Thanks, Andrew, for a very interesting post on a very interesting subject. I really enjoy your column (sorry, blog) -- the meatiest and most useful portion of Salon.

Colin Quinn had an unfortunately short lived talk show on Comedy Central and would open and close every show with a brief monologue. One in particular stands out in my mind: the American Caste System. Paraphrased, it went like this:

"The Comped" - the people who are so wealthy that their money isn't any good.

"The Tuesday Nighters" - not quite as cool, beautiful, or powerful as The Comped, they can still get in to most of the same places - when The Comped aren't there.

"The Wal-Martians" - most of America's middle and lower-middle class fits here.

"The Invisibles" - janitors. security guards. people performing the jobs no one else wants to do.

"The Untouchables" - the homeless, the migrant workers, other transients.

The American caste system, Quinn asserted, is every bit as real as India's - the only difference is that in America, mobility is possible from any group to any group - in either direction, for that matter.

I think there's a lot of truth to that.

(But don't dwell too long pondering the twisted irony of a moderator of a Dalit group declaring "I will ban U" to any members of another caste that might try to join her group. Exclusion up and down the hierarchy!)

I was on a listserv a long time ago for women in physics and the moderator decided to make it open to men.

Well guess what kind of men showed up? The kind who wanted to lecture us on how working women caused all the drug problems in the world. The obsessive kind who had some desperate need to prove to women they didn't belong in physics.

That kind of constant mental abuse ruined the purpose of the listserv and turned it into a hellish experience.

The moderator it turned out was afraid to ban anyone because she was against exclusion.

So the climate on the listserv became even more openly hostile to women than the climate outside the listserv.

Some exclusion is not ironic. It's just plain old self defense.

I'm pretty shocked that an old Internet hand and understander of fine points like Andrew Leonard doesn't understand this one.

When you're at the bottom of an abusive hierarchy, inclusion mostly means exposing yourself to increased abuse from the people on the higher rungs.

It rarely works in your favor to include people in your social group who look down on you and feel a constant urge to tell you why.

The American caste system, Quinn asserted, is every bit as real as India's - the only difference is that in America, mobility is possible from any group to any group - in either direction, for that matter.

I think there's a lot of truth to that.

Mobility, haha. You haven't lived life I see. Mobility in America? Hahahahaha. Nope I see no difference whatsoever but that doesn't stop pro-American nutballs from fantasizing that their "American caste" is better than the "Indian caste".