… that its truly worthy objects are too dense to see themselves in it. A case in point comes from response my friend Hugh Iglarsh wrote to a blog that covers the Chicago suburb of Winnetka. Hugh is clever, but he is not subtle.
Dear Editor:
I would like to thank Winnetka native Eva Sorock for setting us all straight on the issues of affordable housing, fairness, creeping collectivism and justice itself, Winnetka style. How quickly we forget that “private property rights are the underpinning of democracy,” as Ms. Sorock so splendidly puts it.
As a committed one-percenter with vast holdings and a deep and abiding hatred of any change whatsoever, it makes my blood boil to hear this liberal cant about democracy meaning rule by the majority and equality before the law. We are human beings too, and it hurts us deeply when others who are not members of our much-maligned minority imply that a community’s unwillingness to abide by fair housing rules suggests some sort of reluctance on its part to share the good things in life. In fact, we are generous and giving, and love to experience the gratitude of the little people, as long as it’s expressed at a reasonable distance from our own well-tended lawns. Goodness gracious, next thing you know we’ll have schoolteachers, social workers, nurses and other such riffraff living right next door to the respectable elements, indulging night and day in all manner of liberalism and indecency, and undermining our freedom and way of life.
How one longs for the old days, when property rights truly were king, and restrictive covenants kept the village as finely sifted as good white flour. Now there was representative democracy in action, when property and wealth were fully represented, untrammeled by law, public opinion or nosy activists—and free of the sanctimonious elitism that so dogs us today. It is clear as the bulge of my wallet that this so-called Interfaith Housing Center gets its orders straight from the Kremlin, and I hope Mr. Hoover and his gallant G-men are keeping close tabs on these impulses of fairness and decency and diversity that pose such grave threat to our property values and—sense of entitlement.
Yours “sincerely"—
Mr. Potter , Bedford Falls, NY (a/k/a Hugh Iglarsh, Skokie IL)
I mean, if nothing else did, you'd think the quotes around "sincerely" would have tipped people off, but the editor of the paper thanked Hugh for his "thoughtful comments" … and the target of the rant-in-reverse responded, "Thanks so much for respond [sic]. Good to know sensible people do exist! Happy New Year, Eva Sorock."
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