This Week’s Show
Contents
- 02m01s Musk, Friedman, and Milei
- 06m44s The Uniparty strikes back
- 13m56s Masculinity past, present, east, and west
- 20m24s Report from Jim Snow America
- 24m03s The Penny Trial
- 27m29s Jussie off the hook?
- 29m13s Nations of the mind
- 31m47s Advice from the Duke
- 34m45s Signoff with the King
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Transcript
01 — Intro. And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners; this is your suavely genial host John Derbyshire with edition number 972 of America’s longest-running National Conservative podcast.
I should of course commence by wishing Happy Birthday! to our President Joe Biden, who turned 82 on Wednesday.
No, I didn’t vote for him. I think his Presidency has been a disaster and I think the leading elements of the Ruling-Class faction who made it happen should all be incarcerated and put to hard labor.
Joe Biden’s the President, though; we only get to have one at a time; umpteen millions of my fellow citizens voted for him; so he’s entitled to some respect. Happy Birthday, Sir!
President-Elect Trump’s nominations to cabinet and other senior posts in the coming administration proceed apace. Of the 27 that need Senate confirmation, 17 have already been named, although of course none yet confirmed.
I’ll take a look at one recent development. First, though, some general observations on our federal government
02 — Musk, Friedman, and Milei. Elon Musk, preparing to take up his post in the Department of Government Efficiency, has posted to X an interview given 25 years ago to Peter Robinson by star 20th-century economist the late Milton Friedman, who was already 87 years old at the time of the intervew.
In the matter of federal government departments, Friedman was a minimalist. Robinson went through the federal departments one by one, inviting Friedman to say whether the department should be kept or abolished. Department of Agriculture? “Abolish!” Department of Commerce? “Abolish!” Department of Defense? “Keep it.” Department of Education? “Abolish!” …
We ended up at last with just departments of Defense, Justice, State, and Treasury, with grudging acknowledgement that the Feds might need some small involvement in Healthcare.
That would be a huge reduction in the power of the federal government, even more so now than it would have been 25 years ago. We have more federal government now than we had then. We have, for example, the Department of Homeland Security, which, under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, is doing so much to keep our homeland secure.
I totally approve of Milton Friedman’s attitude, of course. It’s encouraging to know that Musk, who obviously also approves, has the ear of our President-Elect.
Some commentators have expressed doubts that the Musk-Trump bromance can endure for four years. I share those doubts. History doesn’t offer many examples of two strong-willed, energetic men sharing power amicably at a high level. “There can only be one Sun in the sky …” But we shall see.
In the meantime it’s heartening that these minimalist ideas are taken seriously by the coming administration. One influence has been Javier Milei, who will shortly begin his second year as President of Argentina.
One of Milei’s first acts was to halve the number of government departments from 18 to 9, adding only a Ministry of Deregulation. He’s cut government spending by one-third and laid off tens of thousands of public employees.
Milei’s efforts are an inspiration, but also a warning. You can’t break that many “iron rice bowls” without making a lot of people angry. Argentina’s going through a recession; there have been strikes and demonstrations.
I doubt the Trump-Musk reforms will bring disorder on that scale: pre-Milei Argentina was in far worse shape than Biden’s U.S.A. These things need to be done with skill and tact.
They can be done, though; and there was no way they were going to be done by Biden and his people — or the Obamas and their people, which seems to be closer to the truth of what we’ve been living through.
So go to it, Mr Trump and Mr Musk! If we do this right, four years from now we shall be living in a freer, safer, more prosperous country.
03 — The Uniparty strikes back. On the Trump nominations, this week’s big news was Matt Gaetz stepping down as Attorney General-designate.
The stepping-down was done with dignity and class. Quote from him, posted on X, quote:
There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.
I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.
End quote.
That’s straightforward and gentlemanly. I’m liking Matt Gaetz more and more.
What’s he going to do now? He was a Congressman, but resigned his seat when he got tapped for the A-G position nine days ago. The week before that, however, he’d been re-elected to the seat; and under the rules, he can rejoin the House when Congress convenes on January 3rd. He told the House Speaker he wouldn’t, but he might change his mind.
Or assuming Marco Rubio is confirmed as Secretary of State, Rubio will resign his seat in the Senate. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis might then tap Gaetz to fill the seat temporarily pending a special election for new Senator in 2026 to complete Rubio’s term, which ends in 2028.
