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John Derbyshire: I’m Even More Of A Homophobe Than I Am A Racist

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John Derbyshire, the National Review writer who has been excoriated the past 24 hours for a racist screed titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version” which he published on a white nationalistic website, in a 2003 interview admitted not only is he a racist, but he’s also a homophobe, and said he’s even more homophobic than he is racist. For anyone who read Derbyshire’s article, two dozen warnings to his children about how to handle black people, you can only imagine how homophobic Derbyshire really is.

READ: What Does Right Wing Intellectual Racism Look Like? Like John Derbyshire

The 2003 interview, excerpted below, was written by Kevin Holtsberry, but all the words below are direct from John Derbyshire’s mouth. Or keyboard.

Over the past few years notable conservatives have publicly withdrawn from their conservative labels and organizations, rebranding themselves as independents, moderates, or preferring to just affix no labels whatsoever. Many say, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me.” It’s safe, certainly for our purposes, to call a conservative a Republican, and so I’ll point to David Frum, Andrew Sullivan, Charles Johnson, just for starters — and that short list does not even include Republican politicians themselves, who, frankly, often leave the GOP only because they know they cannot get reelected in this environment as a “RINO” — Republican In Name Only, but whose positions shift in the wind anyway.

John Derbyshire, although a British American, is an excellent example of where conservatives are today.

He’s made clear he’s been a racist and a homophobe all his life — but now, he’s merely made it very clear. These are the people Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck have given license to be “Not Racist, Not Violent, No Longer Silent,” but in fact, are racist — they just were hiding it until now.

John Deerbyshire didn’t hide it very well, but he was deeply entrenched in the conservative fold and didn’t advertise his racism much — until yesterday.

So, from his 2003 interview, here’s what National Review writer John Derbyshire really thinks about gay people and black people:

 

The reason I hang out with paleocons is that on a lot of topics they speak more honestly than “respectable” conservatives can, and I find that very refreshing. Don’t get me wrong: there are good reasons for the self-imposed restraints that “respectable” conservative journalists like me accept–mainly, that we would be crucified byt the liberal media establishment if we broached those limits, and have to give up opinionating and go find some boring office job somewhere. (This is probably going to happen to me sooner or later, actually. I am not very careful about what I say, having grown up in the era before Political Correctness, and never having internalized the necessary restraints. I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going. Of course, people will still be that way in their hearts, but they will be afraid to admit it, and will be punished if they do admit it. It is already illegal in Britain to express public disapproval of homosexuality–there have been several prosecutions. It will be the same here in 5-10 years, and I shall be out of a job. Fortunately I have marketable skills.) It’s nice to know that there are people braver than we are, though. Kind of like watching the U.S. Marines in action.

(Emphasis ours.)

Derbyshire, the interview’s author noted, wanted to provide “some clarification on these contentious issues” and so offered this explanation — which only digs himself in deeper:

Preface: I am strongly hostile to the hysterical approach to these matters, which unfortunately is the prevailing one at this time. We are all supposed to declare ourselves absolutely free of any negative feelings towards other groups whatsoever, or else we are EVIL! RACIST! HOMOPHOBIC! etc. etc.

Well, fiddlesticks. My model here is the British writer Sir Kingsley Amis.
An interviewer asked him whether he was antisemitic. Sir K replied: “Very,
very mildly.” Asled to explain, he said: “When I’m watching the credits
roll at the end of a TV program, I say to myself–’Oh, there’s another
one.’”

I grew up in England where that level of antisemitism was pretty well
universal. It was perfectly harmless. Jews thrived and prospered.
(Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet was full of them.) Negative feelings on that
level are, I believe, perfectly normal and healthy. I doubt any human being
is free of them. So long as the laws are firm–if you beat me up, you get
arrested for assault and battery, regardless of any group you or I might
belong to–and so long as public authorities do not practice favoritism in
state-supplied goods and benefits, I think people’s prejudices should be
left alone.
I do not support laws against private discrimination. If I do
not want to hire black people (or white people), that should be my right.
If I do not want to let a room in my house to a homosexual (or a
heterosexual, or a Muslim, or a Christian), that should also be my right.
These things are no proper business of the public authorities.

