Jonah Goldberg went to Britain - and all we get is this wonderful article!

I want the audio. I REALLY want the audio!

National Review's Jonah Goldberg went to the Oxford Union to debate a communist and some "moderate" muslims. You simply must go over and read his account of the evening! When you get to the written version of how he intended to begin, make sure you read it aloud, because the scorn and derision he heaps upon the proposal ( "This House regrets the founding of The United States of America." ) simply cannot be properly enjoyed without participating.

A sample - [link changed; here's the permalink]

And whatever regrettable commentary it may be on the child, the mere posing of the question is even more pitiable comment upon the mother.

Unless. Unless, of course this is all a grand joke in the great satirical tradition of Monty Python, Simon Pegg and the farcical oxymoron that is David Cameron's "conservatism."

There is hopeful evidence on this front.

When I learned that tonight's proposition would have as its champions two passionate defenders of sharia law and the hijab plus one spokesman for the Communist party, it dawned on me: "Aha, this is all a joke."

This house regrets the birth of America as much as Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail had naught but a "flesh wound."

Oh, delicious! I would love to have Mr. Goldberg's wit and snark at my dinner table. The conversation would be brilliant!

I must add one snippet more:

I don't know how it is in Britain, but in America, Communists are nearly extinct. A few aging relics do linger on -- like Japanese soldiers refusing to surrender long after the war. They live in an archipelago of academic backwaters, their bunkers brimming with yellowing copies of The Daily Worker and the Guardian, saturated with the strong stink of despair mixed with the suggestion of old urine.

Communists are more commonly seen as comic-book villains or mythical creatures rumored to have once existed in fairy tales or, perhaps, James Bond movies.

A Communist!? My goodness, were Dr. Doom, Lex Luthor, and Ernst Blowfeld unavailable?

Did the most sagacious pundits of the Klingon Empire not return the Oxford Union's phone calls?

Do the Oompah Loompahs refuse to fly coach?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

His team won the debate, of course....

UPDATE: Ah, I forgot (mea culpa!) to link and quote from Matt Frei's article in the BBC. Mr. Frei was also on the team debating against the proposition, and he acquitted himself admirably:

America did not come from nowhere. It was an offspring of Europe, the step-child of a corrupt, moribund post-feudal system. America encapsulated the principles of the Enlightenment - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - wrapped them in the pursuit of happiness, underpinned them with an inalienable right and turned an IDEA into a country.

It took the missteps of the French and the English revolutions and it made them work.

Yes, there were terrible mistakes - the gross hypocrisy of slavery, segregation and McCarthyism, to name a few. But America found and keeps finding the solutions to its mistakes. It is a giant, rolling social experiment in constant pursuit of self-correction. As Bill Clinton once said: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

In America the idea was ragged, rough and imperfect but it kept growing, it kept evolving and, if this isn't a vote of confidence, it kept attracting people, millions of them - Dutch pilgrims, Russian Jews, persecuted Egyptians, hungry Mexicans, uprooted Kurds, homeless Armenians, unloved and underpaid British film stars, now luxuriating in Hollywood. Ask them if they regret the founding of America!

I wonder if Peter Rodman, who was the third (non-student) member of the team, will also publish his remarks?