—————————
• Play the sound file
—————————
[Music clip: Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2, fife'n'drum version]
01 — Intro. And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners, from your extraterrestrially genial host John Derbyshire with a brief survey of this week's passing charivari. There have been a couple of noteworthy anniversaries this week. To build up a little suspense, though, I shall save them to the end of the podcast. Patience, please! |
02 — A Walz conundrum. Biggest news of the week was of course the selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Kamala Harris' choice to join her on the Democrat's presidential ticket. Researching the guy, I have learned that he is a far-left radical, a Midwest white Progressive out of Central Casting. Tampons for nine-year-old boys, driver's licences for illegal aliens, climate change an existential threat, … the whole package sealed and stamped for mailing. Whether Governor Walz favors the annihilation of Israel, Progressivism's current plat du jour, I haven't been able to ascertain, but it wouldn't be a surprise to know he does. The Governor's wife seems to love the smell of napalm in the morning. When car dealerships and police stations were burning during the 2020 Floyd riots she kept her house windows open to savor the aroma. At that point in my research I was ready to write off the Walzes as a couple of midwit lefty nation-wreckers, like the lady whose election wagon they have just boarded. Reading further, though, I discovered an extra dimension to Tim Walz, one I am still trying to figure out. Here's the story. Like me, the Governor spent a year teaching school in China. My year and his were different years: mine the academic year 1982-83, his 1989-90. We were at opposite ends of the country, too: me up in the northeast in frosty Manchuria, Walz down south in steamy Guangdong Province, close by Hong Kong. We taught different grades, too: me, English language and literature to college students, Walz American history, American culture, and English in high school. Tim Walz would have commenced his year teaching in China right after the ChiComs brutally crushed the student and worker demonstrations on and after June 4th 1989. Quote from John Sudworth, the BBC's Senior North America Correspondent, August 7th, quote: His wife Gwen has said that the events had such an effect on Walz, that he chose June 4th — the day Beijing sent the troops in — as the date of their wedding five years later. She said that, [inner quote] "he wanted to have a date he'll always remember" [end inner quote]. End quote. Walz and his new wife actually took their honeymoon in China five years later in 1994. He's been back and forth to China many times — about thirty times, he says. He's gushed over what a good time he had living in China and how much he liked the Chinese people. Sample gush: "They are such kind, generous, capable people. They just gave and gave and gave to me. Going there was one of the best things I've ever done." End quote. So the guy is a China gull, right? He kisses up to the ChiComs and believes everything they tell him, right? Actually, no. In Congress Walz was critical of the ChiComs' human rights record. He met with the Dalai Lama in 2016, and he has met with at least one of the activists for democracy in Hong Kong. This isn't as confused as it sounds. Liking the Chinese people in the generality while detesting their brutish, corrupt system of government is actually rather common. Full confession here: My father-in-law was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and a veteran of the Korean War — on the Communist side, of course — yet I was rather fond of the old boy. These are the paradoxes of human social relationships. I still haven't figured out the Walz case. Until I have, I shall give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that while obviously a crackpot American Progressive in all other respects, Walz has enough brain matter to see what gangsters Xi Jinping and company are. In his own mind he perhaps regards them as traitors to true socialism. |
03 — Britain's funeral pyre flares up. China 1989; Minnesota 2020; am I developing a theme here — a comparative study of major social disturbances? Not really, although you are welcome to give that a try if you like. Before leaving the topic, though, I want to glance across the Atlantic at the demonstrations and riots we've seen in the British Isles this past two weeks. They were ignited by a hideous murder committed on the afternoon of Monday, July 29th in Southport, a pleasant little seaside town twenty miles north of Liverpool. A dance class for young children had been organized. While it was under way a man came in with a hunting knife and began attacking the participants. He killed three little girls, ages six, seven, and nine, badly injured eight more, and also badly injured two adults. The perp was quickly arrested, but the only details that came out about him were his age, seventeen. A suspect of that age does not, under British law, have to be publicly named or identified. The Derbyshire Rule, also known as the Coulter Rule, of course kicked in. People all over Britain were saying: "Oh, it must be a black guy. If it was a white guy, they would have told us." Then a rumor started going round that the killer had the name Ali Al-Shakati. For a lot of ordinary Brits the killings were the last straw, after decades of watching their fine old towns fill up with hostile Muslims and then, in recent years, with illegal aliens supposedly desperate to seek asylum from cruel oppression in … France. Those ordinary Brits came out on the streets, breaking windows, setting fires, and attacking mosques. Moslem men came out in response and there were some confrontations. Police took the side of the Moslems, arresting dozens of Brits. Here was a local police chief addressing his constituents. [Clip: "Salaam Aleikum. Good morning, everyone, and thank you to the leaders and elders that have afforded me this opportunity to speak to you personally …"] The phrase of the hour has been "two-tier policing." Prejudice against blacks or Muslims is regarded in Britain today as unspeakably shocking. Anyone in authority who is suspected of it will lose his job and pension. Everyone in law enforcement knows this, and acts accordingly. The cops won't arrest blacks or Muslims unless they absolutely have to. This was all exposed in the Grooming Scandals