Homophobia: I described myself as “a mild, tolerant homophobe.” This means that I do not like homosexuality, and I think it is a net negative for
society. As a conservative, inclined to give the benefit of the doubt (when
there is doubt) to long-established practices, I cannot help note that there
has never been a human society, at any level of civilization, that has
approved egalitarian (that is, adult-adult) homosexuality. Male-male
buggery has been proscribed in every society that ever existed. I am
inclined to think that there are good reasons for these universal
prohibitions. To say the least of it, male homosexuality is very
unhealthy–much more so than, for example, cigarette smoking.A lot of the
people who howl “Homophobe!” at me whenever I write anything about this
topic are people who have to swallow a bucket of pills eight times a day
just to stay alive. Is it any wonder I have trouble taking them seriously?
Homosexuality both male and female is also antisocial, in a profound sense.
I do not believe that any stable society can be founded on any basis other
than heterosexual marriage. Under modern conditions, I think you would have
to add “monogamous,” too.

That’s the “homophobe” part. Now here’s the “mild, tolerant” part. I think
homosexuals should be left alone by the state. While I do not think, as I
have said above, that private discrimination against them (or any other
group) should be outlawed, I do not believe that homosexuality should be
criminalized. Where it currently is criminalized, I should like to see it
de-criminalized. I think homosexuals who are willing to give normal life a
try should be offered all possible encouragement and support, public and
private. Those who are determined to live as homosexuals, or who feel they
have no choice in the matter, should just be left alone. It goes without
saying–I hope–that I would like to see anyone found to have beaten up a
homosexual to be charged with assault and battery, and dealt with
accordingly.

Racism: All I mean there is that I believe that race is real, and
important. Nowadays, that makes you a “racist.” Again, I consider myself
mild and tolerant here–I don’t believe in any discrimination by public
authorities, and of course I am familiar with the awful historical record of
the United States in the matter of race slavery. I take individual people
as they come, as I believe every sane person does. I can imagine
circumstances where I would certainly practice private discrimination; but,
as I have said, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

It seems obvious to me that race is a fact of human life, and that in
certain situations it needs to be taken into account. Races are just
common-ancestry groups. In the words of that Belgian author whose name
escapes me, they are “extremely large extended families that interbreed to
some extent.” They are, of course, very fuzzy around the edges–I see that
across the breakfast table every morning. (My children are, as they are
sick of hearing: “Half English coal-miner, half Chinese peasant, one hundred
percent American.) But that is true of all sorts of common categories:
“age,” for example, or “height.” It doesn’t stop those categories being
real, and even occasionally useful. (There is a good article in the current
Scientific American about how racial classification is useful in guiding
doctors towards proper drug treatments.)

Unfortunately, most of the truths about race are statistical truths. This
makes them hard for ordinary people to grasp, as most people can’t
understand statistics, even at the most elementary level. If you stand up
in a room full of people and say: “On average, men are taller than women,” I
guarantee–I GUARANTEE!–that some person will stand up and say, in great
indignation: “What about Jenny? She’s taller than you, she’s taller than
most men.” People just don’t GET statistical truths. Statistics makes them
angry. (Let me tell you, as the author of a pop-math book, there are people
made angry by just ordinary math!) You see this in the obloquy that now
attaches to the word “stereotype.” In fact, stereotypes are very useful as
a way of organizing the world. Human life would not be possible without
them! I wrote an article about this.

To take an actual example from the world of race: I have spent most of my
life mixing with Chinese people. It seems obvious to me that Chinese people
are, on average, a bit smarter than white Europeans. A great deal of work
by professional psychologists seems to confirm this impression; I don’t know
of any that contradicts it.

What are the consequences of a truth like that? (Supposing it IS a truth.)
Well, if East Asians are indeed smarter, on average, than the rest of us,
they will be disproportionately represented in our best colleges and
universities (as they are). They will gravitate towards certain high-paid
jobs demanding high intelligence (they do). Since they are, as a group,
distinguishable by the naked eye, this will lead to a certain amount of
social grumbling and demands for quotas–to social friction and political
demands.

