the Editor below in a local paper. If you are unfamiliar with the EID stamp controversy, the details are made clear along the way.

While the author of this letter has chosen a public forum to voice his opinions, to which he is most certainly entitled, I am withholding his identity here because it is not the forum he chose and I do not wish to foment any ill will toward him regardless of his views by exposing him to a much larger and potentially hostile (as distinct from violent) audience since he may well have been preaching to the choir, not expecting any dissent.

I know full well that I myself may become the target of some flame-throwers who find his position more like their own. So I need to express from the outset that whether or not I agree with his conclusions, my interest here is about the way he comes about them. I am hard-pressed to find another example of so much wrong-thinking in such a short space. He sounds like he’s achieved some level of education, but that hasn’t made him smart. What it has made him, and people like him, is dangerous (as distinct from violent). I haven’t decided about responding with my own letter, because, unlike you, he is a part of my community and I’m not sure about the wisdom of giving up my anonymity, not out of any rational fear for my safety but because I am a coward. (I should, however, mention the “sportsmen” in the area have turkey-shoot right down the road from me.)

"Shameless pandering to illegal immigrants?

"To the Editor:

"Is it simply a matter of corporate good intentions, or rather shameless commercial pandering to a growing hoard of illegal immigrants? That is a question we are now forced to address when a growing number of large American retailers elect to promote their goods and services to American consumers through bi-lingual marketing programs.

"It is generally conceded by both our elitists as well as our vast American unwashed masses, that our English language is the glue that binds our unique American culture together. Our nation and our culture have never been based on the collectivization of hundreds of separate but equal cultures. Rather it has been based on the Americanization of those separate cultures creating new Americans and enriching the broad base of our knowledge and experience. How then, is it possible that Lowe’s, Home Depot, and others have managed to conclude that the addition of Hispanic in-store signs might further the interests of our nation?

"Guy #1 at Hardware Store A, Guy #2 at Hardware Store B, Guy #3 at the Lumber Yard, Guy #4 at the Muffler Shop, Doc Guy #5, and thousands of other small business people have, and will continue, to serve a broad spectrum of new and old Americans without weakening that glue. But pandering to those who might resist assimilation into our unique American culture will only encourage greater division and turmoil in the future.

"My vote is for a United America bound together by a unique culture based upon a common bond of language. My vote is against Lowe’s, Home Depot, or any other enterprise that would allow economic expediency to weaken such a bond."

My humble critique follows in the subsequent blog: http://www.fireflyfans.net/showblog.asp?b=5196

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