Comment from an Angry Reader:

You’re a civil guy, and it is appreciated. It would be a waste of time, however, for us to engage in colloquy. I can only hope that you are not spared the results of your short-sightedness, and cheerleading for Donald Trump—the word is apt, despite your ‘preference’ in the primaries—that perhaps someone you love takes a bullet along with the countless Mexicans and Muslims who will suffer at his hands along with many of the rest of us. Then, you may be able to feel something like Kipling felt when his own son died in wartime.

 —Kurt Lipschutz

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Kurt Lipschutz,

I have answered your earlier angry letter, but confess that you are not a civil person. As I wrote, I am not a cheerleader for Donald Trump, but concluded that in a world of bad and worse choices Trump is less toxic than is Clinton and the assorted Clinton scandals that come with her. Enforcing border security and ensuring immigration is legal, diverse, and meritocratic is reasonable—despite your macabre suggestions.

You know nothing about the circumstances of Kipling’s remorse over the death of his son in WWI, which is likely because either he had helped his son’s own efforts to lift a medical deferment to serve, or he was angry that the British Army had had plenty of warning of the need to prepare for a looming war with Germany and did not field or lead a suitable army worthy of its soldiers’ sacrifices. And you reach a real low when you suggest that someone close to me should die to convince me to agree with your own particular political positions. Anyone who has a lost a child would find your ill wishes for the murder of one of my loved ones pathological and beneath contempt.

VDH