Author: VD

A brief flicker of optimism

Of potentially great significance. The four points of agreement:

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.

2. The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula

4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit – the first in history – was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in the joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.

Donald Trump is clearly the greatest President the USA has had since Andrew Jackson. There is no longer any question. He merits all of the praise he will receive as a result of this diplomatic breakthrough and then some; the press will not give him the credit he is due. (Yes, I know, we still need him to Build the Wall and Drain the Swamp. But rest assured he’s working on both. No one saw this coming either.)

And Kim Jong Un appears to be on the verge of becoming that historically remarkable figure worthy of lionization; the king who voluntarily lays down his crown for the good of his people. This is real George Washington “Father of His Country”, Cincinnatus-style stuff. When you consider how hard it is for petty politicians to give up the little power and influence they hold, it’s almost astonishing that a young dictator, born into unlimited power, is willing to voluntarily lay it aside. That is the act of a true statesman, even if he had the benefit of a little outside encouragement.

It’s interesting to see how the God-Emperor treats Kim with both respect and warmth, almost like an uncle with a favored nephew, especially in light of his Twitter-taunting earlier this year. The man is a master of the psychological stick-and-carrot.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even a cynical Gen Xer like me can’t help but feel a brief flicker of optimism about the human condition. If the North Koreans can free themselves from the horrors of Juche, then surely Christendom can free itself from the evil chains of Neo-Babelism.

Errors and misinformation

A PhD writing for the Daily Caller is vastly underwhelmed by Jordan Peterson:

Jordan Peterson’s recent book — 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos — is filled with errors and misinformation.

Consider, for example:

1. The yinyang, claims Peterson, is a male-female duality. However, most Chinese philosophy denies such a claim, where only Dong Zhongshu (ca. 179–104 BC), a cranky oddball, says anything vaguely similar. Rather, the swirling pattern describes aesthetic order (the true concern of Chinese thought).

2. Peterson’s Jungian explanations of myths are fabrications, complete with mistranslations from languages he doesn’t know (Akkadian, Sanskrit, Biblical Hebrew, Greek). He calls such misinformation, “ancient wisdom.”

3. Lacking theology and history, Peterson proceeds to “explain” the Bible, by relativizing God and absolutizing opinion. Thus, he misconstrues the Logos, and blasphemes his way through the Old Testament and the Gospels. As for history, just one example suffices: No, Jesus is not a version of the Egyptian god, Osiris. This nonsense comes from Gerald Massey, a 19th-century crackpot who faked evidence to make such claims). Unbeknownst to Peterson, he has one ancient ally, the Pneumatomachi, who said the Bible was all tropes and happily fashioned harebrained interpretations.

4. “Marxism” (Peterson’s catchphrase for postmodernism, Marx, the Frankfurt School and feminism) is the great enemy, supposedly “destroying” the West. Some of Peterson’s talking points come from the fallacious book by Stephen Hicks (Explaining Postmodernism). But the West isn’t being destroyed by Marxism, The West is trying to become rootless via apostasy and acedia, which Peterson promotes. Should the West return to its root (Christianity), it will thrive. That real Marxists hate postmodernists is unknown to Peterson. He also knows nothing about Maximilien Robespierre’s Jacobin progeny (the democides Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and the Kims).

5. Peterson cannot differentiate philosophy from critical theory and thus can only name-drop (Rousseau, Heidegger, Dostoevsky, Derrida, etc.).

I told you Peterson was an intellectual charlatan. He’s a fraud, plain and simple. The more you know, the more you can see that the man simply does not know what he’s talking about.

Warning: Alt-Hero backers

Amanda Robb of Rolling Stone and Al Letson of NPR’s Reveal are doing an “investigative report” on Alt★Hero. I have learned that they are now contacting the top backers who are listed on the Freestartr page. I am not talking to them – I previously spoke with Ms Robb concerning a story that was originally supposed to be about Castalia House before NPR got involved – and I would not recommend that anyone else talk to them or even respond to them when they inquire.

