Author: VD

#VotaSI

Twin proto-independence referendums in Italy today:

ITALY is facing its own referendum crisis as two regions, Lombardy and Veneto, engage in a bid for more power from Rome, buoyed by the Catalonia independence campaign in Spain. The wealthy Italian regions account for at least 30 per cent of the country’s GDP and they will ask voters to take to the polls today to gain greater autonomy from Rome.

Analysts have likened the Italian referendum vote as being similar to that of Scotland’s independence vote from Britain, the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, and Catalonia’s quest for independence from Spain.

The votes were called by the two regional leaders, Roberto Maroni of Lombardy and Luca Zaia of Veneto. In Italy, the twin referendums are non-binding, but a resounding “yes” vote would give the presidents of the neighbouring regions more powers.

Forza la Lega Nord! And let’s bring back La Serenissima while we’re at it.

Trump stands by the truth

There is no legitimate reason the JFK assassination files should not be released to the public. None at all.

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will allow long blocked secret files on the assassination of John F Kennedy to be opened to the public for the first time.

The November 22, 1963 assassination — an epochal event in modern US history — has spawned multiple theories challenging the official version that Kennedy was killed a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.

So the release of all the secret documents has been eagerly anticipated by historians and conspiracy theorists alike. Trump’s announcement followed reports that not all the files would be released, possibly to protect still relevant intelligence sources and methods.

But Trump appears to have decided otherwise.

“Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened,” he said in a tweet.

Translation: Sayonara, Deep State. Dire and nebulous warnings of cats and dogs living together are no longer sufficient to compel presidential obedience. Everyone understands now that they protect no one’s interests but their own.

Drain the Swamp + Build the Wall = Trumpslide 2020.

Alt★Hero site

Since there is a fair amount of interest in an Alt★Hero site, I’m considering moving down the goal to 135k and adding a new goal at 150k. To increase the chances the campaign gets there, I’m also thinking of adding a site-related Reward for those specifically backing a site.

What should the amount be and what are some of the possible site-related rewards we could give that would be of interest?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

So much for civic Christianity

Evangelicals are discovering that racial identity trumps religious identity:

It is critical to note that the issues for which they left the immigrant churches weren’t doctrinal or theological, but cultural.

Today, it seems like a “Reverse Exodus” is taking place for very similar reasons. Like Lecrae, people of color are finding that white evangelical churches and institutions fail to truly embrace them. After doing their best to carve out a space for themselves within white evangelicalism, give it a fair shot (or multiple shots), and even endure through the challenges for decades, there is a growing number of people of color who are seeking places where they can finally feel at home, while still yearning for the greater eternal home….

Well, the solutions are actually quite simple. This does not mean the solutions aren’t costly or difficult, but they are simple: at every layer of evangelical leadership, allow for a solid concentration of evangelicals of color to occupy culture-shaping positions of authority. Again, the problem wasn’t theology, but culture.

We need to be aware of how we bring unconscious biases to our own litmus tests of whether people of color are theologically correct enough based on their emphasis on justice issues. Often times, people of color are viewed with greater scrutiny simply because of their skin tone. We need to be concerned with the ways our political commitments co-opt our faith commitments. The fact that people equate Christians with a particular political party is problematic, especially if we consider how both parties are deeply flawed. We need to redefine our understanding of organizational fit. This means we need to reconsider what it means to be equipped. For example, is someone equipped for the pastorate if they have racist tendencies or beliefs? And who gets to decide if they do, white people or the people they disparage?

Isn’t it remarkable that the solution is always More Magic People of Color no matter whether the problem concerns football coaches, technology companies, or Christianity? I wonder what the common factor might possibly be?

SJWs Always Double Down addresses what is happening here. This is exhortation by an infiltrator, appealing to an extremely amenable authority.

Superconvergence

How converged does a commenting service have to be to refuse service to modestly controversial site anyway?

On Monday evening, I received an email from tos@disqus.com stating that they are suspending all Disqus services to Return Of Kings starting on October 20, 2017. Here is the full email:

Hi there,

We wanted to reach out to inform you that your site has been found to be in conflict with the terms of use of Disqus. Because of this, Disqus is unable to offer your site continued discussion services past the end of this week.

I replied asking what specific terms were violated but have not yet received a response. I’m guessing we were terminated because of their vague “hate speech” clause, which really means “speech our liberal employees disagree with.”

