The response to this week’s column and blog post giving readers a peek into my e-mailbox was quite unexpected and overwhelming. Yes, I am feelin’ the luuuv. Deepest thanks to all of you for the kind notes, track backs, etc.

Longtime readers know exactly why I reprinted the hate letters–not to elicit sympathy (though I appreciate it very much), but to expose The Myth of the Tolerant Liberals with their own hypocritical and unhinged words.

Some readers note that leftist comedienne entertainer celebrity Margaret Cho received nasty e-mails last year from conservatives angered by her Bush-bashing tirades. They were, indeed, awful, despicable letters and although Ms. Cho and I agree on very, very little, we do seem to share a common ability to intimidate some weird segment of the population that has a problem with outspoken, opinionated women of Asian heritage. (I should also note that while Cho received contrite apologies from some of her hate e-mailers, I have received none and expect none.)

There will always be idiots out there mocking prominent public figures’ ethnicity, physical appearance, sexuality, etc. But the key difference between Cho’s hate mail and mine is profound. None of her detractors accused her of selling out her race. And unlike me, she is beloved by the Asian-American elite. No minority who embraces liberal ideas is attacked for being a “race traitor.” That unique ad hominem accusation is borne only by minority conservatives, and it has become an expedient substitute for arguing with the actual substance of our ideas. Margaret Cho herself engages in this empty tactic against me here.

Coincidentally, the always incisive Dr. Thomas Sowell, who knows more than just about anyone about the burdens of being a “race traitor,” takes on the decline of discourse in his latest column. Here’s an excerpt:

My assistant sorts the incoming mail into various categories, such as “critical mail,” “fan mail,” etc. But the so-called critical mail is seldom critical. It may be bombastic or vituperative or full of pop psychology, but it seldom presents a critical argument based on facts or logic.

Too many people today act as if no one can honestly disagree with them. If you have a difference of opinion with them, you are considered to be not merely in error but in sin. You are a racist, a homophobe or whatever the villain of the day happens to be.

Disagreements are inevitable whenever there are human beings but we seem to be in an era when the art of disagreeing is vanishing. That is a huge loss because out of disagreements have often come deeper understandings than either side had before confronting each other’s arguments…

Indeed.

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