University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor:

New Leftists Viewed As 'Mongoloids'

If it were conscious intent to
dung your pages with the effluvia
of intellectual sewers, you could
hardly improve upon the offal
analogies you have recently printed.
New Leftists who compare themselves
with Jesus are grotesquely
transmogrifying His Image and
utterly misrepresenting themselves.
Those who call themselves "the
saints of today" may be better
described as emotional mongoloids,
ethical ecologists and characterological
cretins; the demotic product
of somatotypic and neurotypic inferiority
compounded by a dissalubrious
environment whose paroxysms
of contempt are only
pathetic failings at a world for
which they are maladapted. We have
named hospitals and schools and
churches after true saints. If posterity
sees fit to denominate anything
in remembrance of the SDS it
will likely be a syndrome. And if
they would condescend to share in
that "one hour a week" they so
begrudge us, they would discover
how diametrically opposed to
Christ they really are. He came to
uphold the old law and the commandments
and to extend them
even further. The only printable
credos the Left have offered are the
Lysistratic "girls say yes to boys
who say no;" and the ever popular
"make love not war." Whether they
are really capable of either is questionable,
but their espousal nonetheless
violates the Commandments,
the Sermon on the Mount
and Christ's admonition to the fornicatress
to sin no more. The only
"love" they have displayed has
been scrawled on placards along
with diverse vulgarities.

The point of the story of the
rich young ruler is the same as that
of the men who were told to leave
their father uninterred. It is not
that capitalism, wealth or burial is
undesirable but that we should be
willing to give up anything for Him.

Neither does Christ stand for
minority groups - not the poor and
not the Jews; this was the message
of the Book of Jonah.

The love of peace on which the
Left claims a monopoly is shared
by us all. But life involves a series
of forced options among imperfect
alternatives; war is not chosen as an
alternative to peace; but as the
alternative to enslavement and unilaterical
aggression and slaughter. In
such cases we are advised to sell our
cloaks to buy swords.

And the only reason we have for
suspecting Christ wore long hair
and a beard is the fact that virtually
everyone did at this time. If He
indeed did, these people can claim
tonsorial kinship - but that is the
extent of the similarity.

The philosophy of the Left is
one in which the obscene is idolatrized,
the sacred is vilified - and
the Omnipresent is absent. Communism,
for example, is based on a
metaphysical materialism according
to which God, the soul, and the
divinity of Christ are logical impossibilities.
They are built around
collectivism, whereas Christianity is
individualistic: Christ does not
come to all men but to each man.
Salvation cannot be granted on
masse but must be gained or lost by
every human singularly.

Finally, these doctrines hold
that the nature of man is also
material; that his salvation lies in
social, political and economic revolution.
Christ taught that the nature
of man is spiritual. He made it
undeniably clear that His Kingdom
is not an earthly one, that if "the
finger of God" brings a change in
our souls, then we have entered
into His Kingdom. The Jews
wanted instead a political reformer
and hated Jesus because He wasn't
one; the Romans feared Him because
they thought he was. Those
who claim that Christ was an activist
are boasting the very mentality
of those who first crucified Him.

Anti-Aid

Starvation is horrible: the
bloated belly, shriveled organs,
sunken cheeks, vacant eyes, ringing
void in the brain, and helpless
lethargy that characterize it can
only evoke our pity, especially
when it strikes its weakest prey:
children. Genocide is also sickening:
the sullen lines of clammy
bodies filing into the shower baths,
the protoplasmic blobs writing
under a blanket of napalm, the
mutilated corpses bulldozed into a
mass grave - especially when it is
practised upon a defenseless minority.
These things make one sick
with despair and hopelessness;
make one want to sooth one's
anguish by dropping a few pennies
in a box to feed the children, end
the genocide - for then one can say
he has done his part to aid his
fellow man, has demonstrated his
concern, compassion, existential involvement
(!).

But - lets not fool ourselves.
There is already enough food and
transport for that food available to
Biafra if the Biafran government
would accept it. Piling up more
tons of food to rot will not help the
Biafran children; it can only ease
our aching egos (this is, of course,
directed towards the few who care:
most of us really couldn't care less
if a few more niggers starved or
not). So, let us end this UNICEF
force - shipments of food abroad
can neither help the Biafran children
now, nor solve the "third
world's" food/population crises in
the long run. Let those who care
rather re-direct their concern towards
a permanent solution to
these problems - otherwise they
will continue to recur in the future
as they have for centuries in the
past. What kinds of solutions? An
end to imperialism, long term
economic development, unification
of oppressed peoples, the overthrow
(nonviolent, if possible) of
repressive institutions (such as our
"Military/Industrial Complex") or
syndromes (such as the jingoistic
attitude fostered by those institutions),
etc. Participation in "Aid
Biafra" type drives is like taking on
acid trip: it may be pleasurable,
but it solves nothing; indeed, both
can be counterproductive insofar as
they may permanently remove one
from the realm of reality and place
one in a world of egoistic illusion.