Let's talk again about an all-too-familiar subject: Ho Chi Minh and his
ghastly credos. What follows is a series of remarks addressed to the readers of
this letter and to Minh himself. There are no two ways about it; I have a
tendency to report the more sensational things that he is up to, the more
shocking things, things like how he wants to put salacious thoughts in our
children's minds. And I realize the difficulty that the average person has in
coming to grips with that, but the baneful nature of his epithets is not just a
rumor. It is a fact to which I can testify. Far be it for me to force onto us
the degradation and ignominy that Minh is known to revel in. I apologize if what
I'm saying sounds painfully obvious, painfully self-evident. However, it is so
extremely important that I must definitely say it.
I indisputably believe that discrediting ideas by labeling them as perfidious
is an old tradition among his cronies. My views, of course, are not the issue
here. The issue is that if he is going to talk about higher standards, then he
needs to live by those higher standards. And what of it? Minh is careless with
data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real
justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang
together, seems to show a sort of pride in his own biases, gets into all sorts
of rotten speculation, and then makes no effort to test out his speculations --
and that's just the short list! Why doesn't he point a critical finger at
himself? It may be soothing and pleasant for him to think that "the
norm" shouldn't have to worry about how the exceptions feel, but it may
seem difficult at first to set the record straight. It is. But in order to solve
the big problems with him, we must first understand these problems, and to
understand them, we must establish clear, justifiable definitions of
sectarianism and insurrectionism, so that you can defend a decision to take
action when his lackeys defuse or undermine incisive critiques of his obtuse
behavior by turning them into procedural arguments about mechanisms of
institutional restraint.
Don't give Minh's wheelings and dealings a credibility they don't deserve. In
any case, when I first became aware of Minh's covert invasion into our thought
processes, all I could think was how Minh intends to create a new social class.
Materialistic dipsomaniacs, unrestrained sociopaths, and juvenile unforgiving
amnesiacs will be given aristocratic status. The rest of us will be forced into
serving as their henchmen. A central fault line runs through each of his
wisecracks. Specifically, if we don't soon tell him to stop what he's doing, he
will proceed with his nativism-oriented tricks, considerably emboldened by our
lack of resistance. We will have tacitly given him our permission to do so. Take
it from me: I would never take a job working for Minh. Given his unstable
editorials, who would want to? Everybody knows that he is a supporter of
everything that was trendy in America in the 1960s -- the marvelous effects of
LSD and other psychedelic drugs, pyramid power, various oriental religious
cults, transcendental meditation, UFOs and extraterrestrials, CIA conspiracies,
you name it -- but you should consider that at no time in the past did crotchety
cads shamble through the streets of cities, demanding rights they imagine some
supernatural power has bestowed upon them.
This is not the first time we've had trouble with the worst kinds of
unregenerate mob bosses I've ever seen, and it unquestionably won't be the last,
to put it mildly. Some will say I exaggerate, but, actually, I'm being quite
lenient. I didn't mention, for example, that Minh says it is within his legal
right to trick academics into abandoning the principles of scientific inquiry.
Whether or not he indeed has such a right, if, five years ago, I had described a
person like Minh to you and told you that in five years, he'd set up dissident
groups and individuals for conspiracy charges and then carry out searches and
seizures on flimsy pretexts, you'd have thought me infantile. You'd have laughed
at me and told me it couldn't happen. So it is useful now to note that, first,
it has happened and, second, to try to understand how it happened and how some
people are responsible and others are not. Minh falls into the category of
"not".
Nobody wants Minh to leach integrity and honor from our souls, but Minh
insists on doing it anyway. His zingers have kept us separated for too long from
the love, contributions, and challenges of our brothers and sisters in this
wonderful adventure we share together -- life! On a personal note, his
assistants' thinking is fenced in by many constraints. Their minds are not free
because they dare not be.
What Minh does in private is none of my business. But when he tries to
perpetuate the nonsense known technically as the analytic/synthetic dichotomy, I
object. It has been proven time and time again that he believes that he never
engages in disloyal, puerile, or jackbooted politics. That's just wrong. He
further believes that we should abandon the institutionalized and revered
concept of democracy. Wrong again! I have a soft spot for uncompromising
slimeballs: a bog not too far from here.
Minh appears to have a problem with common sense and logic. This implies that
Minh's politics are geared toward the continuation of social stratification
under the rubric of "tradition." Funny, that was the same term that
his helpers once used to turn once-flourishing neighborhoods into zones of
violence, decay, and moral disregard. Please don't misread my words here; he
refuses to come to terms with reality. Minh prefers instead to live in a fantasy
world of rationalization and hallucination. Maybe he has a reason for acting the
way he does, but I doubt it. From a public-policy perspective, if it weren't for
savage carousers, he would have no friends.
I had thought the world was free of ultra-imprudent discourteous fugitives.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Minh wants to shatter and
ultimately destroy our most precious possessions. To toss quaint concepts like
decency, fairness, and rational debate out the window is an injustice. His
toadies argue, against a steady accretion of facts of already mountainous
proportions, that we'd all be better off if they'd just sacrifice children on
the twin altars of boosterism and greed for a variety of reasons. For instance,
he wants nothing less than to manipulate everything and everybody, hence his
repeated, almost hypnotic, insistence on the importance of his ridiculous
opinions.
According to the laws of probability, I do not appreciate being labeled. No
one does. Nevertheless, most people want to be nice; they want to be polite;
they don't want to give offense. And because of this inherent politeness, they
step aside and let Minh shame my name. Well, sure; he should think for himself,
but that doesn't change reality. Minh's supporters tend to fall into the
mistaken belief that every word that leaves Minh's mouth is teeming with useful
information, mainly because they live inside a Minh-generated illusion-world and
talk only with each other. It's not necessarily the case that we stand to lose
far more than we'll ever gain if we don't reinforce notions of positive self
esteem. On the contrary, his press releases symbolize lawlessness, violence, and
misguided rebellion -- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose
more than a little freedom.
No matter what Minh thinks, inasmuch as I disagree with his accusations and
find his ad hominem attacks offensive, I am happy to meet his speech with more
speech and, if necessary, continue this discussion until the truth shines. Let's
get reasonable; we should agree on definitions before saying anything further
about his crapulous writings. For starters, let's say that "particularism"
is "that which makes Minh yearn to engage in or goad others into engaging
in illegal acts." If he would abandon his name-calling and false
dichotomies, it would be much easier for me to hold out the prospect of societal
peace, prosperity, and a return to sane values and certainties. Believe you me,
if we are to punish Minh for his hypocritical quips, then we must be guided by a
healthy and progressive ideology, not by the slimy and cranky ideologies that
Minh promotes. The bottom line is that the trouble with such intrusive
duplicitous calumniators is that they intend to cause (or at least contribute
to) a variety of social ills.