of the early 21st century when it came out that for decades Muslim men had been kidnapping low-class British schoolgirls into prostitution. No-one in authority dared interfere. Independent researchers sometimes got the story out, notably in Peter McLoughlin's 2016 book Easy Meat, but it was regarded as being in bad taste to talk about the issue and very little was done. Peter McLoughlin's book has no listing on Amazon. The phrase "two-tier policing" has gained extra popularity since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister last month. "Two-tier Keir," see? It trips off the tongue. And it's especially apt because Sir Keir, on my snobs versus slobs schema, is a typical metropolitan snob lefty. He made an angry speech about the Southport disturbances, making it plain that his priority was to hunt down and jail the rioting British slobs while groveling abjectly to the counter-rioting Muslims to stay in favor with his fellow snobs. Taking advantage of the fact that the Southport killer would turn eighteen on August 7th, the authorities stretched their rules a bit and released his name: Axel Rudakubana. His parents are black Africans from Rwanda; he himself was born in Wales. They issued pictures of him, too: a cheerful-looking, neatly-dressed, well-groomed young schoolboy with close-cropped hair. This was the Trayvon Martin shuffle, though. When we finally got pictures of present-day Axel Rudakubana he turned out to be a scary-looking critter with an out-of-control Afro. This will all get worse before it gets better. The root problem is of course mass Third World immigration into a once-civilized country. These troubles were all predicted sixty years ago by the great British prophet Enoch Powell. It is playing out just as he said it would. Quote from him: It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. End quote. Yes, that's exactly what it's been like. It will all get much worse, much faster, now that a government of dedicated, committed Progressive snobs is in charge — people who hate their own fellow-countrymen, the slobs. The invaders will come pouring in across the English Channel without restraint, just as they poured in across our borders when Joe Biden's people took charge in 2021. I'd speak at more length about this, but it would break my heart to do so. I grew up in that country when it was a country and have memories I cherish. In any case these riots are of no real importance. Britain is no longer of any importance, except as an example to other civilized nations of how not to manage demography. It's not even really a country any more; just a place inhabited by squabbling populations who can't stand the sight of each other: whites, blacks, Muslims, Hindus, snobs and slobs. That funeral pyre that Enoch Powell spoke so memorably about is burning bright and fierce. |
04 — Totalitarian legalism. Tuesday this week saw the publication of a book by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, title: Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law. I should just expand on that a wee bit. Justice Gorsuch is only one of the names on the author panel. This book was co-written with another writer, name of Janie Nitze. I had never heard of that lady so I looked her up. Hoo-ee. I'll just read you one paragraph from her listing at the National Security Institute website. Quote: Janie received her B.A. in physics and M.A. in statistics from Harvard University, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served on the Harvard Law Review. After law school, she clerked for then-Judge Gorsuch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and for Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Supreme Court. End quote. That's quite a résumé. Without intending any impertinence, though, I have some questions about it. A B.A. in physics and M.A. in statistics? Shouldn't that be a B.Sc. and an M.Sc.? Physics and Statistics are science, not art. But probably this is some peculiarity of the U.S. higher education system that I've never encountered before. And to redress any negative imbalance there, I will personally award Ms. Nitze a trophy for superhuman restraint. This trophy, Madam, is for the achievement of having clerked for Justice Sotomayor, the dumbest Supreme Court Justice ever, without (so far as I can discover) ever having been driven to the condition at which you had to be dragged from the chamber screaming in frustration at your boss lady's stupidity. OK, so this new book, Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law. Have I read it? No; it only came out on Tuesday and I'm not that quick off the mark. I did, though, read Jacob Sullum's brief article about the book in my Tuesday New York Post. From which, quote: [Inner quote.] "Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something," [end inner quote] Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in 2019. End quote. Well, duh. It also speaks volumes about the near-total power that our managerial class of government employees hold over ordinary citizens. They can crush us at will. You could ask Peter and Lydia Brimelow about that. You'd have been able to ask Donald Trump about it, too, as he rotted away in a jail cell, but for the fact that Trump has billions of dollars at hand to fight back with. Someone help me out here, please. I very dimly recall many years ago being told the number of federal laws that were on the books, aside from the Constitution, when the U.S.A. began its life as a nation. It was a remarkably small number. Does anyone of my listeners know it? Reply by email to the address at www.johnderbyshire.com. |