Matt Gaetz might also be appointed to some position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. There are plenty of those. Trump has already named a Chief of Staff and four — count ’em, four — Deputy Chiefs of Staff. Why not five? Yeah, yeah, it goes against the Musk-Friedman spirit of my previous segment, but for Matt’s sake I wouldn’t mind too much.
The reason for Matt Gaetz stepping down was, he told associates (according to the New York Times), that four Senators would vote against his appointment. The four would be: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Senator-elect John Curtis of Utah.
No surprise on the first three names there: McConnell, Murkowski, and Collins are stalwarts of the GOP’s Never Trump faction.
John Curtis I knew nothing about. Looking him up, I see that he has succeeded to Mitt Romney’s Senate seat following Romney’s withdrawal. To judge from as much of his political history as I could be bothered to read, I’m guessing he has Romney’s full approval and support; in which case, no surprise there either.
Why would these Uniparty hacks refuse to approve Matt Gaetz for Attorney General? Because the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives has been investigating allegations against him: allegations that he paid for sex with females only a few years into their sexual maturity, went to parties where drugs were going round, and, quote, “dispensed special privileges and favours to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship,” end quote.
Good grief! Such misbehavior by a public servant! Thank Heaven we shall never suspect such things of Merrick Garland, Anthony Blinken, or Alejandro Mayorkas! Our liberties and property are safe in their hands! Not to mention Joe Biden and Kamala Harris …
Matt Gaetz has denied all the allegations. They have, he says, been cooked up by the many enemies he has acquired in Congress.
I wouldn’t rule that out. As I noted last week, I don’t think the phrase “team player” fits Matt Gaetz very well; although when the congressional team has players on it like Senators McConnell, Murkowski, Collins, and Curtis, not being a team player looks to me like a positive.
Shall we find out whether these allegations are true? Possibly not. The House Ethics Committee has, as I said, been doing an investigation and compiling a report; but when Gaetz resigned from his House seat, the report was shelved.
Quote from House Speaker Mike Johnson at the time, quote: “We don’t issue investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of Congress.” End quote.
So that’s another reason for Gaetz to not take up his House seat on January 3rd. Whatever there is in the report, it’ll be newsy and distracting when the incoming Trump 47 administration really doesn’t need any distractions.
Matt Gaetz is a fighter, though, and he may want to fight this to the end.
04 — Masculinity past, present, east, and west. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this Tuesday, November 19th, was International Men’s Day. The point of the thing is to, quote from their home page, quote:
celebrate worldwide the positive value men bring to the world, their families and communities. We highlight positive role models and raise awareness of men’s well-being. Our theme for 2024 is “Positive Male Role Models.”
End quote.
That’s all very positive stuff, although a bit bland. There’s a page you can link to listing “30 Great Manhood Quotes.” Again, it’s nothing remarkable, but nicely assertive, nothing at all woke. Sample, from writer and evangelist John Eldredge, quote:
Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is what is written in their hearts. That is what little boys play at. That is what men’s movies are about. You just see it. It is undeniable.
End quote.
So I have no problem with International Men’s Day. I did, though, wince slightly seeing them quote Mahatma Gandhi on the home page.
I have no problem with Gandhi, either. He was a great man who accomplished great things. It’s only that I saw that quote just after reading those allegations about Matt Gaetz having the leg over with a 17-year-old female. If you’ve read Gandhi’s autobiography you’ll know where I’m going with this.
Gandhi married his wife Kasturba when he was 13 and she was 14 — a perfectly normal thing in 1880s India.
Two and a half years later, when Gandhi was 16, his father died. The passage in the autobiography that caught my attention when I read it thirty-some years ago concerns the psychological pain he suffered when his strong sense of filial piety collided with his adolescent sex drive.
His father was bedridden in his final illness. Gandhi stayed up late one evening, massaging his father’s feet. Edited quote from the autobiography, quote:
My uncle offered to relieve me. I was glad and went straight to the bed-room. My wife, poor thing, was fast asleep. But how could she sleep when I was there? I woke her up. In five or six minutes, however, the servant knocked at the door. I started with alarm. “Get up,” he said, “Father is very ill.” I knew of course that he was very ill, and so I guessed what “very ill” meant at that moment. I sprang out of bed.
“What is the matter? Do tell me!”
“Father is no more.”
