Mad Love 4 Snoop Derby Derb

What does it say about the Corner that John Derbyshire is far and away the least crazy person writing for the blog?

"Mr. Derbyshire a) blames the administration for not being serious about nuclear proliferation, b) expects a pullout from Iraq and a civil war, c) is happy Michael Jackson has been acquitted and d) supports euthenasia."

Er, yup.  As opposed to:

(a) Is fine with North Korea having a bagful of nukes and Iran just about to get same, after four and a half years of this administration sternly declaring that neither thing will happen.

(b) Expects a major US presence in Iraq indefinitely **or** a pullout soon, followed by Shias, Sunnis and Kurds all dancing arm in arm round maypoles.

(c) Would like to see California prosecutors give more attention to thieves, rapists, and murderers, and less to harmless freaks.

(d) Believes in the Golden Rule, and most certainly would NOT wish, either for myself or a loved one, either to be kept in a vegetative state for 15 years, or, when it was finally determined that I could be allowed to die, be slowly dehydrated to death.

The preference for action over empty words; a skepticism about the possibilities for multicultural harmony in Third World nations; a desire to spend limited law-enforcement resources on crimes that actually harm people and their property; and a fondness for the Golden Rule; these seem to me to be pretty solidly conservative principles.

Meanwhile, J-Lo is speculating about the hotness of Condi Rice hooking up with Angelina Jolie. OMG!!!! Jonah, naturally, veers between warbling about William Shatner and sharing the fruits of his deep thinking about Adorno: "Part of the problem -- at least for me -- is that Marx and Freud when combined by folks like Marcuse and Adorno were even dumber than they were when considered separately." I could go on about J-Pod, but...

Comments

[Jeremy Osner]

Hey speaking of the Corner, have you all noticed that master satirist The Poor Man is having ISP troubles? let's all send him email ([email protected]) offering financial help.

[baa]

Ramesh Ponnuru is less crazy. As is Brookshiser. The Pod is less *crazy* but more party-line hackish.

[FL]

Derbyshire comes off well in that exchange, though. Add another line to the book of things I didn't expect to say.

[foo]

The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Clearly a moment of lucidity for Derbyshire. But pretty much everyone oscillates wildly between moments of lucidity and long stretches of insanity. The only differences between people are (a) what is the rate of oscillation, (b) how long do your insane phases last, and (c) do you blog while you're insane?

[Joe O]

It is sad to realize that a nutcase like Buchanan would have run the country better than Bush.

[Gary Farber]

"let's all send him email ([email protected]) offering financial help."

I made that offer to him (er, that is, I asked him whether a fund-raising drive would help), on ObWings earlier today, and he, in his multiple-personality-disordered self known as "The Editors" said it wouldn't help and wasn't the issue.

Belle, you read The Corner? I realize it's probably very hard to find acid in Singapore, but still, please, don't do that to yourself. Try what a sixteen-year-old during the Seventies told me (in an apa! like a Usnet newsgroup before there were blogs!) he did instead: push your eyeballs in and out with your fingers as hard as you can stand. It's bound to be more enlightening. (Probably the referred-to Brad Parks, or was it Tony Cvetko?, will show up to respond, given the way the world works.)

[Walt Pohl]

I thought Belle reading and making fun of the Corner was the hook that got everyone reading this blog.

[Scott Lemieux]

Seriously, does anybody think that Jonah Goldberg has read any Ardono?

[Carlos]

I bet he's heard of Horkheimer. "Star Hustler!"

Or at least he's heard of Hustler.

[Matt Weiner]

Belle, your link to K-Lo actually points to the original Derb post, and a superficial search doesn't reveal anything about Condi or Angelina. Though I did find a post where she just quotes Durbin's remarks without comment. Oh dear, I just read a lot of the rest of the page and now I have mad mad hate for everyone in the government who thinks it's just fine that we have people employing these tactics, because we're not actually the Nazis, and mad mad hate for all my fellow citizens who voted for those assholes, too. Damn you, Belle. Listen to 'nunc Gary.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I wouldn't describe Michael Jackson as harmless. I think he goes in the category of So-Obviously-Dangerous-That-We-Cannot-Help-You-Should-You-Ignore-The-Warning-Signs.

But the idea of a child molester who confines their prey to kids from familes psycho enough that their testimony won't hold up in court is truly creepy.

[C. Schuyler]

Like him or not, John Derbyshire is one of the smartest people writing for NRO (Brookhiser may be comparable). For another example, Derbyshire is typically the voice of sweet reason itself when natural selection vs. creationism is at issue. It would be nice if all one's ideological opponents were as newborn-baby-dumb as Jonah Goldberg, but life rarely sorts out that neatly.

[C. Schuyler]

I see on rereading Mrs. Waring's post that sanity, rather than intelligence, was the subject of discussion. I'll go out on a limb here and say I don't think Derbyshire is crazy either.

[bwanadik]

Derb is far and away the most heavyweight, considered contributer to NRO, and quite possibly the only one to comprehend science.

At the same time, though, I find it hard to dispute Neel Krishnaswami's assessment in the comments section of this blog: "John Derbyshire is a troll; both in the ethical sense and the Usenet sense. Disregard him!".