I don’t have a pat solution to this. I do, however, feel sure that our
current approach–which is, to deny that race exists, and that there are
differences between races in things other than mere physical appearance–is
wrong-headed and counter-productive. I don’t believe you can get anywhere
by denying reality. You have to find some way to face it, to deal with it.
We haven’t. We haven’t just haven’t, we seem to have made a collective
decision to pretend that there is no problem, or that the problem is
“cultural” (whatever that is supposed to mean). This isn’t going to get us
anywhere.

So I believe race is a real thing, that races differ–statistically–in
important ways, and that private racial discrimination is not immoral, and
certainly should not be illegal. In the current American climate, I think
that makes me a “very mild, tolerant racist.”

(Emphasis ours.)

Derbyshire demonstrates the real ignorance and small-mindedness of some of today’s conservatives — sadly, and dangerously, the ones who control the Republican Party, internally or externally.

Rather than try to understand what goes into making a person gay (genetics) or able to perform better than others (genetics, upbringing, socio-economic factors, schooling, a million other factors) he just deals with what’s on top, what’s on the surface, what he can see, what he’s been told and has confirmed through his racist, homophobic lenses.

I, for one, am glad Derbyshire has “marketable skills.” He may need them soon. Of course, the National Review doesn’t seem in a rush to fire him. Which speaks volumes to their brand’s credibility.

 

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News

Trump Border Czar ‘Doesn’t Care’ About Judges — One Might Make Administration Think Twice

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12 hours ago

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March 17, 2025

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President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, on Monday dismissed concerns about federal judges and defended the administration’s mass deportations despite a court order to halt them—but one judge appears ready to force the administration to reconsider.

The New York Times reports that Homan’s “defiant remarks” indicated “that the administration planned to continue such deportations despite the court’s order — an action that could thrust the country into a constitutional crisis, pitting one of the coequal branches of the government against another.”

Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Saturday blocked the Trump administration’s mass deportations to El Salvador and Honduras of hundreds of alleged gang members, under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which was to be used only during times of “declared” war.

After Judge Boasberg issued a verbal order “temporarily blocking the deportations,” the Associated Press reported, “lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not.”

READ MORE: ‘Welcome to Autocracy’: Trump Declaring Biden’s Pardons ‘Void’ Debunked and Denounced

Axios, citing two senior officials, reported that the “Trump administration says it ignored a Saturday court order to turn around two planeloads of alleged Venezuelan gang members because the flights were over international waters and therefore the ruling didn’t apply.”

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the judge’s order had “no lawful basis” because the plane was not in U.S. airspace.

The administration claimed the verbal order to turn the planes around was not included in Judge Boasberg’s written order that followed. Some are accusing the administration of intentionally ignoring a legal order from a federal judge.

Monday morning on “Fox and Friends,” border czar Homan defended the deportations, and declared: “We made a promise to American people the President Trump has made a promise to American people, we’re gonna make this country safe again.”

“I wake up every morning loving my job because I work for the greatest president in the history of my life and we’re gonna make this country safe again,” Homan told co-host Lawrence Jones.

READ MORE: ‘Sounds Like Putin’: Trump Blasted for Declaring Top News Organizations ‘Illegal’

“I’m proud to be a part of this administration. We’re not stopping,” he declared.

“I don’t care what the judges think, I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming,” Homan warned.

Jones declared his support for Homan’s actions, telling the former Trump acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), “I just love seeing you going through these protesters, just crunching on the apple as their liberal tears just flood the hallway.”

Meanwhile, Judge Boasberg ordered attorneys for the Trump administration back into court, for a Monday afternoon hearing, and gave them questions they must answer, according to MSNBC legal contributor Adam Klasfeld.

“1) whether any flight with individuals subject to the Proclamation took off after either the
Court’s written or oral Orders were issued;
2) whether any flight with individuals subject to the Proclamation landed after either the
Court’s written or oral Orders were issued;
3) whether any flight with individuals subject to the Proclamation was still in the air after
either the Court’s written or oral Orders were issued; and
4) whether custody of any individuals subject to the Proclamation was transferred to a
foreign country after either the Court’s written or oral Orders were issued.”