So all was over! I had but to wring my hands. I felt deeply ashamed and miserable. I ran to my father’s room. I saw that, if animal passion had not blinded me, I should have been spared the torture of separation from my father during his last moments. I should have been massaging him, and he would have died in my arms …
The shame … was this shame of my carnal desire even at the critical hour of my father’s death, which demanded wakeful service. It was a blot I have never been able to efface or forget, and I have always thought that, although my devotion to my parents knew no bounds and I would have given up anything for it, yet it was weighed and found unpardonably wanting because my mind was at the same moment in the grip of lust. It took me long to get free from the shackles of lust, and I had to pass through many ordeals before I could overcome it.
Before I close this chapter of my double shame, I may mention that the poor mite that was born to my wife scarcely breathed for more than three or four days. Nothing else could be expected. Let all those who are married be warned by my example.
End quote.
I think we can sympathize with Gandhi for the lifelong torment that incident left him with, while at the same time recognizing that such torments can be culturally rooted, not easy for men of a different time or place to relate to.
05 — Report from Jim Snow America. We live in Jim Snow America, with different standards of justice for blacks and for whites. The most appalling, most horrifying example of this is the case of the Brunswick Three, which I have commented on many times, most recently in the October 25th podcast.
There are many other cases, though. There is, for example, the case of Ashli Babbitt, the young white female protestor shot dead in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th 2021. Ms Babbitt was, contrary to what President Biden and other Establishment spokespersons have said, she was the only person who died in those protests.
Ashli Babbitt’s killer was a black officer of the Capitol Hill Police, Lieutenant Michael Byrd. He shot Ms Babbitt, who was unarmed, at point-blank range, without warning. There were police officers standing directly behind her.
The Capitol Police conducted an eight-month investigation of the event. The report determined that, quote: “the officer’s conduct was lawful and within Department policy, which says an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that action is in the defense of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in the defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.” End quote.
Two years later Michael Byrd was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain.
This week the investigative website JustTheNews ran an article about Michael Byrd. The article, based on congressional and police documents, tells us that Captain Byrd falls considerably short of the standards we should expect in a law-enforcement professional. Quote:
The issues in Captain Michael Byrd’s background included a failed shotgun qualification test, a failed FBI background check for a weapon’s purchase, a 33-day suspension for a lost weapon and referral to Maryland state prosecutors for firing his gun at a stolen car fleeing his neighborhood.
End quote.
They go into details on Michael Byrd’s various delinquencies and note that records for some others seem to have gone unaccountably missing from the Capitol Police files.
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley gave good coverage of this latest news at his own website on Thursday.
Following all this I fully expect to hear soon that Captain Byrd has been promoted again.
06 — The Penny Trial. Another report from Jim Snow America: the trial of Daniel Penny in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Penny is white, 26 years old, a Marine Corps veteran with no criminal record at all. He was a passenger in a New York City subway train carriage in May last year when a 30-year-old black man named Jordan Neely with a track record of mental-health problems and drug abuse, entered the carriage ranting, yelling threats — including death threats — throwing garbage at passengers, and doing his utmost to scare everyone to death.
Penny came up beind Neely, put him in a chokehold and wrestled him down. When he let him go, Neely still had a pulse, but he died later. Penny is charged with manslaughter.
Two different forensic pathologists have testified at the trial: one a white lady from the City Medical Examiner’s Office, the other a South Asian gent brought in by Penny’s defense counsel. The lady says the chokehold caused Neely’s death; the gent says no, it was drugs and Neely’s psychiatric condition.
Hmm. White guy … misbehaving black … choke hold … disputed cause of death … There’s something familiar about this one.
The Daniel Penny trial is yet another project of antiwhite black progressive D.A. Alvin Bragg, the same D.A. who sicced the city’s justice system on Donald Trump, charging Trump with 34 felonies. New Yorkers are saying openly — they’ve said it to me — that if Penny were black and Neely white, there’d have been no prosecution.
For some perspective on New York City’s justice system, here’s Ramon Rivera, a 51-year-old homeless man with a 20-year history of arrests, incarcerations, and psychiatric hospitalization. Monday morning, taking a walk across Manhattan, he stabbed to death three perfect strangers.
Four weeks prior to that, October 17th, Rivera had been released from jail after serving an eight-month sentence for felony burglary and assault. That very day — the day he was released! — he was arrested again for petit larceny. A local judge let him go without bail. And now three innocent people are dead.
07 — Jussie off the hook? One more from the crime log. I’m not sure this one belongs under the Jim Snow heading, but there’s probably black privilege lurking here somewhere.
