It’s been a while now since I’ve read a good old fashioned insane John Derbyshire post. Fortunately, we’ve got this in today’s National Review Online:
Through British veins runs the poisonous fake idealism of “human rights” and “sensitivity,” of happy-clappy multicultural groveling and sick, weak, deracinated moral universalism — the rotten fruit of a debased, sentimentalized Christianity.
When not begging for forgiveness and chastisement from those who rightfully despise him, the modern Brit is lost in contemplation of his shiny new car or tweeting new gadget; or else he has given over all his attention to some vapid TV production or soccer team.
I treasure my faint, fading recollections of Britain when she was still, for a few years longer, a nation.
Today Britain is merely a place, a bazaar. Let it burn!
It’s one thing if you want to call “deracinated moral universalism” a “sick” principle. But it’s very strange to combine this with table-pounding about Christianity. I’m no Christian, personally, but deracinated moral universalism is one of Christianity’s best and most worthy contributions to human thought. I, for example, am not British nor am I descended from British people. But despite the lack of ties of blood, it seems to me that it’s sad if British people get hurt or killed or have their property damaged in rioting. You can see that as being because we’re all God’s children and equal in His eyes, or as a non-theological statement of human equality. In either case, I think it would be very sad for the country to burn.