As an old-fashioned newspaper editor, I loved letters to the editor.
One of the dirty little secrets of the newspaper business was that editors never read them – not the editors in chief, anyway.
But I was different. When I ran daily newspapers, even those in major markets, I read the letters to the editor as they came in. The reason? It was the only feedback we had before email and the Internet and comment forums.
Also, occasionally you would find a gem of sophistication and clarity in those letters to the editor.
I ran across one recently – not in WND, not in the New York Times, not in the Washington Post. I found it in the Allentown Morning Call in Pennsylvania. It was a steel town – very working class. You know Allentown from the Billy Joel song:
Well we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line
Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers in the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow
And we’re living here in Allentown
So here is the gem of a letter to the Allentown Morning Call from Lou Kauffman of Bethlehem, dated Jan. 10:
Satchel Paige once said, “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”
I think the time has come for those people in our country who are unwilling to accept reality to realize that it will only be a matter of time before we will be confronted with the same dilemma the French are now facing.
Islamic terrorists are undoubtedly using the ideology of a now-deceased Austrian, who said, “Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.”
By the way that Austrian was Adolf Hitler, and that future is now.
Pearls of wisdom from Allentown.
Insightful. Concise. Profound. True.
I don’t believe it is any coincidence that Hitler aligned himself with Jew-hating radical Islamists when he had the chance. You can read about that sordid history in “The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism,” a brilliant and well-documented book by Chuck Morse.
In my recent column “Redefining the political spectrum,” I explain why “Islamo-fascism” is an accurate name for the dread disease plaguing the civilized world today. Islam is not just a religion. It is meant to be a way of life. It’s a religion. It’s a culture. It’s a legal system. It’s a system of governance. It’s a system of economics. And it’s a system of warfare.
Nazism had nothing on Islamo-fascism.
Nazism killed a lot of people in a short period of time. But Islamo-fascism has been around for 1,300 years, killing far more and conquering much more territory during its periods of expansion.
In fact, what most historians overlook is that Islam has more or less defined world conflict for the last 1,300 years. And it was also responsible for the largest and longest-lasting empire in world history.
Pseudo-intellectual Westerners tend to dismiss it as some kind of aberration – an unsophisticated system that can’t stand up to modernism.
Not true.
Lou Kauffman is so right.
He has said so much in so few words.
And that’s why I love scanning those letters to the editor – not just in WND, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
It’s more fun searching for those pearls of wisdom in Allentown.
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