Earlier quoted context omitted.
This deserves more discussion. I won't be able to do it justice today, but hope to restart the discussion later, maybe with a comment on your blog.
You might want to read this: http://rondam.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-programming-lang... (Submitted to HN -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2314572 -- but it died with a whimper.)
Yes, that's where I would reply.
Unfortunately I'm not surprised it died. It's better thought out than the original Usenet posting, but less controversial.