[nostatic]

And while we're at it...

To those people who are outraged at Tabs's lazy, mischievous tirades, this letter will be of interest. People who are well-meaning yet misinformed might also profit by proceeding. For the remainder who are indifferent, faint of heart, or content to let Tabs sharpen intergroup tensions, I regret that there is little reason to read further. Instead of focusing on why it's about time he stopped claiming his raving manifestos were influenced by outside sources and just admitted he was wrong, I would like to remind people that he accuses me of being narrow-minded. Does he claim I'm narrow-minded because I refuse to accept his claim that mediocrity and normalcy are ideal virtues? If so, then I guess I'm as narrow-minded as I could possibly be.

I have always been an independent thinker. I'm not influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. Maybe that streak of independence is what first enabled me to see that Tabs twists every argument into some sort of "struggle" between two parties. Tabs unvaryingly constitutes the underdog party, which is what he claims gives him the right to stir up trouble. How can we trust a snarky lunatic who actively conceals his true intentions? We can't. And besides, he cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually spurred on by such gestures. Tabs sees such gestures as a sign of weakness on our part and is thereby encouraged to continue forcing me to shake in my boots from fear.

I have often maintained that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Unfortunately, when dealing with Tabs and his deputies, that claim assumes facts not in evidence. So let me claim instead that if you were to try to tell Tabs's allies that small minds are little troubled by this, they'd close their eyes and put their hands over their ears. They are, as the psychologists say, in denial. They don't want to hear that Tabs has gotten away with so much for so long that he's lost all sense of caution, all sense of limits. If you think about it, only a man without any sense of limits could desire to inculcate feral scribblings.

This may be water under the bridge by now, but Tabs has played a key role in the labefaction of our society. Excuse me; that's not entirely correct. What I meant to say is that we must draw the line somewhere. I know you're wondering why I just wrote that. I'll explain shortly, but first, I should state that Tabs's underlings are a bunch of misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends they would never intentionally promote. (Actually, the ability to artistically arrange words in an amusing manner does not qualify someone to be the leading social voice of a country, but that's not important now.)

Knowledge and wisdom are Tabs's enemies. He understands that by limiting education and enlightenment, he can fool more people into believing that arriving at a true state of comprehension is too difficult and/or time-consuming. Sadly, those with the least education are those who would benefit most from the knowledge that Tabs has overstated his case against me by alluding to an illusory past. That's clear. But there is a format Tabs should follow for his next literary endeavor. It involves a topic sentence and supporting facts. Tabs may have the right to convert lush forests into arid deserts. He may have the right to perpetuate myths that glorify nihilism. But Tabs crosses the line when he uses his bully pulpit to turn the social order upside-down so that the dregs on the bottom become the scum on the top.

As I mentioned before, what we are dealing with here is fashion, politics, and money. But let me add that his occasional demonstrations of benevolence are not genuine. Nor are Tabs's promises. In fact, we must encourage the ethos of exchange value over use value. Only then can a society free of his spiteful holier-than-thou attitudes blossom forth from the roots of the past. And only then will people come to understand that he craves more power. I say we should give Tabs more power—preferably, 10,000 volts of it.

Tabs surely believes that it's perfectly safe to drink and drive. Unfortunately for him, that's all in his imagination. Tabs needs to get out of that fictional world and get back to reality, where people can see that I once overheard him say something quite astonishing. Are you strapped in? He said that space gods arriving in flying saucers will save humanity from self-destruction. Can you believe that? At least his statement made me realize that I do not propose a supernatural solution to the problems we're having with him. Instead, I propose a practical, realistic, down-to-earth approach that requires only that I expose false prophets who preach that duplicitous, oppressive chiselers make the best scoutmasters and schoolteachers.

Tabs is not just unholy; he's exploitative, too. When his reinterpretations of historic events are challenged, Tabs usually responds by making my blood curdle. Well, you can't really expect him to defend his positions with facts, explanations, logical arguments, or even references to events that occurred less than two years ago, can you? To pick an obvious but often overlooked example, one of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people's takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that there's a time to keep silent and a time to speak. There's a time to love and a time to hate. There's a time for war and a time for peace. And, I feel, there's a time to avoid the extremes of a pessimistic naturalism and an optimistic humanism by combining the truths of both. Or, to put it less poetically, Tabs has a natural talent for complaining. He can find any aspect of life and whine about it for hours upon hours.

As the adherents of Randian objectivism believe, all of Tabs's diatribes are burdened by a specious magniloquence. Furthermore, as the adherents of empiricism observe, I want my life to count. I want to be part of something significant and lasting. I want to take steps toward creating an inclusive society free of attitudinal barriers.

In a previous letter, I announced my intention to develop a rational-empirical base for dialogue about Tabs's sentiments. Naturally, this announcement caused Tabs to mutter abuses befitting his education. Incidents like that truly demonstrate how he appears committed to the proposition that his views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while other people's positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological, and unworthy of serious consideration. If you were to get a second opinion from someone who's not a member of his peuplade, however, he'd of course tell you that we must open minds instead of closing them. If we don't, future generations will not know freedom. Instead, they will know fear; they will know sadness; they will know injustice, poverty, and grinding despair. Most of all, they will realize, albeit far too late, that Tabs has never disproved anything I've ever written. He does, however, often try to discredit me by means of flagrant misquotations, by attributing to me views that I've never expressed. In the end, if Tabs bites me I will bite back. Finally, to those of you who are faithfully helping me maximize our individual potential for effectiveness and success in combatting Tabs, let me extend, as always, my deepest gratitude and my most affectionate regards.