A reader, in response to the extract from my TakiMag column Mark Krikorian posted.

Dear Mr. Derbyshire: I am nearly certain that you meant to make a different point than to signal indifference to hordes of slaughtered Congolese innocents; for if we care not for the Congolese dead as well as Israel, we dishonor ourselves.

If you want to find out what people think, believe, and feel, there are two ways to go about it: (1) Ask them. (2) Observe their behavior. It is a melancholy reflection on human nature that if you apply both methods to the same situation, the answers you get will not necessarily be identical. As a dyed-in-the-wool empiricist, I mostly favor (2).