The amazing thing here is that without some disagreement, people have literally nothing to discuss. Disqus isn’t just elevating social justice above its primary purpose, it is actually eliminating its primary purpose for existing in the first place.

Smart people are crazy

In fairness, it may be that it is only having to be around stupid people that makes us that way:

The stereotype of a tortured genius may have a basis in reality after a new study found that people with higher IQs are more at risk of developing mental illness.

A team of US researchers surveyed 3,715 members of American Mensa with an IQ higher than 130. An “average IQ score” or “normal IQ score” can be defined as a score between 85 and 115.

The team asked the Mensa members to report whether they had been diagnoses with mental illnesses, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

They were also asked to report mood and anxiety disorders, or whether the suspected they suffered from any mental illnesses that had yet to be diagnosed, as well as physiological diseases, like food allergies and asthma. After comparing this with the statistical national average for each illness they found that those in the Mensa community had considerably higher rates of varying disorders.

In my experience, the more highly intelligent people are, the more unstable they tend to be, particularly if they are women. The problem, I suspect, is that smart people are more able to rationalize their aberrant behaviors and justify their departures from observable reality, thereby leading to a vicious circle where their disorders are reinforced.

I find narcissists of the non-malignant variety to be some of the most stable smart people I know, presumably because their lack of interest in other people tends to render their social interactions less confusing and angst-inducing. The more sensitive and insecure an intelligent person is, the more likely that he is going to find himself regularly buffeted by social pressures that he simply cannot understand.

Everyone knew

Screenwriter Scott Rosenberg admits that everyone in Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein:

Let’s be perfectly clear about one thing:

Everybody-fucking-knew.

Not that he was raping.
No, that we never heard.
But we were aware of a certain pattern of overly-aggressive behavior that was rather dreadful.
We knew about the man’s hunger; his fervor; his appetite.
There was nothing secret about this voracious rapacity; like a gluttonous ogre out of the Brothers Grimm.
All couched in vague promises of potential movie roles.
(and, it should be noted: there were many who actually succumbed to his bulky charms. Willingly. Which surely must have only impelled him to cast his fetid net even wider).

But like I said: everybody-fucking-knew.

And to me, if Harvey’s behavior is the most reprehensible thing one can imagine, a not-so-distant second is the current flood of sanctimonious denial and condemnation that now crashes upon these shores of rectitude in gloppy tides of bullshit righteousness.

Because everybody-fucking-knew.

And do you know how I am sure this is true?
Because I was there.
And I saw you.
And I talked about it with you.
You, the big producers; you, the big directors; you, the big agents; you, the big financiers.
And you, the big rival studio chiefs; you, the big actors; you, the big actresses; you, the big models.
You, the big journalists; you, the big screenwriters; you, the big rock stars; you, the big restaurateurs; you, the big politicians.

I saw you.
All of you.
God help me, I was there with you.

There is one problem with condemning the Scott Rosenberg’s of the world. If the women didn’t speak up, and if so many of them were willing to make that trade, why was anyone else obligated to do so? It’s not as if Harvey Weinstein had any less power over the careers of the Rosenbergs of the world.

Liberalism: the dying faith

Pat Buchanan rightly observes that Europe is awakening to fact that liberalism is a societally suicidal lie:

Asked to name the defining attributes of the America we wish to become, many liberals would answer that we must realize our manifest destiny since 1776, by becoming more equal, more diverse and more democratic — and the model for mankind’s future.

Equality, diversity, democracy — this is the holy trinity of the post-Christian secular state at whose altars Liberal Man worships.

To traditionalist Europeans, our heaven looks like their hell.

But the congregation worshiping these gods is shrinking. And even Europe seems to be rejecting what America has on offer… Europe is rejecting, resisting, recoiling from “diversity,” the multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual future that, say U.S. elites, is America’s preordained mission to bring about for all mankind.

This is the dilemma facing conservatives now. For sixty years, their tango with liberals was a simple matter of saying “yes, but not so fast”. Now, like the liberals, they are being forced to confront the ugly reality that the end game of their ideology is the end of their society and their civilization. Not only has conservatism conserved nothing, it has aided and abetted the destruction of that which it purported to be defending.

