Even the media recognizes that there has been a massive shift in the political divide in Europe, as in the USA, from Classical Liberal vs Socialist to Nationalist vs Globalist.
A Le Pen loss, however, will hardly be a knockout blow for populism — or a ringing vindication of the establishment.
If anything, the French campaign has solidified the new fracture lines in modern politics, which bear little relation to the relatively modest differences marking the old left-right divide. Instead, the choice voters face on Sunday illustrates the profound new chasm in the West: between those who favor open, globalized societies and others who prefer closed, nationalized ones.
“What’s the common ground between Macron and Le Pen? There is none. What we’re seeing is historic: a choice between two completely different modes of organizing a society,” said Madani Cheurfa, a professor of politics at Paris’s Sciences Po.
This transcontinental political transition is still much closer to the beginning than it is to the end. I discuss this in more detail in my post-French election Darkstream.
The results of the French election will be announced soon, and I expect the globalists and their pet media to celebrate Macron’s victory in much the same way that they did when Golden Dawn was defeated in Greece and the Freedom Party was defeated in Austria. But they shouldn’t, nor should nationalists despair in the least, because this is not the election cycle in which Europe’s nationalists were expected to come to power.
The Fascists and the National Socialists came to power in the 1930s because they were the most credible options available to the Italian and German publics at the time. Don’t confuse the beginnings with the ends; 1933 was not 1941 or even 1939. Fascists were not elected with the idea that they would throw in with German imperialism (it is usually forgotten that Mussolini was an ally of France and Great Britain and only threw in with Germany after Great Britain betrayed Italian interests), and the National Socialists were not elected because they promised they would invade the Soviet Union, slaughter the Jews in Eastern Europe, and get Germany into a war with the USA.
One can’t learn anything useful about the future prospects of revolutionary parties by what other revolutionary parties did AFTER they came to power, one can only learn about their prospects by looking at what the other parties were doing BEFORE they came to power.
The worst thing about the established anti-nationalist European parties is that they have failed so spectacularly that even the violently murderous anti-immigrant parties will be preferred to them by even the most sane and civilized elements of the electorate. In a time of invasion, it doesn’t matter how dangerous the only party willing to defend you might be, what matters is that they are the only ones willing to defend you, your family, and your children.
As for those who are historically ignorant enough to point out that Golden Dawn only won 18 seats in the Greek parliament with 7 percent of the vote and therefore will never come to power, I will type very, very slowly and point out that in 1928, five years before they took power, the National Socialist Workers Party won 12 seats in the German parliament with 2.6 percent of the vote.
Two election cycles. And then you will see an absolute sea change in Europe. And if the EU attempts to entirely abandon even the pretense of democracy in defense of the invasion, the change will come even faster. And harder.
What is remarkable about the election today is that the French people have already turned against the established anti-nationalist parties, rejecting both in the first round of voting. But while they are willing to reject both sides of the establishment, they are not yet ready to turn to the nationalists. In this, Macron plays much the same role as Trump; he is a nominal outsider who, despite his elite connections, was not a player in either establishment party.
Macron will fail abysmally, of course, which is why I expect the Front National, possibly led by Marine Le Pen’s more telegenic niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, to come to power in the next election cycle.
Americans who cannot fathom this reluctance to vote for the nationalists in light of the events in Paris and Nice would do well to recall their own history. Did Americans turn against immigration, foreign interference, and the establishment parties immediately after 9/11? Of course not. It took 15 years, and three full presidential cycles, before they were ready to turn to the God-Emperor, and even then it was a close-run thing.
National electorates are like very large ships. It takes them a while to change direction. But, once they genuinely turn – and I am not counting choosing one color faction of the bi-factional ruling party instead of the other – that’s when real and substantive change can take place.
Of course, I could be wrong. And if I am wrong, and Marine Le Pen does manage to pull of an upset today, that will send a absolutely cataclysmic message to the masters of the collapsing European Union.
UPDATE: The current count shows 61 percent to Macron and 39 percent to Le Pen.
As I pointed out in SJWAL, the best rhetoric is based in truth. Conversely, the worst and least effective rhetoric is based in falsehood and posturing to uphold an obviously false narrative. In light of which observation, the following exchange on The Zman’s blog struck me as more than a little amusing.
First, a wounded libertarian tried to play a rhetorical fast one by striking a superior pose and resorting to a common meme:
I’ve reading some of your anti-libertarian rants lately. And the phrase that comes to mind is:
“show me on the doll where the mean libertarian touched you”.