Based on their interview with Chuck Dixon, it’s apparent that both the article and the radio piece are going to be generic SJW hit pieces about bad people who think bad thoughts creating bad things that all politically righteous people are morally obliged to ritually condemn and disavow. Which is fine, that has been the standard mainstream narrative about me for the last five years, but I have learned from experience that it’s best not to give them anything they can fold, spindle, and mutilate into a kill quote.

In happier news, Alt★Hero #1 got an excellent review from an industry professional and it is going to be reviewed by a comic media site as well. And I can state with some confidence that the digital edition of Alt★Hero #2 will be out before the end of the month.

Running and hiding is not the only option

Even nice, fastidious cucks like Rod Dreher are beginning to grasp that the remorseless Alt-Right is fast becoming the only real option for the sane and civilized:

Now, normalizing drag queens for children is the big woke thing. We’ve had Drag Queen Story Hours in libraries nationwide. Now Netflix is turning drag queens into animated superheroes, and RuPaul’s streaming service is turning drag queens into child superheroes.

Note well that Lactatia was photographed above at beloved drag queen RuPaul’s recent drag convention.

Can’t you see what’s happening?

You might think — I certainly hope you think — that your child will not be exposed to this filth. The thing is, your child, and all of us, have to live in a world in which this is normal, and in which the popular culture thinks that dressing little boys up like sexually provocative women is not only permissible, but a sign of cultural progress….

This is what I’m trying to convey in The Benedict Option.  Withdraw from this decadent culture, build ourselves up, teach those who are willing to be taught, and then build our versions of abbeys, to which Christians struggling in the world can rely on to form their own children.

If not now, you conservative Christian readers, then when? What’s it going to take for you to get serious?

God never told us to be tolerant of wickedness in our midst, or to run away, hide, and hope it leaves us alone. He told us to eliminate it. Moderates like Rod are barely able to denounce it, or to do so without trying to distance themselves from those who will not tolerate this. That’s why fewer and fewer people are listening to the moderates anymore.

Toleration of evil means eventual submission to it. And the only limits that evil ever recognizes are those that are imposed on it. Tolerance has failed. Conservatism has failed. Moderation has failed. And no amount of harrumphing, posturing, bowtie-twiddling, and bafflegabbling can conceal those failures any longer.

Curiouser and curiouser

Things to seem to be rapidly moving towards a critical nexus of some sort. I’d never heard of Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain, and all I knew about Asia Argento was that she was an actress who claimed to have been Weinsteined at some point, but as Neon Revolt demonstrates, their social media accounts definitely have the distinct stink of severe sulfur to them.

Not only that, but a channer claiming to be a paralegal working on the relevant legal matters asserts that the Hollywood sex cult guy, Keith Raniere, is naming recognizable names as possible persons of interest in the ongoing NXIVM investigation.

Why would a rich, famous, beloved celebrity chef kill himself when he’s about to debut a new show and signed million-dollar contract? Use your brains. Keith Raniere’s lawyers, in order to keep their client out of prison, are starting to rat out the clients who asked for underage girls to the STATE and the FBI!

I’m a paralegal, and I’m not disclosing anything that’s not already going to be public information once charges are filed. Anthony Bourdain would’ve spent life in prison so he chose suicide, but expect other high profile celebrities and politicians to be indicted. His name is still on legal documents, so even with his suicide, the deposition of these documents will prove it.

They are informing anyone (their lawyers) about this who are listed as clients who requested underage prostitution (sex slaves). The FBI is involved in this. These are names rumored in our office so far:

  • Roger Stone
  • the Bronfman sisters
  • Doug Rutnik
  • David Letterman
  • Jerry Seinfeld 
  • Stephen Colbert
  • Seth Meyers
  • Trevor Noah
  • John McCain
  • Joe Biden

Just to name a few…plus, pic related. (Max Levchin and Elon Musk).

