Comments Elsewhere, Edited and Expanded

Regarding John Derbyshire’s instantly (in)famous The Talk: Nonblack Version piece in Taki’s (contrasting the faddish meme “The Talk”* and its hoary assumptions about racial hostility, with the reality of the known world), Mr. Josh Barro in Forbes steps into the town sqaure to deliver the King’s writ as he sees it (“National Review Must Fire John Derbyshire“), and helpfully remind conservatives of their priorities, as such (no higher calling than Republican branding, for the “serious”):

And this is the problem for Lowry and other conservatives who want to be taken seriously by broad audiences when they write about racial issues.

“taken seriously by broad audiences”?
This is called selling out.
I understand why the aspirational individual seeks this; for the life of me I don’t understand why he encourages it in others. How does one sleep at night knowing he is both pimp and prostitute for a great lie? Your affected enlghtenment isn’t enough? What will you do if and when you’ve routed the racists? Who’s next in providing you with the opportunity to prove your religious devotion?

“The Talk” as black Americans and liberals present it (to wit: necessitated by white malice), is a comic affront–because no one is allowed (see Barro above) to notice the context in which black Americans are having run-ins with the law, each other, and others. The proper context for understanding this, and the mania that is the Trayvonicus for that matter, is the reasonable fear of violence. This is the single most exigent fact here–yet you decree it must not be spoken. You admit the reason for taking the topic off the table is that it offends. In your logic the one necessarily follows the other. Rarely does anyone in your well-heeled (and easily brought to heel) mob address points of fact; rarely do you make a pretense of showing where this argument is wrong. Your “acceptable discourse” is defined by an appeal to consequences.

But you’re right, of course. Our discourse is not a search for truth; it’s a battle–not of ideas, for they aspire and are vulnerable to the truth–but for power.

Shame on you. People are dying. Worse still, you bore us. Good for Derbyshire.

*

Steve Sailer in same thread:

I’m proud to stand with Josh Barro and the Atlantic’s Elspeth Reeve and Matt O’Brien. Simply because somebody is playing the role of a “public intellectual” doesn’t give them a license to write about ideas. Yes, they should feel relatively free to think private thoughts as they wish. But the vibrant tapestry of our current public discourse — which ranges from Trotskyist anarchy on the Left all the way to SWPL Portlandia on the Right — can only be damaged by the voicing of divisive notions.

Another commenter:

Strongly disagree that Derbyshire’s article was “appalling”. I thought that word was reserved for ninnyish liberals who overheard someone defend George Zimmerman.

Personally I find the core values of NR–lowering taxes on the wealthy and spilling American blood for Israel–personally repugnant, even “appalling”. So I’m non-plussed by your take on Derb’s honest, intelligent Taki piece. Looking forward to the decline of National Review as a mouthpiece for pseudo-conservatism.

*The supposedly routine “Talk” about the danger of racist white cops. You’ve seen it on TV: solemn black parent, wearing the dignity of hundreds of years’ suffering, tells doe-eyed children you got to look out for the Man always and be on your best behavior, because white folk just mean (“Mama, why do they hate us so?”).
See Skip Gates (“All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger”);
Tyler Perry (“it took a black cop to realize I was a Celebrity and allowed to drive my car in any damn direction I please! Can you imagine the indignity?”);
and Chris Rock.

It also occurs to me that we cannot trust that black parents actually are sitting their children down to instruct them in safe police protocol. After all, it doesn’t seem to be working very well. Hatred of police is a jealously guarded romance in black American life. Who’s to say young blacks aren’t more often told by hard-headed elders not to take any shit from cops, or whites, or hispanics (or white-hispanics).

Sympathy for the Devil

So Mr. Santorum has invoked Satan. The pro-Romney Drudge Report is is assaulting this newly identified breach with standard all-cap hysterics and ominous cliff-hanger dramatics (“DEVELOPING…”). We’re all atingle. Send the children to their rooms. Related, Obama is going pre-emptively negative on Romney in Michigan (Santorum’s got to look like Christmas to the White House, and not because of the sweater-vests).

Apparently the only thing worse than questioning God’s guiding affection for America is asserting the Devil’s active malice for her. I don’t understand.
That’s American politics: it’s all God, God, God, and all very glib; and when it isn’t God, indeed, when it is specifically not God, it’s the giddy god of Progress. Never a word for the Devil–politics refuses to acknowledge its father.

But what is Santorum guilty of, besides a gauche display of literal faith? Certainly Satan makes a good metaphor for our collective failure of character; it can be argued that some mortal few of us are energetically “attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality”.

