Dear Adolph

Some bright bulb named Adolph Hitler (get it?) posted a comment in response to my suggestion that we should disperse Congress back to their home districts and establish a virtual legislature. I've had to delete the comment because it contained profanity. Here's a redacted version, followed by my response to Adolph:

"dude, I didn't know you were such a fascist.

abolish congress ? I suppose we should have a one man totalitarian rule, right ? and george bush jr. is the man to be our absolute ruler, right ? and while we're at it, lets send all the blackies back to africa and kick out all the other non-white people too. and lets force everyone remaining to be a protestant evangelist, right ? oh and lets not forget, we should also get rid of all those rat-f***ing scum who voted for clinton !! put them all on a barge and sink them in them in the middle of the pacific ocean !!

Dude, if you are serious about taking the foreign service exam, I think you should take down this blog. one look at this and your chances at being accepted into the foreign service are shot. foreign service officers are supposed to be capable of critical thinking. foreign service officers must have the intelligence and character to be able to reconsider their own judgments and to be persuaded by a superior argument... not knee-jerk reactionaries

haven't you heard about all the people losing their jobs because of the ranting they do in blogs ? If I was the guy in charge of renewing your security clearance and I knew about this blog, I'd have second thoughts. not just because you are advocating the overthrow of the US government and subversion of the US constitution, but because you have the indiscretion to do this kind of ranting in a public forum.

oh and by the way, butane lighters are banned from checked baggage for the same reason all aerosols are banned from checked baggage... COMPRESSED GAS CANNISTERS ARE F***ING DANGEROUS especially in a depressurized cargo hold. butane lighters are particularly nasty because they can explode like a stick of dynamite with the proper ignition source. an old CIA assasination technique was to shove a butane lighter up the tailpipe of someone's vehicle.

The TSA has been trying to ban them for a long time, but were prevented by congress because of the tobacco lobby. I know, my friend works for TSA. Lets say you have a fire in the cargo-hold mid-flight. The presence of compressed gas cannisters in that cargo hold can mean the difference between a recoverable mid-air crisis vs. a catastrophe. ... and don't say "awww, thats never gonna happen" FAA and TSA's job is to prevent disasters BEFORE they occur. keeping compressed gas cannisters out of cargo holds is a worthwhile step to improve safety.

Are you such a cheapskate that you can't spend 50 cents to buy another lighter when you get to your destination ? if so, why don't you write to TSA and recommend that all the lighters they confiscate from departing passengers be put in a big bucket in the baggage claim area for the arriving passengers to grab for free so they can light up the instant they step out of the terminal. anyway, good luck on the foreign service exam"

Dear Adolph,

The more I read your comment, the more I despair for the future of our country.

Who's the knee-jerk reactionary here? Like most people on the left, you've completely misread what I wrote and have instead substituted your own characterizations of me. For your information, I am more than capable of critical thinking. The fact that you don't like them doesn't mean I haven't arrived at my conclusions with logic.

As for the Foreign Service, don't First Amendment protections apply there as well? Frankly, if they decide they don't want to hire me because I have opinions that may not be in lock step with the rest of the Foreign Service cadre, I probably don't want to work there in the first place.

You've taken a provocative suggestion (the dispersion of Congress and the creation of a virtual legislature) and - with NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER - characterized me as a fascist. Don't you see the irony in that?

It's people like you that are trying to tar and feather Lawrence Summers and run him out of Harvard. People like me are the ones sticking up for freedom. People like you are the ones firing people for having opinions you don't agree with.

Alain