Seriously – pretty much every person you’ve ascribed libertarian leanings to in your recent columns – with the exception of Charles Murray – is somebody I have NEVER heard of before , and I’ve been reading libertarian literature and columnists for a good 15-20 years now.
I’m starting to think this whole ascribing “libertarian” leanings to a bunch is another episode of that long running mini-series: “Look at me – I’m a conservative and I don’t know what the &%$! conservatism is”.
Previous seasons have given us a bunch of conservatives who filled up the Republican party with Neo-conservatives.
Apparently nobody went to look up what “neo” means.
Looks like we might be playing the same game again – except this time we’ve got a bunch of liberals calling themselves libertarians. Apparently because the words begin with “lib” everybody stopped thinking it out and thinks they’re one and the same.
The Zman didn’t need to respond, because the commenter’s pretensions were punctured, and his rhetoric was destroyed, by a single question from another commenter.
You’ve never heard of Reason magazine and Nick Gillespie?
That made me laugh. What sort of “libertarian” who has been “reading libertarian literature and columnists for a good 15-20 years now” is unfamiliar with the #1 libertarian magazine and what was ranked the #4 libertarian site back in 2012. Of course, the sad state of libertarianism can probably be best understood by the realization that this very site was ranked #51 that year. Or by simply reflecting upon the last two Libertarian presidential campaigns.
It’s over. Let reason – and Reason – be silent when observation and experience gainsay its theories.
What libertarians need to ask themselves are these two questions: One, is my ideal of maximizing liberty in my society, the human society in which I actually live, presently dependent upon the core libertarian ideas of the Non-Aggression Principle and the Sovereign Individual? And, two, at this particular moment in history, do those core libertarian dogmas tend to expand or to reduce human liberty in my society?
I think I got a bit off course on this one before I properly articulated my reasoning, but it planted a few seeds for further contemplation. As usual, I need to write things down in order to be certain the logic holds up, but I’m pretty confident that it does.
I was looking up some of the 40 times from the NFL combine and was interested to see where mine fit in the mix. Turns out my 40 was in between Danny Amendola’s and Wes Welker’s. That’s not a bad comparable. Of course, if I’d actually been able to play at the pro level, I’d probably have post-concussion syndrome or whatever now, so it’s probably just as well that I stuck with soccer. And given that Gordie Lockbaum couldn’t make it – I saw him play against Bucknell once – it’s highly unlikely that I ever could have even with an NFL-caliber 40.
Especially since my vertical was a pathetic 28 inches.
This season started great but got a little shaky when I somehow strained that ligament in my leg that nearly ended my playing career about eight years ago. The cold seems to make it more susceptible, but I’ve learned to take myself out immediately when I feel anything, which seems to help, and I managed to play 12 minutes the next game and about 45 the next. I’m still starting, which is something of a surprise since I’m probably the #3 wing in terms of skill when everyone is there, but I do get back better and play considerably more defense than the other two guys, which I suspect is why I usually get the nod over the other two.
On the one hand, it’s nice to be valued and to see your efforts rewarded with playing time. On the other, it’s incredibly frustrating when the team loses and it’s mostly because your substitute simply can’t run with the opposing wing or do much with the ball when he gets it.
Also, as an ex-sprinter, I’m quite happy to come out after 20-30 minutes, then return in the second half all nice and rested, whereas the guys who grew up on 3-substitution games never want to come out and are reluctant to go back in once they’ve come off.
The reader who still cling to libertarianism have given me hell over my screed against their faith. I’m not without some sympathy for them. The core libertarian impulse to leave people alone in order to be left alone is admirable. If you are a libertarian, trying hard to live the non-aggression principle, it probably seems unfair that a hate thinker from the extreme Right is mocking your thing. I get that and I respect it to a point. That point is when I see something like this from the Pope of Modern Libertarianism.
France is becoming a Third World country because of economic policies instituted by the graduates of its finest schools, not Arabs. – Nick Gillespie
It should be impossible to be this stupid. I suspect for most of human existence, idiots who said moronic things like this tried to hand feed bears or cuddle with large reptiles, thus eliminating themselves from the the system. There’s no other way to read this than Nick Gillespie believes some minor alterations to the French tax code will ameliorate this.
