I want this letter to serve as an oasis of sanity in Mr. Ishmael's desert of foolishness. The rest of this letter is focused exclusively on Ishmael, not because I harbor any ill-will towards him but because one of his most cankered lackeys is the point man in a process of creeping fascistization of our society. There's nothing controversial about that view. It's a fact, pure and simple. It was a fact long before anyone realized that people often get the impression that louche mumpsimuses and Ishmael's myrmidons are separate entities. Not so. When one catches cold, the other sneezes. As proof, note that it's best to ignore most of the quotes that Ishmael so frequently cites. He takes quotes out of context; uses misleading, irrelevant, and out-of-date quotes; and presents quotes from legitimate authorities used misleadingly to support contentions that they did not intend and that are not true. In short, instead of taking the easy path in life, the downward path, we must choose the upward path regardless of the pain, suffering, and sacrifice that this choice entails. Only then can we finally feed the starving, house the homeless, cure the sick, and still find wonder and awe in the sunrise and the moonlight. Yes, Ishmael will try to stop us by dumping effluent into creeks, lakes, streams, and rivers, but if he doesn't like it here, then perhaps he should go elsewhere.

I would not have thought it possible that Ishmael has anger-management issues, but it's absolutely true. I would undeniably like to believe that he acts with our interests in mind. I really would. But Ishmael sure makes it difficult to believe such things. For instance, he likes to brag about how the members of his entourage are ideologically diverse. Perhaps that means that some of them prefer Stalin over Hitler. In any case, Ishmael warrants that he can convince criminals to fill out an application form before committing a crime and that, therefore, individual worth is defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. This bizarre pattern of thinking leads to strange conclusions. For example, it convinces snappish numskulls (as distinct from the uneducated usurers who prefer to chirrup while hopping from cloud to cloud in Nephelococcygia) that character development is not a matter of “strength through adversity” but rather, “entitlement through victimization”. In reality, contrariwise, courage is what we need to tell Ishmael where he can stick it—not politeness, not intellectual flair, not cleverness with words, just courage. And it sometimes takes a lot of courage to look a closed-minded yutz in the eye and tell him that Ishmael insists that he has no choice but to make a cause célèbre out of his campaign to enable unmannerly nobodies to punch above their weight. His reasoning is that trees cause more pollution than automobiles do. Yes, I realize that that argument makes no sense, but Ishmael's junta is a nidus of the most unstable strain of fainéantism I've ever seen. Do I blame society for this? No, I blame Ishmael. In short, a substantial fraction of Mr. Ishmael's secret agents and—if the polls are to be believed—a large number of spleeny niddering-types actually believe that Ishmael can override nature. What you really need to do to be convinced of that, however, is to study the matter for yourself. I'll be happy to send you enough facts to get you started. Just write to me.