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) pointing to a report stating that Trump is using “the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, granting himself sweeping powers,” wrote: “Trump is defying court orders and abusing wartime powers to deport people with no due process. He’s using the law that put Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants in detention camps during World War II. We are not at war. Donald Trump is not a king. He is not above the law.”

CNN’s Elie Honig and Dana Bash discussed the issue Monday afternoon. Honig said in theory the Trump administration’s decision to not order the planes to return could lead to impeachment, but “we live in reality, that’s not going to happen.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: White House Caught Admitting Real Reason for Mass Firings: Experts

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Welcome to Autocracy’: Trump Declaring Biden’s Pardons ‘Void’ Debunked and Denounced

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15 hours ago

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March 17, 2025

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President Donald Trump began his Mar-a-Lago golf weekend on Friday by alleging that whoever controlled the “autopen” was the true president during the Biden administration. He ended the weekend aboard Air Force One on Sunday night, declaring that President Joe Biden’s pardons are “null and void” and vowing that members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack would be investigated, despite Biden having granted them pardons.

Trump, apparently using information from the Heritage Foundation, alleged that the pardons were signed via an automated system called an “autopen,” and threatened the January 6 Committee members, saying they are now “subject to investigation at the highest level,” and accusing them of being behind the signing of the pardons by a mechanical device.

Experts say this is false on all fronts: The pardons were signed by President Biden, the online copies at the National Archives were digitally signed, as has been the practice for decades, but there are photos of Biden signing many of the pardons, and even if they were mechanically signed, they are still valid.

“Even if Biden did use an autopen, the Justice Department (DOJ) in 2005 stated: ‘The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law,’ so Trump’s argument is not legally valid,” Newsweek reported. “This autopen allegations are part of MAGA’s larger conspiracy that claims the Biden White House was covering up for his alleged cognitive decline while in office.”

READ MORE: ‘Sounds Like Putin’: Trump Blasted for Declaring Top News Organizations ‘Illegal’

Trump appeared prepared to pursue “voiding” the pardons, telling reporters on Air Force One it’s not his decision to make, but rather, it is up to the legal system.

“It’s not my decision. That’ll be up to a court. But I would say that they’re null and void, because I’m sure Biden didn’t have any idea that it was taking place,” President Trump alleged. And somebody was using an autopen to sign off and to give pardons to, as an example, just one example, but the J6 unselect committee.

“I don’t think Biden knew anything about it,” Trump repeated, before launching into a series of debunked conspiracy theories.

Trump also claimed that the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack “deleted and destroyed all of the information that took them over a year to get,” a claim popular among MAGA conspiracy theorists — including President Trump — but long ago found to be false.

The New York Times strongly pushed back against Trump’s claims:

“There is no power in the Constitution or case law to undo a pardon, and there is no exception to pardons signed by autopen. But Mr. Trump’s assertion, which embraced a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory about former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., was a new escalation of his antidemocratic rhetoric. Implicit in his post was Mr. Trump’s belief that the nation’s laws should be whatever he decrees them to be. And it was a jolting reminder that his appetite for revenge has not been sated.”

Trump followed his “null and void” claim board Air Force One with an early morning rant, writing at 12:35 AM Monday: “The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”

READ MORE: White House Caught Admitting Real Reason for Mass Firings: Experts

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!”

At the time President Biden signed the pardons, some had considered them controversial. But the Associated Press had called it “an extraordinary use of executive power to guard against potential ‘revenge’ by the new Trump administration.”

Legal experts and political observers alike are strongly denouncing Trump’s allegations.

“Trump CANNOT legally reverse Biden’s pardons. The bigger question is what improper and illegal actions will be taken by Trump’s DOJ and FBI that would fly in the face of those Biden pardons,” declared MSNBC legal contributor and correspondent Katie Phang,

“Welcome to autocracy. The Republic we have known for the last 240 years is gone. This is going to keep getting worse. Much worse. The courts mean nothing, the law means nothing, Congress is irrelevant. He is a malignant psychopath,” wrote attorney and former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, a former Republican now the editor-in-chief of the liberal news site MeidasTouch.