Alt★Hero FREESTARTR is back in business

Freestartr has fixed the system that I broke and you can now safely back the campaign and make additions again. If you are one of the six or seven people who backed the project in the last 12 hours since the last database backup, you will be contacted to confirm that the amount of your backing is correct. Both of the new Rewards, for the Rebel Figurine alone and for a single Poster, are now functional, although you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the Rewards until they get them arranged in order later today.

In other news, we have decided to remove the 150k Stretch Goal of the 15-minute video and replace it with the creation of an Alt★Hero web site, complete with forums. I spoke with the producer, and we decided that rather than do a small video now, we’d prefer to concentrate on building a strong foundation for the series, then crowdfund a more ambitious video project next year that will be written by Chuck Dixon and me. This means that we can spend more of the resources that the backers are providing us on actual comic art and books rather than on a single video that is too short to serve as much more than an expensive marketing tool.

In the meantime, by popular demand, here is another image of Rebel. She does not cuck or cower.

Another bite of the apple

SJWs are attempting to further converge the evangelical church in the name of “racial unity”:

The willingness of evangelicals of color to remain will likely change when they begin to realize that they too are the token/mascot/poster child for white evangelical churches or institutions. Unless white evangelicalism wakes up to the realities that it’s unwillingness to sufficiently change keeps it behind the culture, instead of leading prophetically with a clear vision of the Kingdom of God, the exodus will ensue.

My hope is we can work towards an equitable unity where all people mutually submit to and honor each other.

But how do we do this?

Well, the solutions are actually quite simple. This does not mean the solutions aren’t costly or difficult, but they are simple: at every layer of evangelical leadership, allow for a solid concentration of evangelicals of color to occupy culture-shaping positions of authority. Again, the problem wasn’t theology, but culture.

We need to be aware of how we bring unconscious biases to our own litmus tests of whether people of color are theologically correct enough based on their emphasis on justice issues. Often times, people of color are viewed with greater scrutiny simply because of their skin tone. We need to be concerned with the ways our political commitments co-opt our faith commitments. The fact that people equate Christians with a particular political party is problematic, especially if we consider how both parties are deeply flawed. We need to redefine our understanding of organizational fit. This means we need to reconsider what it means to be equipped. For example, is someone equipped for the pastorate if they have racist tendencies or beliefs? And who gets to decide if they do, white people or the people they disparage?

We also need to be mindful of how networks and credibility is established. Consider who is promoted within evangelicalism through publishing deals. If a Christian publisher looks through their catalogues and white people overwhelmingly occupy the authorial space, it is likely because the people they have come across were developed through their white evangelical network. Consider who speaks at conferences like The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel and you’ll see how people who had local or regional platforms, now have national or international ones. Whether you are aware of it or not, we normalize whiteness in evangelicalism by having an overwhelming majority of white speakers and only one or two plenary speakers of color. Consider the ways in which people get mentored. There are tremendous barriers to mentorship felt by Christians of color who would say they hold the same faith commitments and convictions as evangelicals do, but don’t either know or have an entry point into these networks (I fortunately, had people who helped me navigate in, but I am a part of the exception, not the rule). Consider who is appointed the most senior level leadership roles and how they are found and determined upon. It cannot be true that only white people are “called” to these positions of authority and influence and people of color are not.

If white evangelicalism is serious about representing the unity Christ calls us to in this world, this means you cannot find successors who preach like you do, see the world like you do, and share the same skin tone as you. This means Thabiti Anyabwile or Bryan Lorritts (or any of the small handful of others) cannot be the only black preachers in your conferences (despite their wonderful gifts). This means that conferences need to provide substantial opportunities for Asians and Latinos and Native Americans to speak as well. This means that senior leadership at churches cannot be satisfied with a disproportionate percentage of white pastors/elders to non-white pastors/elders.

Further, we need to look deeply into the reasons why leaders of color who occupy the top spots in Christian (evangelical) organizations and churches do not last. This means we need to have the humility to listen, but not just listen, and act upon the problems we see. This also means evangelicalism needs to allow people of color to speak for themselves and on their own terms. We also need to create pipelines for evangelicals of color to grow in leadership opportunities (see what Intervarsity did with the Daniel Project) because we know that leadership matters and that leadership shapes organizations.

Is there any problem that more Magic People of Color can’t solve? It’s rather remarkable how the solution to every “problem” identified by SJWs is the same, no matter whether the institution is a technology company, a position on the football team, or the evangelical church.

How do Christians not see the evil in this? How do they not smell the sulferous stink of Babylon?