John Derbyshire Wins 2007 Neutralist Award for Most Progress

I favor war against Iraq. I believe a successful war against Iraq would trigger major attitude adjustment in the Middle East, to the benefit of us and the promotion of our values. I believe it would greatly enhance this country’s security by removing a major supplier of WMD to terrorist gangs.

John Derbyshire wrote the words above for the article, The U.S. Will Not Go to War Against Iraq. The title and the date, May 20, 2002 insure that no future religious book will ever refer to him as the Prophet Derb. The article is not without interest, the man can write. Sometimes, the conclusions are stupid as above, but he has style.

Unless my memory fails me, I believe Mr. Derbyshire done a few mea culpas about the war, though I can't swear to it.

Between 2002 and his current attainment of enlightenment, he has made statements that the Neutralist would put, if forced, the label, mindlessly barbaric on. On the other blog, the voice of humility we commented on Derb in a post titled Hard as Nails

I agree with Gene Healy's agreement with Julian Sanchez's take on John Derbyshire. "his views are, often as not, absolutely vile. But he's exceptionally sharp and learned, and expresses his thuggish views without cant or sugar coating, which I suppose is a virtue. It's almost as if a team of genetic scientists took a mouth-breathing, beer-swilling, Pak-bashing specimen of pure Cockney trash and raised his IQ by 100 points. How can he fail to be interesting?"

Mr. D is in trouble with some people for giving up religion. An ability to argue Episcopal theology is absent here so others can have a go at him for that. I did read his un conversion story and it seemed reasonable enough. I get the feeling he stayed as long as he did out of filial piety or he was no longer in his comfort zone. Anyway, now that he has left his up scale (in American eyes) denomination, it may be easier to think of him as that lager lout.

No, I found something else to to discuss. Actually, he makes a pretty good case for his having that genteel thuggish side in his review of Mark Steyn's America Alone,

"I am, in fact, willing to confess myself a collateral-damage armchair warrior, who would be happy to see us trade in our inventory of smart laser-guided precision munitions for lots and lots and lots of old-style iron bombs, and fleets of great big iron planes to deliver them. Remember those photographs of mid-1945 Berlin, fragments of broken wall sticking up out of vast drifts and dunes of pulverized masonry? Now that’s rubble.

Oh, and we won that war."

That is certainly refreshing. He just loved the Hun suffering. Ooh, forgot to mention that arm sticking up through that rubble.

Of course, that his point is ridiculous goes without saying. No expert has ever suggested that conventional bombing won the war in Europe. I hate to jog anyone's memory as I know of my own early onset, but it was the Big One that ended the Pacific War.

So, okay, you might think from a neutralist point of view he's a no hoper. Now, I would not say he is actually a neutralist, it is the distance he has traveled. He has come out for Ron Paul. I called him a chickenhawk in my post above. I take that back as he came out for Ronnie at NRO online, a hotbed of neocons who can't be to happy about JD's conversion which is the biggest turn of a coat since Paul traveled the Jerusalem-Damascus Interstate.

Anyway, His article, Liberty! Liberty! is worth reading. Best line, "If those people are crazy, though, I want to be crazy with them. I’m for liberty, too. That’s why I’m for Ron Paul. And why do we have 75,000 soldiers in Germany?"

The Neutralist confers the award as stated in the title of this post and pronounces John Derbyshire sane.