Every so often, I get a letter I just have to share – whether because it’s so eloquent and insightful that I want more people to read it, or because the author deserves to be roundly mocked by as many people as possible. Here’s an example of the latter.
I got this e-mail the other day. It starts out as seemingly thoughtful praise from someone who’s obviously taken the time to read my website; then it abruptly takes a different turn:
Dear Ebon Musings:
Your front page essay is beautifully evocative; thank you. (You might want to change the word “miniscule” to “minuscule,” however.)
Your passage “From the sky at night, our planet is covered by a spiderweb of glowing lights, testament to our ability to invent and innovate….” was particularly thought-provoking. There are places on the planet, semi-continental in scale, where the human population is quite high, yet the face of the land is almost bereft of light. Satellite imagery makes this quite clear. It is very dark there. The inescapable conclusion is that human evolution has not proceeded equally on every continent.
Of course, it’s very “politically incorrect” to notice this fact, as James Watson discovered. But I suppose I can discuss it with you, since you, as the author of the Ninth New Commandment, would find the very concept of “political correctness” to be repugnant.
With all good wishes,
Kevin Alfred Strom.
OK, here’s all you need to know about Kevin Alfred Strom: He’s a neo-Nazi, an anti-Semite, and the former head of a now-defunct white supremacist group called National Vanguard. He’s also served time in prison after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography. (If you read his website, which I won’t link to, you’ll find a long screed in which he vehemently asserts his innocence and blames the charges on a vast conspiracy of enemies who’ve persecuted him for no good reason.)
So much for Mr. Strom’s rรฉsumรฉ. The only question I’ve got is: What makes this Nazi cretin think I want to be his friend? Seriously, is there anything on my website that might have had even the slightest possibility of giving him the mistaken idea that I have any sympathy whatsoever for his ideas? Or is it just that racists are so desperate to find support for their views that they can delude themselves into seeing it even where it doesn’t exist?
In a way, it almost makes me feel sorry for him. (Note: I said “almost”.) I’d imagine that most racists are deeply miserable and desperately lonely people – and Strom’s child-porn conviction has probably alienated him even from other racists. Reaching out to some random stranger on the internet, in the hope that he’ll be sympathetic to you, is the kind of thing a person might do under those circumstances. But I must admit that, given the circumstances, I enjoy dashing those hopes. I view all racists as beneath contempt, and I have special scorn for the ones, like this one, that lie and distort evolution in the vain hope of finding scientific validation for their bigotry. Nothing pleases me more than the knowledge that Mr. Strom and his kind are a dying breed.