Beating a Dead Horse, But…
By One more thing on the Derbyshire bit, then I’m done. Of all the “rules” listed by Derbyshire, the one that offended me the most was this:
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
It’s difficult to express how awful this sentiment is, in a way that goes beyond the Murray-esque racism of the rest of the piece. Apart from the explicitly anti-Christian element (the duty to help the distressed may extend even to those situations in which it might be statistically dangerous to do so), the notion that Derb is counseling his children (and readers) to ignore the distress of individual African-Americans as a matter of policy shocks the conscience. There’s obviously considerable support for the proposition that communities do in fact follow this policy (shooting or threatening to shoot Katrina refugees, for example), but I suspect there all also plenty of examples of confirmed, vicious racists who would nevertheless feel some duty to save an African-American family from a house fire, or help with a flat tire. White supremacy does not necessarily accord zero value to the lives of non-whites, but Derbyshire seems to be arguing that the “peril” indicated by the presence of African-Americans ought nullify even the faintest vestiges of human sympathy.
It reminds me a bit of this, except that Derb’s answer would probably be “not if it involves the slightest inconvenience, or the potential that I might break a nail.”
And so again I have to wonder about the folks at NRO; how for the love of Cthulu did you work with this man for such a long time?