My LTE Good Samaritan Edition

Back on November 14, the editorial section of my favorite local newspaper “The Potomac News” once again scored big with one of our local columnists James Simpson. Unlike Ken Concannon and Charles Reichley, I haven’t bothered writing rebuttals or personal e-mails to Mr. Simpson before, simply because I don’t normally consider him worth the effort.

However, for this particular column I just had to make an exception and respond.

Even among a slate of hard-core right wing columnists featured by The Potomac News, Mr. Simpson stands out as extreme. His columns are normally so hateful as to be nearly unintelligible. Once past his racism and open contempt for anyone who does not absolutely agree with his world view, there isn’t anything in his writing left to comment on.

In today’s column Mr. Simpson wrote about illegal immigration, a favorite topic of his. I can describe his view of people who are in the United States without proper visas as “against it.” He’s not racist, and if you ask he’ll explain in great detail why he’s not racist even though it sounds like he’s racist. Many of his columns in fact do explain why his position against immigration is not racist, and that it’s just a coincidence that the KKK fully supports his views.

Today’s column “Tired of what Jesus would do” attempted to explain why his position against immigration has nothing to do with the bible or Christian views. He started out by rewriting the parable of the Good Samaritan to show that Jesus really didn’t mean what the parable implies.

The money quote:

This would be the parable if written more accurately to reflect the real situation: Twelve million men and women went down from Central and South America to the United States, bypassing those who had a similar desire to migrate but obeyed the law by submitting citizenship requests. Once they arrived they demanded that the government of the land they now occupied provide them with housing, schooling, welfare, and other services by forcing its citizens to pay even more of the money they earned to feed, cloth and educate their own children. And they insisted that the people in this new land learn their language as they refused to learn a new language themselves.

Now when Jesus came upon these people do you honestly think he would say “Give them comfort, force your citizens to provide until they too are suffering, allow them to continue to break the law (by the very fact that they can’t understand the language the law is written in), and by all means demonstrate to the rest of the world that anyone may come into your land and take all they want without regard to the laws your people have determined are necessary for a just and civil society.”

Nice. Personally, I think the answer to the question is “Yes.” But I don’t know for sure as I haven’t spoken to The Man lately. Simpson closes this wonder of opinion writing by equating immigration with abortion. It was a leap, but but he took it. After reading this column, I had plenty of material for an LTE.

After reading Mr. James Simpson’s Nov 14 column “Tired of What Jesus Would Do,” I’m left asking two questions;

1. To Mr. Simpson: Are you for real?

2. To the Editors of The Potomac News: Is Mr. Simpson the best you can do for a local columnist?

As to the burning issue of “What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) on immigration; I don’t know. I’ve tried calling Jesus to ask, but his phone line is always busy. I’m guessing that Jesus is busy explaining to Mr. Simpson the basic Christian concept of “Love Thy Neighbor.”

Mr. Simpson’s closing assertion was “I find it remarkable that the same group of people who are so concerned about the protection of illegal aliens don’t think that a small human with a heartbeat and brainwaves should be protected from slaughter.” I would remind him that over in Iraq the civilian casualty count as of October 29, 2007, has reached between 76,701 – 83,571 unarmed men, women, and children killed, all of whom once had heartbeats and brainwaves.

We also have 3,863 American soldiers killed with as many as 100,000 more soldiers wounded (missing arms, legs, pieces of their brain, etc).

I suspect Jesus is not happy about this. Perhaps Mr. Simpson could ask?

Although I wrote this back on November 14, I haven’t seen it published yet. Perhaps the editors considered it too much of a personal attack. However, I also e-mailed my rebuttal to Mr. Simpson, in the interests of fairness (and perhaps to help along some irritation at being challenged). This led to a rather interesting e-mail exchange.

In response to my first e-mail, forwarding my LTE, Mr. Simpson replied:

So according to you the proper way to “love thy neighbor” is for the government to confiscate the fruits of my labor and give them to people who are breaking the law. Because that is what is happening, regardless of what way people try and distort reality.

Jim

Not particularly friendly, but it was a reply that deserved an answer. My response:

Must have missed the fine print after “Love Thy Neighbor” that listed exceptions for when treating other people with decency might cost money.

However, how about we make a deal?

The present cost of the Iraq war is now estimated at $20,300 per US family, and the war is a long way from being over. How about; if I pay your share of taxes that goes into paying for Prince William County services used by undocumented immigrants, you pay my share of the Iraq war?

I look forward to your response.

He never replied. Oh well, there’s always a next time.