Craziest Conservative of the Day: John Derbyshire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Derbyshire, who writes for the National Review, is one of those retrograde conservatives who wants to take America back to the '50s. The 1850s... or the 1650s... back to some idyllic right-wing Dark Age.

Appearing on Alan Colmes's radio show the other day, and asked by Colmes about a section in his new book called "The Case Against Female Suffrage," he actually argued against women having the right to vote:

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I'll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn't lose a minute's sleep.

COLMES: We'd be a better country if women didn't vote?

DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don't you think so?

COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.

DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].

COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.

Now, one would hope that Derbyshire was joking. But he wasn't.

And what is Derbyshire's argument against women's suffrage?

The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left. They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren't inclined to do it -- and in the present days, they're not much -- then they'd like the state to do it for them.

So he's against it for partisan (women are anti-Republican) and ideological (women are pro-government). Of course, that's partly true, but what Derbyshire's argument amounts to is the desire to take away the vote from anyone who doesn't vote the right way, Derbyshire's extreme right-wing way. And of course he also wants to silence women along the way.

Nice to come clean, Derbyshire (no doubt speaking for many on the right). You don't just want women in the kitchen, obeying your orders and reduced to non-citizen status (if you don't have the right to vote, you're not really a citizen, are you?), you want to rig the political system so that you're guaranteed to win each and every time. Why not just come out against suffrage for blacks and Hispanics, too?

Hey, here's an idea, and it's certainly no crazier than Derbyshire's: I think America would be a better country if Republicans didn't vote. I'd lose a little sleep, I suppose, given my liberal support for universal suffrage, but I'm sure I could put country first and support what's best for America.

Anyone with me?