Call it “colorful language.” You will never have reason to concern yourself about me, on my word of honor, but neither will I forget such a haughty response to a perfectly legitimate point. That’s all.

I have no idea in what context this Derb quote was made.

So, after upbraiding a few people with “have you actually read X?” you yourself didn’t actually read the linked article.

[ENOUGH OF THIS PERSONAL, PATHETIC WASTE OF MY TIME! Look at your letter below, posted in its insulting entirety. Where is THE ALLEGED hyperlink I ignored and you provided? Is it invisible? Posters get a great deal of personal attention on this blog. Your quotes in the last letter were without a link. It is not the host’s job to search all other missives for a possible valid reference. Quotes should come with links. Yours did not.]

and we were not discussing Islam in this post of mine.

No, but you were praising “Derb” in glowing terms, and I posted a link to an article which showed another side of “Derb” that you obviously weren’t aware of. Rather than reading the link and becoming aware, you reverted to more “colorful language.”

Have you even read the Derb book to which I’ve been referring in this post? He’s good on immigration in the book.

According to Amazon, the book came out last October. The article at Taki’s was a mere month older. If “Derb” is good on immigration in his book, then he is simply incoherent. [I have been addressing Derb’s book, and have been clear about that fact. You expect me to have mined his entire oeuvre for incongruities. Unlike yourself, I was very clear about which text and topics I was addressing. No blog post can be expected to be exhaustive.]

The other of your tribal requirements is that if I quoted Auster approvingly on this blog, it must mean I agree with him on everything.

[This unfortunate thread is now over. I resent having my time wasted on personal fits of pique. I answered you because I’ve always enjoyed your posts, until today. The little nobody who called you a racist did not get a reply, never will. Settle down, take a break, and then come back the old Van Wijk. Over and out.]

Yes, that was a mistake, but the rest of my points stand.

Here are the salient points of the article I indirectly linked in my previous comment:

With separationism not an option this side of some great politico-cultural upheaval, presumably we are stuck with having Muslims among us in quantity. Is this so bad?

What simple times they were! “Unassimilable” is indeed a word that comes up a lot in connection with Islam, but “penalize and curtail”? Unthinkable!

Do date I do not recall ever having read at this blog that we are permanently stuck with a sizable Moslem underclass, and we’d better get used to it. If that is your position, say so. If not, you and “Derb” are at odds and your insults are unwarranted. [Settle down. You were not insulted. Your host writes colorfully. Don’t like it? There are millions of tedious tracts on the Internet that you can follow instead. I have no idea in what context this Derb quote was made—and we were not discussing Islam in this post of mine. Still, here is my take on the absolutely stupid posturing at Ground Zero. Have you even read the Derb book to which I’ve been referring in this post? He’s good on immigration in the book.]

Curiously, you have also been quoting Lawrence Auster in glowing terms for the past several months, and it was his words that I quoted. One wonders why you don’t castigate him in similar terms. [The other of your tribal requirements is that if I quoted Auster approvingly on this blog, it must mean I agree with him on everything. Grow up. Learn to deal with disagreement and colorful language on this blog. You used to be a good sport. I hope you go back to being one again.]

You wrote,”Derb analyzes this monarchical, contrived tradition against the backdrop of the steady inflation of the presidential office, and a trend “away from ‘prose’ to ‘poetry’; away from substantive argument to “hot air.”

I suggested that this comment is because he and others of his camp do not understand what the real difference between poetry and prose is. (Let alone the difference between epic, lyric, comedy or tragedy)

You say, “The point he made vis-a-vis the state of the union was not that presidents are poets—it had nothing to do with poetry—but that they talk crap.

Then the sentence, ” a trend “away from ‘prose’ to ‘poetry’;” should read “a trend away from the noble voice to the prosaic emotional promises of demagoguery.”

[The above were my words describing a section of his book that has nothing to do with poetry. Moreover, what I know about poetry is dangerous; Derb’s book sections, however, about poetry evince considerable knowledge of the topic. Finally, anyone who knows Derb’s work, knows he would never credit a recent president of the US with poetry. I was right: you had not read his book We Are Doomed.]

I agree with many of his conclusions but not the destructive means he often uses to arrive at them.

He’s also a bloody good defeatist.

Auster’s flourish makes me laugh every time I read it:

As a carcass rotting in the sun is to a living (and struggling) organism, so Derbyshire is to conservatism and America.

With one exception. The rotting carcass doesn’t congratulate itself on its sad, superior wisdom.

We haven’t had anything close to poetry from any President in decades (unless Chris Mathews leg-meter is taken as the standard in which case I guess JFK’s often repeated remark “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your …” could be considered poetic.)

No I am quite content that his comments demonstrate “what sissy poetry men like John Derbyshire are acquainted when they confuse Clintonian cant, word bumbling of the Bush family or the theatrics of Obama-Man with poetry, and then choose prose.” [I don’t understand this sentence.]

Hell, who wouldn’t? I will stay with the observations of Shakespeare:
“The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. (5.1.91-7)”

Derbyshire’s problem is that quantity reigns within him and he wouldn’t recognize the qualities of good music if he heard them. But I must say his DOOMED book reads better than most of his rot-gut conservatism.

[Hard to know where to start. I doubt you’ve read his book. The point he made vis-a-vis the state of the union was not that presidents are poets—it had nothing to do with poetry—but that they talk crap.]

Oh, if only this were true. It shows what sissy poetry men like John Derbyshire are acquainted when they confuse Clintonian cant, the word bumblings of the Bush family or the theatrics of new Obama-Man with poetry and then choose poetry over prose.

Yes, the State of the Union has become a platform for style over substance but evidently, so have the writers over at National Review.