Policy expert Neera Tanden, a high-level official in both the Obama and Biden administrations, asked, “does this mean everything with a Trump autopen signature is void in this Administration and the last? Because there’s a lot by autopen in every Administration. Some enterprising lawyers may want to sue.”

Tanden’s claim is supported by The Guardian, which cited Smithsonian Magazine’s report that ‘described how presidents since Thomas Jefferson have used devices to help them sign documents with greater efficiency. Jefferson, the third president from 1801 to 1809, used a polygraph, a device he found so useful he said he ‘could not live without it’.”

SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah commented, “We went to sleep in a democratic Republic. We woke up in a fascist state. That is the truth after reading this AM Trump has openly violated federal court orders and declared all pardons Pres Biden issued to those involved in Jan 6 investigation are now ‘void.’ History is warning us where this goes.”

CNN’s Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor said on-air, “there is no such thing as an ‘un-pardon’ power.”

Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov remarked, “For those who claimed Joe Biden went too far with his pardons, what do you say now? Donald Trump is not a king. He needs to stop trying to act like one.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Team Fight’: Democrats Call for Schumer to Resign

 

Image: Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz via Flickr

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‘Sounds Like Putin’: Trump Blasted for Declaring Top News Organizations ‘Illegal’

Published

3 days ago

on

March 14, 2025

By

President Donald Trump, just 54 days into his second term, declared himself “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” and labeled two major news organizations, CNN and MSNBC, as “illegal,” while further denouncing their coverage as “illegal.” His remarks Thursday afternoon were delivered to officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, in an appearance that shattered a decades-old norm designed to insulate the department from political interference—a safeguard established in response to President Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. Trump’s statements have drawn sharp criticism for their authoritarian tone and direct attack on press freedom, sparking alarm.

“I believe that CNN and MSNDC,” said Trump (video below), using his own derogatory twist on MSNBC’s name, “who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.”

Trump also “rallied against the press,” in general, “claiming they are influencing judges and, without any evidence, claiming the media works in coordination with political campaigns, which is not allowed in the news industry,” The Hill reported.

READ MORE: White House Caught Admitting Real Reason for Mass Firings: Experts

It has been widely reported that during his first term in office, Fox News host Sean Hannity spoke with Trump “nearly every weeknight.”

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really, eh, changing law and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal and they do it in total coordination with each other,” the President alleged.

Trump’s remarks were just a part of a speech that lasted more than one hour, during which he “delivered an insult-laden speech that shattered the traditional notion of DOJ independence,” as Politico reported. During those remarks, Trump also “labeled his courtroom opponents ‘scum,’ judges ‘corrupt’ and the prosecutors who investigated him ‘deranged.'”

“With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison.”

It is not the first time the President, who is a convicted felon, has declared MSNBC “illegal.”

Last month, when MSNBC host Joy Reid left the news network, Trump unleashed a torrent of hatred.

“Lowlife Chairman of ‘Concast,’ Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. “Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there. Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show. Rachel rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid.”

READ MORE: ‘Team Fight’: Democrats Call for Schumer to Resign

Trump’s Friday afternoon assault on the media was swiftly criticized.

“This is what a dictator sounds like,” wrote U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“Journalism is legal,” declared award-winning investigative journalist Lindsay Beyerstein. “Criticizing the president is legal. Being a Democrat is legal. Nothing Donald Trump is ranting about here is a crime and he’s disgracing himself and the Department of Justice by talking this way.”

Journalist Matt O’Brien observed, “Trump wants to get rid of freedom of speech because he wants to be a dictator. And unlike his first term, he now has a government full of fascists who are eager to make that a reality.”

Marlow Stern, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Journalism at Columbia University’s Columbia Journalism School wrote: “sounds like putin.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote simply: “Enemy of the Constitution.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Basically Underwater on Everything’: Trump in Big Trouble With Majority of Voters Poll Finds

 

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