Now, does Nick Gillespie really think altering tax policy will magically transform low-IQ, inbred Muslims from the Maghreb into patriotic French republicans who work at Parisian software shops? It’s tempting to say it is just another pose, but the evidence is piling up in favor of the argument that Nick Gillespie is a stupid person. Anyone who truly believes altering tax policy will reverse a thousand generations of evolution is an idiot.
That’s the fundamental problem with modern libertarians. They believe this or they simply are incapable of mastering ground floor level biology. The reason the country of Niger is a basket case is that’s the way the people of Niger want it. It is full of Hausa. The reason Paris was Paris was that, up until recently, it was full of Parisians! Now that Paris is filling up with North Africans and Arabs, it is looking like Algeria with better plumbing.
Apparently Mr. Gillespie hasn’t actually been to Paris recently to see what those graduates of its finest schools have made of it. We see this ridiculous line from civic nationalists and even the Alt-Lite from time to time. Detroit isn’t Detroit because of its predominantly black population, but because of those damned Democratic policies! Which, of course, explains why very liberal Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis are similarly crime-ridden hellholes.
Why, given the conservativism of Somali Muslims, we can expect no end of improvement in Minneapolis in no time!
This really isn’t that hard. Different people have different standards of behavior that they a) prefer and b) are willing to tolerate. Keep the apart and everyone will be fine. Force them together and you ensure conflict.
Look, I understand the appeal of libertarian ideals. I still hold them in much the same way a Marxian economist still holds to his communist ideals even though he knows the Labor Theory of Value is false and that the Workers’ Paradise will never arrive. But I understand the difference between an unattainable, utopian ideal and a functional, coherent, basis for real world policy. And only the latter is relevant to serious policy discussions.
Civic nationalism barely worked in the best of all possible circumstances and it is entirely dead in the USA now. Libertarianism was a complete non-starter. Conservatism was always designed to go down to noble defeat. It’s time to accept these things and grow up intellectually; the fate of Western civilization depends upon you doing just that.
It’s rather telling that whites get more upset about a white father cutting off his daughter in response to her decision to attend prom with a black man than they ever do about Muslim fathers honor-killing their daughters. If Daddy had only had the foresight to first declare his newfound Muslim faith, he could have buried her in the front lawn and news of his arrest would never have made the national news, much less the international news.
Anna said that though Phillip is just a friend, he’s also ‘really funny’ and ‘super cute’, so she snatched him up as her prom date. Unfortunately, Anna’s dad — whom she says has always been vocally racist — saw the snaps online and wasted no time sharing his disappointment with her in an incredibly abusive manner.
Anna explained to BuzzFeed that she and her dad have had a strained relationship for years. Her parents are divorced, and though she lived with him briefly as a child, she’s been in her mom’s house since her early teens. His tirade, however, seems to have gone beyond any uncomfortable words they’d shared in the past.
Responding to his initial texts, Anna wrote: ‘I went to prom with a black guy so that’s a problem … racist much.’
‘Yes I am,’ her dad wrote back unabashedly before continuing with the grammatically incorrect pronouncement: ‘Your dead to me. Don’t ever contact me again we are through,’ he added. ‘Go ahead be a F***IN wh*** leave me out of it.
He also told her that he was cancelling her cell phone and her car insurance, to which she replied, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ ‘Shut the f*** up you have no right to talk to me anymore. Go live with the F***IN n*****s. Your pictures are already off my walls. You can go to hell. What the f*** is wrong with you? … You want to mingle with Subhumans I’ll treat you accordingly.’
Anna knew of her father’s opinions, though she still found it ‘incredibly sad’ when he reacted so vitriolically. ‘He has told me that if I ever dated a black guy that I will and would be dead to him,’ she told BuzzFeed. ‘I stood my ground for what I believe in.’
It’s really admirable that Anna is so willing to stand her ground for what she believes in. And it’s a sign of character that she is so willing to pay for her own phone, car insurance, and college education.
Of course, the father was foolish to actually put his feelings in writing, or to imagine that the young woman wouldn’t immediately rush to social media to virtue-signal to the world at his expense.
But regardless of what you think of Angry Racist Daddy, and whether you agree with his decision to cut off his daughter or not, freedom of association is a fundamental human right. Exercising that right has its consequences, of course, but it remains a basic human right nevertheless.
The sad thing isn’t that Daddy isn’t going to pay for his little mudshark-to-be’s higher education; given her observably poor judgment she’ll probably be better off if she doesn’t put herself in debt for a useless degree. The sad thing is that even if this young woman is eventually beaten to death by one of her future paramours, no one will ever learn anything from the entire debacle.