This is the Jussie Smollett case. You’ll recall that Smollett, a black homosexual, staged a fake hate crime back in January 2019.
In March 2022 Smollett was convicted on five felony counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police and sentenced to five months behind bars, along with 30 months probation, a $25,000 fine and $120,000 restitution to the city of Chicago.
He only served five days, then was released pending the result of an appeal. Jussie’s been free ever since. Now, after to-ing and fro-ing with appeals, the Illinois Supreme Court has tossed out the case against him on a technicality.
It’s not clear to me whether Smollett is now totally off the hook. Today’s New York Post says he’s liable for 16 hours of community service and the forfeit of his $10,000 bail.
Whatever: I’m pretty sure Jussie will be spending no more time in jail cells.
08 — Nations of the mind. Last week’s podcast included a brief item about Japan launching into orbit a satellite made of wood. I closed that item thus:
[Pips.]
I can’t explain why, but there is something very Japanese about the idea of wooden satellites. If you had asked me, at any time prior to this news story, which nation would be the first to launch a wooden satellite, I’m sure I would have replied — I mean, once I’d stopped laughing — “Japan.”
It’s something to do with the generalized image we carry around in our heads of foreign nations we know only from reading about them.
Let me give it a try. Which nation do you think will be the first to launch into orbit a satellite made of leather?
[Pips.]
I got several emails on that, and one or two entries in the comment thread at the Z-man’s website.
Germany was the clear winner. I don’t know why that should be; possibly because the Nazis displayed a lot of leather — you know, jackboots and such. If that’s the reason, it’s depressing. Can we please get over the Nazis, for Goodness’ sake?
One listener proposed Argentina, apparently because that nation’s president favors leather jackets. The remainder were all for Scandinavian countries — Sweden, Norway, Denmark.
Those I really don’t get. Only one emailer gave me a reason, one of the voters for Sweden. The English word “suede,” he pointed out, as in “suede shoes,” “suede gloves,” and so on, is simply the French name for Sweden. I confess I did not know that.
09 — Advice from the Duke. Finally, I can’t let that reference to suede go by without passing on a story I did not know until a showbiz-savvy listener sent me a link to it in mid-October. If you do know it, you’ll probably enjoy hearing it again anyway; it’s a great story.
The occasion for that listener sending it to me was, that I signed off my October 11th podcast with Cilla Black singing the theme song from the 1966 movie Alfie. That was one of the earliest movies with Michael Caine in a leading role.
Well, here was Michael Caine in a TV chat show six years ago, talking about his early career.
[Clip: I was a week on my own in Hollywood and I was just … I’d never been to America. And I was a week on my own and they put me in a luxurious suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel.
And then nobody ever talked to me or phoned to me. I was just in this luxury hotel ordering caviare and champagne — all on my own for a week. And in the daytime I used to go down into the lobby and sit in the corner to see if I could see any stars. (Laughter)
Yeah. And one day a helicopter landed and all the flowers went up in the beds outside, up in the air, and in walked John Wayne! In a complete cowboy hat, just like that, look … (Laughter) Just like that.
And he was registering in the Beverly Hills Hotel and he looked up and he saw me in the corner. And he said to me: “What’s your name, kid?” I said: “Michael Caine.” He said: “Are you in that movie Alfie?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “I saw that. You’re going to be a star, kid.” I said: “Oh, thank you, Sir.”
And he said: “But let me give you some advice.” He said: “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too effing much. (Laughter.) And I had on suede shoes. And he said to me … (aside, to another participant) have you got ’em? (“Yeah,” laughter), he said: “Never, never wear suede shoes.” (Laughter.)
I said: “What?” He said: “Never wear suede shoes.” So I said: “Why?” He said: “Because I just told you, you’re going to be a star, kid.” He said: “And you’re going to be in the Gents’ toilet taking a pee … (Laughter) He said: ” And the guy next to you is going to be taking a pee; and he’s going to look and he’s going, ‘Michael Caine!'” (Much laughter and applause.) He said: “And then he’s going to pee all over your shoes.” (More laughter and applause.)
10 — Signoff. That’s it, ladies and gents. Many thanks for your time and attention, for your comments and emails, and of course for your donations to help what I do here. The home page of my website johnderbyshire.com has full instructions for how to donate; just scroll down a page or two to the “Introduction” section.
If you know my style you will already have guessed what I’ll be playing for signoff music. Here he is: the King.
There will be more from Radio Derb next week.