I think he’s only being polite, not calling out by name the progressive agenda for America, which he may want to make nice with later. The Devil makes them do it. Does the Devil walk the halls of the Pentagon too, Rick? Or is he unable to get past security? Do the walls within emit a heavenly glow and the faint hum of castrati? Who is this Devil of yours, and how is he contained?

I rise in defense of Old Scratch. And why not? The Devil needn’t lift a finger to enjoy our demise.

Get me something that goes really fast and gets really shitty gas mileage, I work for Dick Jones!

Contra kitschmeister Clint Eastwood, the dystopian Detroit of Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop, a failed city where street gangs rule the night and private contractors compete with the police, is coming to pass:

“We got to have a little Old West up here in Detroit. That’s what it’s gonna take,” Detroit resident Julia Brown told The Daily.

The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn’t show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she’s prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity.

“I don’t intend to be one of their victims,” said Brown, who has lived in Detroit since the late 1950s. “I’m planning on taking one out.”
(…)
The city’s wealthier enclaves have hired private security firms. Intimidating men in armored trucks patrol streets lined with gracious old homes in a scene more likely seen in Mexico City than the United States.

That kind of paid protection can run residents anywhere from $10 to $200 per month, and companies say business is good.

“We’re booming,” said Dale Brown, the owner of Threat Management Group, which along with Recon Security patrols neighborhoods like Palmer Woods in black Hummers.

“We’re paramilitary, but we’re positive. I’m not a vigilante. I’m an agent of change.

. Somebody dial 911?

Public Enemy knew what time it was in 1990:

Sock it to the Man, Flav. How are black people with irony?
I can sure appreciate the irony of Detroit’s last remaining law-abiding black citizens advocating for the right to bear arms–that “racist” legal relic, according Chicago’s preening police chief and Candidate “clinging to guns” Obama. They level this charge oblivious to its converse: the law-abiding citizens of, say, rural Pennsylvania, are compelled to surrender a right they’ve held responsibly because of the failure of a feral few favored, by progressives, for their race. But the left will not concede even this; they’d have you believe the right never existed in the first place, than acknowledge they are in the business of destroying it.

Progressive logic insists none of us can have guns because Obama’s homies can’t resist shooting each other (and others) with them. But it’s worse than that: they would deny us this means of self-defense against these same street thugs–on whose behalf progressives advocate generally, to the degradation of other customs, laws and conditions. Progressives want you to die. That’s not fair, of course; it’s just that some random innocent few of us must die, for justice to prevail. Your death is incidental.

Buyer’s Remorse

Excuse my rudery, but stuff the jubilee!
–Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine

Have they considered just putting a baton in his hand? They could replace the rolled-up paper, which makes him look like he’s about to swat one of us for pissing on the rug.
Your more discerning lefty has to be uncomfortable with the Monster on the Mall. Can you blame him? It’s too obvious, too much artistic and political overreach, with MLK emerging from Mother Earth like a primal deity–nothing to come before or after. Are they kidding? But tweaking the silly “drum major” quote–you’ve got to love it. It’s like they’ve bought this big ugly car they have to keep forever and they’re fiddling with the nameplate–because that’s all they can do. Serves them right. We deserved better, though.

The Icy Flame, Mad Monk Mix

Live on, thou damned!
–Baudelaire, The Double Room

Life is the lash
Driving us on
Toward the flame
Without haste
Without pause
Calm, cruel, fixed
Indifferent to us
Its raw material that serves some purpose
We cannot know
Into the chilling fire, slave-soldiers!
Into Nature’s maw!
This command the only counsel
Of a universe without conscience
And desperate Man takes his own
He imagines worlds beyond
Over and above this grave
Clear of its stench and toil
He peoples them with his beloved
Who wait there serene and knowing
Holding the Secret in trust
He blasphemes Nature’s Holy Writ
As He works to will these things
He works in defiant futility
Despite Her daily proofs
Of disease and calamity
The endlessly varied forms
Her harvest of death takes, like
Myriad mutant troops enforcing Her terror
And She claims with equal indifference
Her rebels and Her slaves
But behind Her cold disdain
Concealed by Her advantage in time
Her actions reveal some jealousy
Of Man’s last means of resistance
His undying imagination
And frail She may be after all
Behind that horrible beautiful face
So we may as well call Her bluff
Though we know Her game is rigged, and
Sing defiant you fading voices!
We last, we last and
We have no fear, for
In that crucible of ice and dust
In that fire that will not warm
There, final and eternal
Only there
We are
At long last my tiring friend
No longer alone.