We’ll see. The deaths of Spade and Bourdain look a lot less like suicides than murders; I don’t buy these increasingly common “death by doorknob” scenarios for one second. Seeing Colbert, Seinfeld, McCain, and Biden all go down would certainly shake the nation. Regardless, it’s wise to note these claims as they are made so that the future credibility of the source can be determined.

Did you think he didn’t mean it?

Because Matteo Salvini most certainly meant what he said.

A ship carrying some 630 migrants rescued while trying to cross the Mediterranean is stranded at sea after being turned away by both Italy and Malta. The Aquarius, which has more than 120 children and seven pregnant women onboard, saved hundreds from drowning in international waters on Saturday, but neither Rome nor Valetta has so far allowed it to dock.

The two nations are currently locked in a standoff, with Italy’s new interior minister Matteo Salvini threatening to bar all rescue ships from docking in the country’s ports unless Malta takes on the Aquarius.

Salvini reportedly sent a letter to the Maltese authorities saying he would ‘be forced to close Italy’s ports’ if the 629 migrants saved by the French charity SOS Mediterranee weren’t allowed to land at Malta’s capital Valletta. Mr Salvini, the leader of the right-wing anti-migrant League party, later tweeted: ‘Starting today, Italy, too, begins to say NO to the trafficking of human beings, NO to the business of clandestine immigration’.

It would have sent a more effective message if the Italians had sunk both the original ship and the rescue boat in order to make it perfectly clear that no amount of sob stories and manufactured bathos was going to have any effect on their anti-invasion policy whatsoever, but turning away the charity vessel is significant improvement on past practices.

And why doesn’t the French vessel operated by the French charity simply make port in France? I understand there is a perfectly good Mediterranean port at Marseilles.

Basta. Salvare le vite è un dovere, trasformare l’Italia in un enorme campo profughi no. L’Italia ha smesso di chinare il capo e di ubbidire, stavolta C’è chi dice no.#chiudiamoiporti
– Interior Minister Matteo Salvini

“Enough. To save lives is a duty, to transform Italy into an enormous refugee camp, no. Italy has quit bowing its head and obeying, this time there are those who say no. #Weclosetheports”

Too much social justice

At least two conventions have decided not to let SJWs talk them into self-evisceration:

Dragon*Con decided that alienating half the country was not worth the loud-mouthed SJWs who only accept people who are just like them, as Ms. Stromborn wanted the convention to be.

Her refusing to back down unless certain authors were uninvited and Dragon*Con taking a stand against the attempted political mobbing marks the first time a convention has openly gone against the SJW hate mob. This is a big shift in culture as people are fast learning that the SJWs don’t actually create “inclusive spaces” they actively attempt to exclude normal people which eventually shuts down a convention, or kills the audience off and harms a group financially.

ConCarolinas Back On Track

But there was a second instance this weekend. ConCarolinas at their closing ceremonies announced they made a mistake with John Ringo, and henceforth will no longer be using political ideology as a litmus test for who gets invited. This is great news as well, and it means that ConCarolinas is going to stick to their original mission of promoting geek fandom and literature, and is standing up to the bullies who successfully mobbed Mr. Ringo out of the convention earlier this year.

Good for them. At this rate, they may be the only two conventions remaining in ten years.

Pretty much a bust

Well, there was a fourth “celebrity” death this weekend, but I tend to doubt the possible suicide of an unknown actor from a show no one ever watched was the sort of thing that Q meant when he warned of a “suicide weekend” being a signal of arrests to come.

The Goldbergs actor Jackson Odell is found dead in a sober living home in California, aged 20

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to learn that The Goldbergs was not a show about the whacky shenanigans of a National Review editor-at-large and the wise-cracking mother with whom he lives.

