Douglas C. Lyons The Sun-Sentinel

February 28, 2010

Douglas C. Lyons
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: Haiti, Chile, and the ties that bind us.

Mr. Lyons,

First, it is important to note that looting, once thought to be a wholly owned trait of urban Blacks – vide Haiti – is now officially non-racial. I watched a gang of Los Blancos clean out a super market in Concepcion, Chile that would make Congresswoman Maxine Waters proud. You remember that she described urban looting in Los Angeles as “alternative shopping”, don’t you? She would have given those ladrones a 9.

I play the “race card”, I think, maybe, because on January 16th you instructed us to dig deeply into our pockets, pockets jammed with filthy lucre gotten from the Herculean labors of the wretched of the earth, and fling money at Haiti because. As you said, “we owe them big time”.

“We owe them big time” because a platoon of them fought bravely in the American Revolution and because we weren’t nice to them in the 20th century was hardly the way to begin a begathon.

A case could be made for them not being nice to themselves. A picture of a motley dressed street dude biting the head off a chicken as a street sport does not lend itself to conditions favoring the Rule of Law. It suggests that the place is a few rungs down the ladder leading to a civilized society. The Duvaliers, pere et fils, have one trait that endears them to modern American Liberals: they make Jimmy Carter look not as bad as he was.

But I digress…

What do we “owe” Chile?

I write this early Sunday morning. The extent of the damage and the casualties is not known.

What is known is that an earthquake has visited its particular terror on another group of our brothers.

Since we don’t “owe” them should we do nothing?

“What is to be done”, was the question always asked by Lenin, one of the 20th century’s leading humanitarians.

Perhaps the answer has been provided to us by a leading Dead White European Male.

“The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the
gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”

Is it not a sign of American exceptionalism that our first reaction to disasters wherever and to whomever they ravage is to help? I daresay if Cuba were to suffer some devastating calamity this country would extend its hand. It would be a hand filled with the things that heal a broken body. It would not be because we “owe” them but rather because “mercy is twice blest; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes”.

America is living proof that mercy “…is enthroned in the hearts of Kings, it is an attribute to God himself…”

I like Chilean fish, fruit, and wine. Maybe we “owe” them for that.


Kevin Smith