05 — The law's delay. Prince Hamlet, in his famous soliloquy, complained about, quote, "the law's delay,/ The insolence of office …" I think the previous segment, about the near-total power that the managerial state has over us, comes under the second heading there, the insolence of office. The law's delay is a vexation too, though. Do you, as I do, grind your teeth when reading about some vicious murderer idling away his second or third decade playing pinocle on Death Row while his publicly-funded attorneys file his seventy-fifth appeal? "For crying out loud," I mutter, "just shoot the bastard. You won't have any trouble getting a firing squad of citizens together. I'd be glad to join it myself …" I've been reacting in similar fashion to recent news stories about KSM and his pals. That's "KSM" as in "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," pals as in "Walid Muhammed Salih Mubararak Bin Attash" and "Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi," so you can collapse it down to "KSM, WMSMBA, and MAAaH" if you like. These are the swine who plotted and helped carry out the murder of three thousand people on September 11th 2001. Well, they were unless you believe it was all done by the CIA, the Jews, the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, space aliens, or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in which case please go and boil your head, preferably without first emailing in to tell me what a pitiful dupe I am. KSM and his pals have been in custody for over twenty years. KSM was captured in March 2003, confessed in March 2007, and was formally charged in February 2008. They've been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba while prosecutors, working for the Office of Military Commissions, proceeded with their cases. Then on July 31st it was announced that the prosecutors had struck a deal with KSM and Co. to spare them the death penalty. Here's a quote from a letter signed by chief prosecutor Rear Admiral Aaron C. Rugh, and sent to families of the victims. Quote: In exchange for removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three Accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet. End quote. Well, isn't that special … after twenty-one years! What did Rear Admiral Rugh think: that those victims' families would issue sighs of relief? In fact they were of course furious; so much so that two days later, on August 2nd, Joe Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the plea agreements and relieved Rear Admiral Rugh of his authority in the case. So now KSM and his pals are once again subject to possible death penalties. Said the President of New York City's Port Authority, eighty-four of whose workers were killed on 9/11, quote: "While we appreciate Secretary Lloyd's intervention, we hope the trial continues to a just end." End quote. Oh, it will; I'm sure it will … after another twenty-one years of pinocle, perhaps. |
06 — Miscellany. And now, our closing miscellany of brief items. Imprimis: How about these two American astronauts trapped in the International Space Station? They were flown up there at the beginning of June on board a spacecraft called the Starliner, manufactured by, uh-oh, Boeing. The idea was to have them stay up there a week then fly them back down on the Starliner. The durn thing has developed multiple faults, though, and can't be trusted to bring them back. So they're stuck up there. A different vehicle from SpaceX, Elon Musk's company, is due to carry four astronauts to the Space Station in November. They could leave two of the seats empty and bring the stranded two home with the September two … but not until February next year. While this is being decided the two castaways have to while away the time in the cramped quarters of the space station. To judge from video they've sent back, they seem to be in good spirits about the situation. They are Ms Suni Williams, age 58, and Mr Butch Wilmore, age 61. If you are wondering the same thing I'm wondering, stop wondering it. I doubt we shall ever find out. Item: Foreign affairs, yecch. Can we just mind our own national business, please? I can less and less be bothered to engage with squabbles among foreigners. Let's nuke up to the max so that no-one dares attack us; and then let's deal with the many, many domestic issues we have. There's been news this week from Bangladesh, which I'm afraid I still think of as "East Pakistan." It's not a very big country — between Iowa and Illinois in area — but it has a lot of people: 170 million, which is more than Russia. Ninety-one percent Muslim, eight percent Hindu, one percent Other. So what's going on in Bangladesh? Durned if I can figure it out. There was some sort of uprising. The elected Prime Minister had to flee to India. She's not a Hindu; she's a Muslim but didn't make a big thing of it and jailed some Muslim extremists. Apparently people thought she was too close to India. Hindus are being lynched all over in Bangladesh now. But there is a Great Game being played in that neighborhood, with players India, West Pakistan, Russia, China, and probably us. The Gateway Pundit has a lengthy article on what's happening, arguing that it's all our fault. Well, I think that's what it's arguing. I lost interest before getting very far into it. Not that I think it couldn't be our fault. When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, I'm willing to give credence to any level of asininity. I just don't care. Could we mind our own business, please, and let the rest of the world go hang for a couple of centuries? Please? Item: Today, August 9th, marks the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation from the Presidency. That was a Friday, too; I remember it well, and the TV speech he gave the day before. I wasn't a Republican at the time, nor even a citizen. I had arrived in the U.S.A. for the first time just a year before — quite precisely a year; I think I landed August 3rd 1973. I saw the whole Watergate fuss from the position of an outsider. I was, however, familiar with Nixon Derangement Syndrome. That term wasn't in general use, but the thing itself was all over. My job at the time was as a computer programmer for a firm headquartered in Westchester County, New York. I had a colleague, a very smart thirty-something Jewish New Yorker, badly afflicted with Nixon Derangement Syndrome. His proudest boast was having acquired, so he said — I never saw evidence — some rolls of toilet paper printed with Nixon's likeness. The resignation filled him with glee, which he shared with us for weeks afterwards. It was, as I said, a common affliction. I knew several other cases, although none so advanced. Trump Derangement Syndrome? Eh, small potatoes. You should have been around in 1974 |
07 — Signoff. That's the show, ladies and gents. Thank you for your time and attention, for your emails, your support and encouragement. The rule for emails, in case you're a first-time listener, is: everything non-abusive gets read, pondered, and, if suitable, plagiarized. For signout this week: Tuesday marked thirty-eight years since the best thing that ever happened to me, happened to me. God bless you, Honey. There will be more from Radio Derb next week. |
[Music clip: Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years.]