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VFR readers on various topics
In this entry are collected previously unposted comments from the last few days on: Lowry; Derbyshire; Sharpton; black attitudes from O.J. Simpson to Trayvon Martin; Corey and Bondi; and more.
Lowry
Daniel S. writes:
I always thought Rich Lowry a pathetic figure, another man-child playing conservative warrior. But the Derbyshire affair reveals him to be much worse. He has embraced total dhimmitude in the face to totalitarian liberalism. He possesses neither manhood nor principles.
Or as Alex Kurtagic writes:
One can hardly imagine a more emasculated existence nowadays than being editor of a conservative magazine. Note Lowry is so obsequious in his desire for toleration by more militant Lefties, that he even thanks them for tightening the screws.
What a contemptible individual. Conservatives will forever be a lost, self-destructive lot as long as they are led by such fools.
Chris K. writes:
Something about Lowry’s firings of Weissberg and Derbyshire bothered me. I thought about it for a bit, and I realized it was Lowry’s intellectual narrowness. The editor of the most important “conservative” magazine in the country has no clue about what’s being published in American Renaissance and Taki’s Magazine? While those publications aren’t as august as NR formerly was, they are nevertheless run by serious, accomplished men. Taki has a 45 year career in conservative magazines, Amren has a 20 year history of publishing important news about racial matters. Is Lowry so wholly ignorant of what Media Matters (founded in 2004) has to say? I don’t doubt that he at least keeps track of what others on the left have to say. Part of your duties as editor of a nationally prominent magazine is to keep track of the national conversation. Liberals in attempting to smear NR have pointed out than some percentage of NR’s subscribers agree with those who were fired. I think that some percentage likely do. If a percentage of your readers hold a certain position shouldn’t you at least be aware of those who advocate that position? Lowry lives in a liberal-leftist bubble, and that is where he has dragged NR.
Derbyshire
LA writes:
A reader sends this from Taki’s Magazine:
Was it a suicide column? Many people have surmised that I was fed up with National Review and wanted to go out with a bang.
Nothing of the sort. I was comfortable at NR and honestly thought I was writing a routine column on a website that anyway never references my NR connections. The results were entirely unanticipated.
Roland D. writes:
Here is Derbyshire’s defense.
Sharpton
Diana writes:
I am rendered dumbstruck by all the events of the recent days. I find it difficult to organize my thoughts.
But there is one horrible memory that keeps pushing itself to the forefront of my consciousness, which I beg you to mention on your blog: the torching and shooting of Freddie’s Fashion Mart in Harlem, in 1995. Seven people were killed in the conflagration. Can you imagine a worse death? To die in flames, choking?
Below I have appended two links. The first is a detailed account, tough to understand, but demands close reading. To my knowledge, the NY Times never bothered to write something as probing, despite their vast resources.
Al Sharpton was crucially involved in this gruesome massacre. He incited riots, which emboldened a crazy man to go on a rampage. He’s never been called to account for it—on the contrary, he’s been rewarded with plum jobs in our rotten media.
The memory of Freddie’s Fashion Mart was swept into the dustbin of history. Some folks remember the Crown Heights pogrom, but no one seems to remember what happened at Freddie’s.
Meanwhile, honest men lose jobs after years of sincere, competent service and have their houses foreclosed upon.
I will never say, “God Damn America,” but I am proud and happy to say, “God Damn Al Sharpton’s America.”
Sharpton has more blood on his hands. I haven’t forgotten Yankel Rosenbaum of the Crown Heights pogrom, and the other man, mistaken for a Jew, whose name I do not know. I am sorry for that. His name deserves to be remembered.
The beast that is Al Sharpton needs to be put down. But who is worse? Al Sharpton, or the Attorney General of the United States of America, who greets, supports, and lauds him?
We’ve already got the mob rule, now we are slipping into tyranny.
The “other man” who was killed in Crown Heights was Anthony Graziosi. It was right in the John Fund “Freep” item, which I linked to. I missed it. And on second reading, Fund didn’t say anything particularly fiery. He’s a typical National Review-style eunuch.
His murder was not treated at a bias crime.
From O.J. Simpson to Trayvon Martin
WF in Oregon writes:
I too was a “color blind” conservative at the time of the O.J. verdict. The behavior of the defense lawyers disgusted me, but that was to be expected given their occupation. What shocked me, no, sickened me, were the scenes of absolute jubilation by blacks across the country. Especially upsetting were the scenes of black college students, who one would think strive for rationality, exploding in loud cheers at the announcement.
I felt betrayed. A woman whose only crime appears to be loving, marrying, and bearing the children of O.J. Simpson, was murdered and nearly decapitated by this monster, and, yet, they cheered.
Now the blood lust over the Trayvon killing.
It’s frightening that many people still deny the truth of black animus/hatred of whites.
East Coast Denizen writes:
I can certainly relate to DTN’s epiphany regarding his “friend.” I too was at work when the O.J. verdict came in, and I saw black co-workers absolutely thrilled and not hiding it one little bit. The office was also filled with DWL’s, and I suppose at the time I was at least partially one myself. It really was a defining moment in race relations for many of us, I suspect, as we saw our co-workers rejoicing that a (famous) black man had gotten away with murder, as a form of payback for slavery and its ills. I too lost much respect for my black colleagues. It was a dismaying experience.
