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[Music clip: From Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2, organ version]
01 — Intro. Yes, National Review readers, this is Radio Derb, on the air once more with news from the week just gone. This is your host John Derbyshire reporting to you from the heart of New York City — or, as it is known to the Iranian government's Foreign Terrorism Support Department: Target Alpha. Here we go with your weekly roundup of madness, mayhem, and misery. Enjoy! |
| 02 — In Iraq, it's March 1945. You've probably had a bellyfull of talk
about immigration, so here's an item concerning e-migration — emigration from Iraq, that is.
The New York Times reported on Monday that Iraq's middle classes are fleeing because of the chronic violence in the country; or more precisely because of the failure of the Iraqi authorities to quell the violence — to which is added the fear that some of those authorities might actually be behind the violence. A quarter of Iraq's middle class has had new passports issued to it in the past ten months, says the Times. Main destinations are Jordan and Syria. Bus companies with roots from Iraq to those countries are doing a roaring trade, and they're carrying furniture and household goods as well as people. The byline on the New York Times report is one Sabrina Tavernise: unknown to me, but a pretty average American name from the look of it. At the foot of the report, though, we read this: Mona Mahmoud, Sahar Nageeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting for this article. Those are three of those Iraqi stringers you hear about, gathering the news around Baghdad because it's too dangerous for Western reporters to leave the Green Zone. Coming up to three years and three months. That would be March 1945 on a World War Two timeline. |
| 03 — Strip-mining Third World talent. Here's another e-migration
story.
In all this talk about im-migration, we tend to forget that every immigrant is also an emigrant and for every impact the of an immigrant makes on our country, his absence makes an equal and opposite impact on the country he came from. It's like Newton's laws of motion, see? Case in point nurses. The New York Times again; and I apologize for all these Times references. I don't read the op-ed pages, honestly I don't. Well, the New York Times had a story on Wednesday about how the United States is short of nurses, and this new Senate immigration bill will offer some special provision for big numbers of foreign nurses to come and settle here. This will have — in fact it's already having, according to the Times dire effects on the nursing profession in countries like India and the Philippines, the countries these nurses e-migrate from. You're a Third World country. You spend a ton of money to train a nurse. She then emigrates to the U.S.A. It ain't fair. Not only is it not fair, it's lousy economics. If you don't have enough of something, you raise the bid price. It's the same with IT engineers, whom we also import by the planeload — with the word "import" being translatable as "strip Third World countries of." When nurses' salaries reach a certain point, American youngsters will be flocking into nursing schools. I don't claim to know much about economics, but, sheesh, I know that much. So why are we importing all these nurses and software people and goodness knows what other valuable expensively-educated professions? Why? Because immigration is good. Oh right, I forgot that. Note to self: Repeat one hundred times before going to sleep at night. Immigration is good! Immigration is good! Nation of immigrants! Out of the shadows! Immigration is good! Anti-immigration is bad! Bigoted! Racist! Immigration is good! Immigration is good! … [Fadeout.] |
| 04 — Taliban in the suburbs. Meanwhile, some good news from Afghanistan.
You remember Afghanistan, right? Yes.
Okay. Well the other day eighty militants were killed by coalition forces in the Panjwayi District in southern Afghanistan. Good News, right? Well, there isn't really any totally good news from Afghanistan right now. The Panjwayi District, if you look it up, turns out to be just twenty miles west of central Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city — pretty much a suburb, actually. A known Taliban stronghold, say the news reports. Hold on a minute. Weren't the Taliban supposed to have been pushed out to caves in remote mountain areas on the border with Pakistan, like … four years ago? Well, yes, but apparently they're making a comeback. This isn't going to end anytime soon, folks. |
| 05 — Islamifying California schoolkids. I'm sure you know about
California's Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, famous for handing down rulings so bizarrely left-liberal and anti-American they might as well be
written in French.
Well, these giants of left-coast jurisrudence had been at it again. You may recall that the Ninth Circuit previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. So you might deduce that these judges aren't having any truck with religion in the public schools. Well, not exactly. From the point of view of gibbering left-liberals, you see, there's religion and then religion. To be a bit more precise: There's religion that's politically correct and religion that's not. Can you guess which religion is politically correct, so politically correct that it's just fine for kids to be taught its prayers in California's public schools. Can you guess which religion that would be? Right, got it in one. In a recent decision, the Naughty Ninth ruled that it's okay to put public school seventh-graders through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:
Well, that's California for you. Although considering the demographics over there, I suppose we should at least be thankful that they don't yet have to do all this Muslim role-playing in Spanish with supplementary lessons on "the tragedy of Andalusia." (That's a quote from Osama bin Laden. Pay attention in the back there!) |
| 06 — The prize is U.S. residence. All right, all right, I'll talk
immigration.
