[Vision2020] More clarification for Phil

[Joseph Campbell]

Phil,

Tom Hansen posted a letter that I wrote to the Daily News entitle "Stop
Insulting the Majority." (Not my title, of course.) This was followed a
short time later by your letter which included the following comment.

> Then there was the toe the line letter, republished here by the services of
> certain folks, which stated that 'some people' needed to stop making the
> majority angry.  How foolish of me to think that as a Republic, the view of
> the minority was to be protected from the raging of the majority opinion?

Now it could well be that your comments were directed to another letter that
was republished on Vision 20/20 that encouraged people to stop insulting the
majority and if so I do apologize. But I'm sure that you can understand my
mistake. (By the way, I would be interested in knowing what letter you were
referring to so that if it was a different letter from the one that I wrote
I could issue a more sincere apology.)

Regardless of this possible mistake, consider, as just one example, the
following paragraph from your post.

> And its not the old time old line farming folks, though they can be crusty,
> that are the ones who back bite and hurl so many wondrous comments around,
> it's the folks tied to the institution of higher learning.  The very people
> who should be more understanding, dare we say more liberal in their
> attitudes, are the people who seem least able to handle disagreement.

Here is a general claim that says that academics "seem the least able to
handle disagreement." Being a member of the academic community, I find this
kind of anti-intellectualism offensive. It doesn't matter that you didn't
intend to direct the generalization at me in particular. Just replace the
phrase "institution of higher learning" with the phrase "Jewish community"
and read it back to yourself. No doubt you might have laughed if I had
posted a comment like this but my point is that, if you were insulted by the
comment, it wouldn't do any good for me to say, "But Phil, I didn't even
mention your name!" Give me a break!