John Derbyshire has some characteristically highly politically-incorrect comments on racial issues in America.

“It’s hard to find a sympathetic character in the entire saga,” opined our editors about the Zimmerman trial. Oh, I don’t know. I’m quite sympathetic toward Zim. He thought he’d be an active citizen, helping to keep his neighborhood safe. The poor sap thought he was living in the old, free America, where citizens looked out for each other, raised barns together, attended town meetings, and the rest.

That America is long gone, at one with Nineveh and Tyre. Town meetings nowadays are packed with activists from ACORN and GLAAD, and before you can raise a barn you need to spend two years and $100,000 on lawyers to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. Whom did Zim think Neighborhood Watch has to watch out for? The poor guy’s living in the past, and that’s something toward which I’m definitely sympathetic.

Read the whole thing.