This is the most condescending thing I’ve ever read.

You must be new to the Porch…

But here’s the thing: whereas I’m a “localist” who lives nowhere near any sibling, parent, or in-law, our NASCAR neighbors, who I’m fairly certain have never used the word “localist,” live near all three of their daughters and all of their grandchildren, all of whom visit and dine with them every Sunday.

I have thought about this irony often and just as often pondered the cause of it. I think part of it has to do with the fact that many people of meager means live a “localist” lifestyle by necessity while raising their children to “reach for better things.” Thus, there is a reason many people living the “localist” lifestyle don’t use that word: they don’t want to live the “localist” lifestyle anymore than anyone else.

It’s interesting that it is the (over?) educated people who need concepts like “localist” only to re-learn truths that people have known for thousands of years. And (generally) we still don’t apply them as well.

C. Floyd…thanks for the Chesterton quote….negroes and German Socialists in one sentence …thats a first.

Peters, though you have much to be ashamed of, I would assert that , in your sordid case, being a college professor is way down the list. Actually, aside from your facility with a wrench or gapping tool…and your membership in the Cult of Laphroaig…..it is one of your few redeeming qualities. Next time , please put a thoracic tattoo on chain smokin granny. And where, perchance, are the gloomy teens with the pants drooping down around their skinny thighs or various skull piercings?

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one’s duty towards humanity, but one’s duty towards one’s neighbour. The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting. The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice or a kind of taste. We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroes because they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbour because he is there — a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.