Over on Eschaton Atrios is complaining about this comment by Bill O’Reilly:

All right. Well, what I’m tellin’ you, [caller], is I think you’re takin’ it too seriously. You have a predominantly Christian nation. You have a federal holiday based on the philosopher Jesus. And you don’t wanna hear about it? Come on, [caller] — if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel then. I mean because we live in a country founded on Judeo — and that’s your guys’ — Christian, that’s my guys’ philosophy. But overwhelmingly, America is Christian. And the holiday is a federal holiday honoring the philosopher Jesus. So, you don’t wanna hear about it? Impossible.

The source of the insult seems to be the suggestion that a dissatisfied American citizen leave the country for a place where he’ll find more peace. Of course, since he’s talking about a Jewish caller, the insult is magnified by the “appropriate” cultural sensitivity. As much as I dislike Bill O’Reilly, he hasn’t made a blunder here. This is just classical social contract theory, as advocated by John Locke, in which a citizen has the implicit right to leave an implicit social contract and state for a better one.

Media Matters would call out the dogs…