Jim:

Your 'ungracious' comment reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons (years ago) where Homer quits his job at the nuclear power plant and learns he has to return and beg for it back because he's going to have a third child (Maggie). Mr. Burns and Smithers make him enter their office through a tiny door marked 'Supplicants' which Homer has to get on the floor to get through: "So you've come crawling back" says Mr. Burns. Homer, all innocence, looks up from the floor and says "Seems the classy thing would be not to draw attention to it!"

Anyhow, I want you to know that I've experienced more than one instance of not knowing for sure what you were trying to say and I have not gone to any trouble to call attention to it 'til now. I understand the phenomenon of beating out a riposte with busy fingers but I've learned to take some time, even frame the post offline in Microsoft Word so no internet spasm will kill off my precious thoughts without backup. I also have the additional time of pre-push-send reflection to meditate on whether or not I really want to post my words.

I feel you have paid not enough attention to several of my posts but I accuse you of nothing other than maybe being more concerned with personal invective than thoughtful arguments. You and I seem to have moderated the personal remarks, and I am going to see if I can learn from that for my future correspondence online.

You and I have, I think, found our points of demarcation, where we are not going to agree. I am with Orwell. I am with Reynaldo Arenas. The systems which exert mind control are the worst. What the Nazis and Communists did to their entire populations, is anathema. They made Europe hell on earth and we should learn those lessons and never repeat those sad evil experiences.

As Heine said, "where books are burnt, men also will be burnt".

Among the problems with my position is that we reasonable people live in a world left to us by fanatics, who are willing to sacrifice more for extremist positions.

You mentioned being in Czechoslovakia when the Soviets were invading. But I don't understand your point. I'm sure the Czechs didn't want their country dominated by force from the Soviets, and it was their very seeking of political/ intellectual freedoms that led to their invasions (and the much bloodier invasion of Hungary in '56). I don't care if it is called 'democratic' or 'western' or 'velvet revolution', it is the seeking of freedom from despotism. What's not to like? It is breaking down the Berlin Wall and letting people live and breathe and think and speak what they want It is not necessary to like it.

Let's look at what happened to Czechoslovakia after the fall of Communism. What was Czechoslovakia is now two separate relatively free countries (the velvet divorce). Go back there and see if they want to go back to where they were.

"we are not good enough friends for you to be accurate" sounds classy but I don't have a clue as to what it means. (Maybe the classy thing is not to draw attention to it).