Two kingdoms, take two

The expected separation between Israelis and Diasporans is becoming more obvious:

A new opinion poll shows deep divisions between Israelis and American Jews, particularly in relation to President Donald Trump. The survey of the American Jewish Committee released Sunday showed 77 percent of Israelis approved of the president’s handling of U.S.-Israel relations, while only 34 percent of American Jews did. Fifty-seven percent of U.S. Jews disapproved while only 10 percent of Israelis did.

As NN Taleb writes, skin in the game fundamentally changes one’s mindset, one’s perceptions, one’s objectives, as well as the way that one operates.

But which group should be considered anti-Semitic, the Israelis or the Diasporans?

Mailvox: by their fruits

Despite the protestations of his defenders, I have yet to hear a single example of anyone becoming a genuine Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian as a result of Jordan Peterson’s non-proselytizing non-Christian witness. I have, however, heard the opposite:

I forget the exact quote and am unable to find it now, but I believe you once said that Jordan Peterson’s philosophy may be helpful to a few really messed up young men but is overall more damaging and detrimental to young men who are well-adjusted and psychologically healthy. When I read that (or heard it, you may have said it in a Darkstream), I agreed not for any theoretical or philosophical reason, but from experience. Jordan Peterson’s influence is in part to blame for my life taking a turn for the worse.

I grew up Christian, was heavily involved in my church as a young man. Personal events in my early college career disillusioned me somewhat regarding my church and my involvement deteriorated. However, I still fully believed in Christian teachings. I graduated college, got married, joined the military, avoided debt, worked hard. I had always been more or less straight-laced.

Enter Jordan Peterson.

I have no idea who it was who first introduced me to Jordan Peterson, sometime during my wife’s pregnancy. I saw him pop up now and then on different blogs. He said some interesting things, and things which I agreed with, such as ideas on gender and biological sex. I watched some of his lectures, and noticed that he always looked and sounded as if he was thinking out loud to himself, but I didn’t attach any significance to it. I just assumed it was his style of speaking.

In listening to his lectures, I began to get a general sense that he believed that God was not an entity but a powerful force stemming from our choices, choices that to Peterson had natural consequences, good or evil. To him, as far as I understood it, these consequences were ultimately unavoidable. If you chose badly, they would catch up to you, and if you chose well, they would reward you and allow you to live a good life. Basically, “Chaos and Order.” God was the force behind chaos and order, not a god, per se, and the line between chaos and order was the real place to be.

This idea sunk in. I had never thought about it in those terms, and it shook my faith. I began to doubt His existence. Maybe God was just an inexorable natural force and not the real deal. And, too, the marital problems and selfish, sinful decisions I had made incentivized me to look for an escape from God’s judgment. Sin always looks to justify itself, and sinners are no different. I wanted to justify my sin, justify myself, and avoid the consequences. All of it together brewed into a perfect storm, which subsequently broke. I told my wife I didn’t know if God existed, that I doubted, and that I hated Him for imposing restrictions on my life. It was hardly coherent. She was understandably shocked and appalled.

But I want to be absolutely clear in order to leave no doubt in your mind or the mind of those you may show this email to—I never doubted God’s existence prior to Jordan Peterson. Peterson’s philosophy shook my belief and deepened my despair and destructive spiral.

Jordan Peterson is a sower of Chaos in the guise of a prophet of Order. It should not be surprising that those who accept his guidance and follow his teachings soon find themselves wandering away from both truth and Truth alike.

Jordan Peterson is NOT a man of the Right, he is NOT on our side, and he is NOT helping anyone come to the the truth. He is like a Menshevik opposing the Bolsheviks who have gone too far in order to fix Communism.

Let’s figure out how I can dispense with my white privilege and so that you can tell me when the Left is going too far, since they clearly can, and that’s what this debate is about, about political correctness. It’s about the Left going too far, and I think it’s gone too far in many ways. and I’d like to
figure out exactly how and when so the reasonable Left could make its ascendance again and we could quit all this nonsense.
– Jordan Peterson, Debate with Michael Dyson, Michelle Goldberg, and Stephen Fry.