Posted on 04/07/2012 4:24:15 PM PDT by cartan
Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, or any one of his “Straggler” columns in the books section of NR. Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer.
How deluded can you get? It's not 1978, Rich. Nobody takes NR seriously anymore. I read takimag all the time. I occasionally read NRO, usually to make fun of them. They've devolved into the print version of Sean Hannity.
This is a very interesting blurb from Rich Lowry in the following way:
Here are the words in the Lowry blurb used to describe either Derbyshire, his work, or his views:
“deeply literate”
“funny”
“incisive”
“delightful”
“maddening”
“outrageous”
“cranky”
“provocative”
“nasty and indefensible”
“views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise”
“so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation”
Notice that in all of these descriptors, Rich Lowry himself has “danced around the line on these issues”.
Not one of the adjectives addresses the most important point that any journalist, including Rich Lowry, should be concerns with:
Was the article “true” or was it “false”?
Don’t expect Rich Lowry to have enough journalistic integrity and guts to address that issue.
Instead he wants to talk about whether or not it’s “outlandish”.
As I said in another post, I attend theme parks dozens of times a year, throughout the country. I’ve been at theme parks in minority cities, during various special events, and I’ve never felt in any way threatened or otherwise in fear for my life. I would never suggest that it was necessary to stay away from such things (If you were buying a one-day ticket, I’d tell you to ignore a special event unless it was a concert, because of the extra crowds, but that’s another thing altogether).
The National Zoo incident didn’t actually occur IN the park, it was just outside the park. But you should know the National Zoo isn’t a “park”, it has no gate, you just walk in and come and go as you please (it’s free to the public). I’m a member of the zoo (in order to support the park, and I get free parking). I’ve never seen any indication of danger at the park, or even walking outside the park as I’ve occasionally done.
There are places I wouldn’t walk in the city.
There are of course occasional things that happen at a theme park, just like there are occasional things that happen everywhere. In college I worked for a defense contractor, and we had a small “riot” at a ball game because someone slid too hard into home. My involvement was to carefully grab a bat out of the hands of one team member who was about to hit someone over the head with it. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t ever play softball again.
Which was my point. You can find examples of bad things happening, but that’s almost the opposite of showing that something bad is necessarily going to happen. We had a space shuttle blow up twice, but that didn’t mean we should never fly them. We had kids occasionally shoot up schools, but schools are safer than most places.
At a certain point, people have to take responsibility for their own choices. They have churches. They have access to this message from a spiritual point of view, beyond politics. That more don't "hear" this message is a mystery to many.
trumandogz, finally zotted? Awesome!
Tsk. It's in the same drawer as the Gay Gene.
"Derbyshire doesn't do the really obvious racist stuff -- the stuff that goes up at FreeRepublic.com, for example -- like post photos Obama in stereotypical tribal garb with a bone through his nose.
Freepers might want to keep the above in mind. Getting tagged as a racist site is bad news for all of us. Just saying.
Well, maybe we've reached critical mass of being fed up to here. The day of the last presidential inauguration, I was in a local retail store, and the blacks inside were whooping it up by catching the eye of whites and exulting, "No more slavery!"
As if! Living in a nice suburb, leather jackets, hair extensions, expensive sneakers, manicures, dental work, jewelry, watches, SUVs, etc., etc. They should only know what their own born-free grandparents experienced in the 40s. Spoiled brats.
“Freepers might want to keep the above in mind. Getting tagged as a racist site is bad news for all of us. Just saying. “
Nonsense. We’re going to be called racist no matter what.
NR is paralyzed by the threat.
Freepers should just shrug it off. The charge means nothing.
I don’t allow them to intimidate me, but you’re right. That’s just what I think I will do.
“You can’t fight Nazis with a law book.” LT Barney Greenwald, “The Caine Mutiny”
Re: Education as a lurking variable
Possibly, but “home schooled” education rather than public education.
The children tested, as I recall, were all 5 or 6 years old, and entering public school for the first time.
I spent my earliest years on my mother’s or grandmother’s lap listening to them read - very little TV in those days.
I’m sure that helps.
But values and genetic heritage play a major role, too.
Going back three generations before me, every male in my family was a lawyer, a Lutheran minister, or a small business owner, and all very stable family men with no divorces.
And 100 percent accurate.
Funny, Derb has been taking a lot of flak for this piece but I have yet to see anyone refute it.
Not totally, but it did contain some sections which are needlessly inflammatory and/or inadvisable, such as paragraph 11 and sections of paragraph 10. For instance:
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
In other words, be more sloppy about scrutinizing the character of a white politician? This is the same mistake which many black voters do (in reverse, of course), and it is absurd on its face, IMHO. My vote for Allen West, for example was not more or less likely simply because he is black.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
Obviously, one should always be aware of his or her surroundings and level of personal risk, but the above suggestion is downright unchristian, IMHO.
And paragraph 11, even if true, serves no constructive purpose that I can see.
Rather than falling into the trap of governing our behavior towards others based on racial generalizations, I believe it will always be better to judge people individually, by the content of their character.
The thing about political incorrectness is that it is 100% true and the thing about political correctness is that it is 100% wrong...
>> a third of the young black men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system <<
I think your numbers are way too low. Isn’t the correct figure for Baltimore about 60%?
(Counting those in prison, those on parole or probation, and those with outstanding arrest warrants.)
Years ago, when I was young and stupid, my date and I were driving home from a party when we got sideswiped on the highway.
We pulled the car over and a group of friendly locals came up to the car and offered to give us a ride to the local service station. I considered their offer, but my date adamantly refused. She said, “I am not getting out of this car!”
Just then, a state trooper pulled up, and the friendly locals quickly ran back to their car and took off.
I’m probably alive today because my date had more street smarts than I did.
Sometimes, political correctness can be deadly.
I don’t consider it a mystery. They don’t know or understand the Constitution. They’ve been held in an indentured position by the democrats for over a century (which perpetuates their constitutional ignorance). Churches and spiritual points of view are irrelevant to their political/moral decline. They’re still slaves, they simply don’t know it. Pardon my frankness, but it’s the truth. Now, fire me for what I say and I’ll join Derbyshire for a beer...
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