How far John Derbyshire and National Review have fallen

[ck4829]

No, former National Review columnist John Derbyshire hasn’t seen 12 Years a Slave, but he knows it is a bad movie because it is unfair to the poor, persecuted and maligned slave-owners of the antebellum South. In his latest racist column, Derbyshire calls 12 Years a Slave “Abolitionist Porn” and chides the film for not including what he sees as the happier instances of slavery, such as one slaveholder who only doled out beatings “once in a while.”

“Plainly there was more to American race slavery that white masters brutalizing resentful Negroes,” Derbyshire writes. “Slavery is more irksome to some than to others; and freedom can be irksome, too.”

Derbyshire compares slavery in the US to the communist system in China, saying that “while there was much grumbling, and some scattered seething rebelliousness, most Chinese got along with the system. A lot of people were very happy with it.”

“In the matter of slavery, though, I already feel sure that the shallow good North, bad South simplicities of Abolitionist Porn and popular perception bear little relation to the thorny tangles of reality,” he concludes.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/derbyshire-12-years-slave-abolitionist-porn

"Why are there no movies about the GOOD slave owners and why is it all ABOLITIONIST PORN? It's just not fair!"

[Bolo Boffin]

1. Well, there are movies about the good slave owners!

Just not any recent ones.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004972/

[dchill]

2. "more irksome to some than to others; "

Yes, indeed. That seems to get right to the core of the issue, doesn't it?

[nyquil_man]

3. So, when a conservative says that some policy is the worst thing since slavery,

are they being sarcastic?

[Fumesucker]

4. You give both National Review and Derbyshire far too much credit

This Derbyshire NR piece is from 2001.

http://old.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire021501.shtml

At this point I had better make a confession. It's a bad one, I know it. It is low, contemptible and — yes! — mean-spirited. It may very well place me beyond the pale of civilized society. I don't care. Truth will out, I will be heard. Brace yourself: I hate Chelsea Clinton.

(. . .)

Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past — I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble — recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an "enemy of the people". The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, "clan liability". In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished "to the ninth degree": that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed, and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed. (This sounds complicated, but in practice what usually happened was that a battalion of soldiers was sent to the offender's home town, where they killed everyone they could find, on the principle neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet — "let God sort 'em out".)

We don't, of course, institutionalize such principles in our society, and a good thing too. Our humanity and forbearance, however, has a cost. The cost is, that the vile genetic inheritance of Bill and Hillary Clinton may live on to plague us in the future. It isn't over, folks. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, a "friend of the family" (how much money did she give them?) is quoted as saying that Chelsea shows every sign of following her parents into politics. "She's been bred for it," avers Dr. Snyderman. Be afraid: be very afraid.

[treestar]

5. OMG

What a sick person it would have to be to write that.

[Enrique]

6. he seems to think slavery was a career choice

Slavery is more irksome to some than to others; and freedom can be irksome, too. Personally, I’d be a terrible slave—too ornery. I know people, though—and I’m talking about white people—who I quietly suspect would be happy in slavery. -

[Paladin]

7. Derbyshire is a self-revealed piece of filth.

His comments on slavery or any other topic are unworthy of notice.

[MisterP]

8. "it's totally against what scientists like Samuel A. Cartwright and Roger Pearson say!"