The Senate has been getting down to nitty gritty — down to the level of actual categories of foreign resident. I know something about this, having been in four different resident categories myself at various times before attaining U.S. citizenship. The four categories were:
Here's the thing to keep in mind when you hear all this "path to citizenship" politico-babble: Most foreign residents — I'm an exception here and my wife's even more of an exception — most foreign residents are not terrifically interested in citizenship. The main things that citizenship gets you the right to vote and a U.S. passport. The downsides are jury duty and the obligation to pay U.S. taxes if you work abroad. The great prize for foreigners is not citizenship, it's residency — the right to live in the United States. Lawful residence in the United States is a great prize. There are people in the Philippines who have been patiently waiting for it for 23 years, going through all the proper channels, of course. People like this are officially known around the U.S. Senate as suckers. What is U.S. residence worth on the world market? I hear the figure of $100,000 quoted a lot, but I bet that's an underestimate. A New York City cab medallion goes for three times that. Why don't we just figure out how many foreigners we'd like to have come settle here and auction off that many green cards? It would save a lot of fuss and raised tons of revenue. |
| 07 — The Battle Hymn of the Multicultural Republic. Just one more
point on immigration, another bit of basic — very basic, it seems to me — economics.
The attraction of illegal immigrants for employers is that they are illegal. This means they have no real rights and you can pay them lower wages without any benefits. Okay. Now our Congress, in its wisdom, is going to legalize them all. They are then going to want union rates and 401Ks and a decent dental plan and so on. Guess what? The cheap labor isn't cheap anymore. Those of them whose skin is dark enough will also get wise really fast to affirmative action programs and discrimination lawsuits. Get ready to be elbowed off the sidewalk, you citizens. Illegal aliens are far better than us morally, and entitled to a boatload of special privileges … which unfortunately will raise their wage rates so high, they'll all be out of work. I actually expressed some such sentiment in a song a couple of years ago, and I know you want to hear it. The song is called The Battle Hymn of the Multicultural Republic, and here is the relevant verse, with apologies to Julia Ward Howe. [Sings, to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.] Ten million illegals? — Oh, what need for any fuss? |
| 08 — Song of the Illegal Immigrants. Ah, now I've got you worked
up, haven't I? There's nothing Radio Derb readers enjoy more than a good singalong.
Here's an old favorite: Song of the Illegal Immigrants. [Sings, to the tune of She'll be Coming Round the Mountain.] We'll be pouring through the border when we come. |
| 09 — Scraping the barrel. All right, that's enough immigration, and
quite enough a capella Derb. What else has been going on? Let's see.
Congressman taking bribes? Hah! — Is a bean green? The Da Vinci Code? Oh, come on. It's bad enough being asked for an opinion about a book you haven't read … although for a seasoned book reviewer, it's usually manageable. Now it's moved on to being asked about a movie that I haven't seen. I'm waiting for the video game to come out. Whoops, it already has. I haven't played it, though. What else? Let's see. Associated Press: One in 136 U.S. residents is behind bars. That's all, one in 136? Why, that's less than four members of Congress. Not Enough! What else? Er, Hillary Clinton thinks that young Americans have lost their work ethic. Hillary, as we all know, worked real hard at some really gruelling jobs after she left school at the age of, what was it? thirty six? You know, supervising all those servants in the Arkansas Governor's mansion and stuff like that. Uh, okay. A man in Philadelphia had his testicles torn off by his wife using only her bare hands. Oof! The report explains that his wife is bipolar. Moral of the story: If you want to remain bi-testicular, don't marry a woman who is bipolar. What else? A story here about Al Gore. Al Gore! — now I'm really scraping the barrel. Time to sign off. |
| 10 — Signoff. Well, there you are. Obviously the world is going to the
dogs. But when wasn't it? We're still here; and if al Qaeda doesn't pop a nuke on the corner of 32nd and Lexington we'll be here again next
week.
"What about Derb TV?" I hear you cry. Patience, please. Rome wasn't built in a day, and a major media venture like Derb TV needs to be fully staffed and equipped. If we're going to take down Katie and crush her in the dust, we need a first class product out there. Rest assured that when Derb TV finally hits the airwaves, it will sweep all before it. You'll be able to point to my picture in the newspapers and say, "I used to listen to Derb when he was just a disembodied voice." Think of the glory! Onward and upward! |
[Music clip: More Derbyshire Marches.]