I have no idea what percentage of the black population buys into the pernicious theories of Black Liberation Theology, but it’s effects are obvious when viewing the behavior and beliefs of supposedly sane middle- and upper-class blacks. The mere fact that they believe such tripe is very telling about their intelligence level, sad to say! This includes our President, who absorbed this nonsense in Reverend Wright’s Church.
The most striking elements of Liberation Theology to me are the inflated grandiosity and ignore-the-facts wish fulfillment. It is like a mentally ill person with delusions of grandeur—I’m a nobody in real life, I’ve been abused, so I will ignore reality and pretend I’m Julius Caesar or Jesus Christ, heedless of actual fact. The gullibility and narcissism required to accept such untruths is scary to contemplate! And none of us are allowed to—publicly—call them out on the utter ridiculousness and dishonesty of it. That would be, you know, racist. Never mind that it’s the truth.
Sarah Z. writes:
I spent my career working for a well-known and well-liked federal agency. Thus I worked with many blacks, and I saw first hand the black response to the OJ verdict. It was utterly unrestrained. Most of us whites just sat in stunned silence. Blacks that we had known and worked with for years were whooping it up as if their favorite team had just won a national championship. They were completely unconcerned about how their white coworkers might view them.
But I had seen this behavior before. I learned of the attempted assassination of President Reagan, when my black, affirmative action supervisor returned from lunch cheering elatedly, “They shot him, they shot him—he’s been shot!!” I was dumbfounded. My supervisor was a master’s degree graduate from The University of Pennsylvania. And she was cheering an assassination attempt on the President of “our” country. This sparked the beginning of change for me, from an unquestioning supporter of all things liberal, to one who sees. It took several more years. But I was on my way.
Thank you for the valuable service you provide to those who are trying to find their way.
Angela Corey and Pam Bondi
Gintas writes:
Your picture of her doesn’t tell the story. I did a Google image search of Angela Corey.
Reader writes:
I’ve seen (Atty. Gen.) Pam Bondi on FNC many times. She’s supposed to be a ‘conservative.’
LA replies:
Bondi and Fox News—of course. She is your standard Fox News type.
The Civil Rights Act
DJ writes:
I have been giving a lot of thought to what has been wrought from the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s, and the position it has us in now.
What I wonder is this: has anyone ever challenged these laws as violations of our rights to freedom of association and freedom of contract? How was it possible for the government to declare private property a “public accommodation”? That is ludicrous on its face. It seems to me that these laws could be fought on those grounds; grounds that are clearly outlined in the Constitution. While the possibility of victory is slight in the present atmosphere, I wonder if it should be tried.
Strangely enough, if these laws were overturned, and employers were once again permitted to ask for religious affiliation on job applications, I could lose out. But, so what? I’d not want to impose myself on those who do not want me around.
I’ve no idea if this could be the basis for an article at VFR. I’m just thinking out loud.
LA replies:
The public accommodation part of the 1964 Civil Rights act has always struck me as reasonable, and also permissible within the original meaning of the 14th amendment. If you are in the business of serving the public, e.g., a retail store, to announce that you will not allow a large part of the public to cross your threshold, purely on the basis of race, and if other businesses are doing that same, that amounts to cutting off an entire segment of the public from normal participation in the business of a community, the ability to buy things, and so on. And that comes within the ambit of the black laws that the 14th amendment was designed to overcome, because they made it impossible for black people to carry on the normal business of life.
However, the part of the Civil Rights Act dealing with employment is another matter. Here is it not an issue of simply letting all members of the public into your store, but of being deprived of the basic right of association. One has no particular relationship with a customer who enters one’s store, makes a purchase, and leaves. But one has a definite association with an employee. And to interfere with an employer’s prerogative to hire whom he will is an egregious attack on the most fundamental of rights, the right of association.
Lauri Regan article
Jim P. writes:
Regarding Lauri Regan I welcome her article but it seems to have been entirely prompted by an up close and personal encounter on the train with one of Obama’s sons.
If courage means having to endure a very personal and ugly experience with an angry black person then change will come very slowly as people will simply FURTHER do what they’re already doing without saying so; namely keeping blacks at a distance.
I’m in a pessimistic mood with the Zimmerman fracas but if you see signs of hope I’ll take it.
LA replies:
I don’t agree. Yes, Regan mentions a personal incident. But her arguments are based on public facts, not on her personal experiences.
Are waiters racist to black customers?
Gintas writes:
You wrote:
Some of the language used about blacks is very rough, and I wouldn’t allow such language at VFR, but the Washington Examiner (like many other mainstream liberal and conservative websites) does allow it.
Hoo boy! I went over there yesterday and looked, and it was pretty wild—a race war, only the whites were dishing it out fiercely, giving way more than they got. I was amazed they let it go. Today, a lot of posts have been scrubbed, and you can’t follow much of the back-and-forth. So they don’t let it go, they’re just a little slow on the trigger. Maybe they let it go for the critical first X hours of the article, and then the moderator sighs, says casually, “I suppose I need to go through that comment mess. We must really try to keep this a clean shop. (wink wink nudge nudge).”
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 16, 2012 11:23 AM | Send
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