Farewell to Lileks

Hi James, I wanted to drop you a line to let you know I don’t read the Bleat anymore, and I won’t be buying any of your books. I think you are a wonderful writer, and I have been reading you for 6 years now. I have bought all your books to date and, in fact, have given them as gifts to many grateful recipients.

I have to say that I realized you are leading me astray, so I can no longer continue to patronize you. Here are my reasons:

Keith Ellison – As far as I can tell, this guy is your congressman. But other than a Bleat the day of the election, way too late to matter, you were silent on his election. Do you not understand the stakes of having radical Islamists at the highest levels of our government? I think you do, based on what I hear from you on the Hugh Hewitt show. However, it puzzled me why when the Powerline guys were banging away for weeks on Ellison, you did not join in. Then you started to express your angst about the changes in the offing at the Star-Tribune, and it all clicked into place. I suspect you moderated your voice in order to stay on the good side of your publishers and editors. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, after all, I can’t say everything I would like to since my employer, the US Marine Corps, would not appreciate it. That being said, you are ingratiating yourself to the enemy.

The Press is the enemy – Having watched for years as the mainstream media bangs away at the President and the war, and sides with Islamists at every turn, and desperately seeks to capitulate to the Mohammedans in every way, the only conclusion I can draw is that the 4th estate is a 5th Column. I have sworn off all broadcast news, and refuse to allow any newspapers into our house, even the Washington Times. Your employer wishes ill of me, rejoices at the death of my fellow Marines, and I refuse to pay a cent to them. Reading of how you worry that the Star Tribune might lay you off, in my eyes, how the enemy might stop paying you, just struck me as so unseemly. What is it about the money the paper is giving you that matters so much? That brings me to point 3.

Your consumer pornography – What you buy, what you have seems to matter more that pretty much anything more that perhaps your daughter. Reading your stuff about the TV, or the TIVO or the various programs you have on your computer or your computer itself, I would always think, oh, I want that, too! Increasingly of late, that envy has convicted me. I have been reading the Bible, and I keep coming back to this after I read your stuff: “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” After the Pastor had sermon on eliminating the temptations in life, I realized that you are leading me to temptation, and I could not allow that for myself any more.

My last reason for reading you is probably petty on my part, but I figured I would let you know anyway. I get really turned off by the bathos of you relating every “last” you go through with your daughter. I recall that I had a few of those with my first daughter, but once the second and the third child came along, I learned that it avails me not to dwell on what I loss, but instead to rejoice and be thankful for what is. I think that is the gift God gives us when we have more than one child. We are relieved of the prison of cataloging what we have lost, and instead can enjoy each moment with them. I think that represents one more reason why I can’t be in your presence anymore. Reading your consumer pornography has the potential to make me doubt the choices I have made to have children as the Lord commands, and to stand against the advancing Islamist tide Mark Steyn has so ably described. Reading your glorification of selfishness can only lead me astray, so I can’t do that to myself any more.

Good luck with your future endeavors.