We are living in an age where everything just happens for no reason at all, and to even notice patterns and connections is considered immoral and the sign of a deplorable character.
The practical problem here is that ethnocentrism doesn’t merely exist for a reason, it is increasingly apparent that it is an important hallmark of a strong, confident, healthy, and growing society. If you examine the arc of civilizational rises and declines, one thing that is readily apparent is that the more strongly homogeneous a society is, the earlier in the arc of the societal life cycle it is. This, of course, is completely contrary to the equalitarian idea that a decline in ethnic self-preference is indicative of social progress, but then, equalitarians are wrong about almost everything, so it should come as no surprise that they have this completely backward as well.
The multicultural trend was also manifested in a variety of legislation that followed the civil rights acts of the 1960s, and in the 1990s the Clinton administration made the encouragement of diversity one of its major goals. The contrast with the past is striking. The Founding Fathers saw diversity as a reality and as a problem: hence the national motto, e pluribus unum, chosen by a committee of the Continental Congress consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Later political leaders who also were fearful of the dangers of racial, sectional, ethnic, economic, and cultural diversity (which, indeed, produced the largest war of the century between 1815 and 1914), responded to the call of “bring us together,” and made the promotion of national unity their central responsibility. “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all,” warned Theodore Roosevelt, “would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.” In the 1990s, however, the leaders of the United States have not only permitted that but assiduously promoted the diversity rather than the unity of the people they govern.
The leaders of other countries have, as we have seen, at times attempted to disavow their cultural heritage and shift the identity of their country from one civilization to another. In no case to date have they succeeded and they have instead created schizophrenic torn countries. The American multiculturalists similarly reject their country’s cultural heritage. Instead of attempting to identify the United States with another civilization, however, they wish to create a country of many civilizations, which is to say a country not belonging to any civilization and lacking a cultural core. History shows that no country so constituted can long endure as a coherent society. – Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 1998
This is the current state of Infogalactic development and the updated Road Map. Phase One is complete and we are now officially in Phase Two.
Phase One
FUND LEVEL COMPLETE
Image load speed improvement – COMPLETE Search time speed improvement – COMPLETE (needs additional improvement) Integration with Brave browser – COMPLETE Operational ad server – COMPLETE Additional administration and editing levels – COMPLETE
PHASE ONE COMPLETE
The reason we’re not putting more time and effort into tweaking the performance is that doing so would involve spending more time refining the Wikimedia engine that we’re in the process of replacing anyhow. So, now that the site is reasonably functional, we prefer to focus our development efforts on the new engine since that will provide both increased performance as well as the ability to incorporate the planned new features.
Phase Two
IN PROGRESS
DONTPANIC engine Sub-sites wikimedia – COMPLETE Sub-sites DONTPANIC Ad server DONTPANIC Dynamic page updates – COMPLETE Improved Database categories Relativity, Reliability, and Notability 1.0 algorithms
New members of the Burn Unit, please note that an email will be going out soon telling you how you can acquire your Burn Unit t-shirts. They’ve proven to be popular enough that we’re looking into making Burn Unit athletic jackets and baseball caps available as well.
Apparently we’re all supposed to be terrified by “de-policing”, or in other words, the police actually showing restraint rather than immediately shooting everything and everyone in the vicinity because someone made them feel a little nervous:
Such factors have “had the effect of ‘de-policing’ in law enforcement agencies across the country, which assailants have exploited.”
The report cited an example in which an officer was slammed to the ground and beaten but refused to shoot the assailant “for fear of community backlash.”
“The officer informed the superintendent that the officer chose not to shoot because the officer didn’t want his/her ‘family or department to have to go through the scrutiny the next day on the national news,’ ” the study said.
Once you understand that the police are neither there to stop crime nor protect you, your reaction to de-policing is pretty much the exact opposite of the one the media wants you to have.
It really isn’t anyone’s problem if a few more gang members shoot each other than they would have or not. The police are never going to solve that problem. It’s like worry about whether someone else puts a band-aid on a gaping wound. Put the band-aid on or not, it’s simply not going to make any difference in the end.
Crime or no crime, who is going into diversity city anyhow?
The post-World War III world is a radically different place where magic and technology have become one in the violent struggle for global influence between nations. The rising powers of Persia and Musafiria are challenging the longtime dominance of the weakened Western powers, as the increasing use of magic provides them with a more level playing field.
Supernatural creatures from other planes are summoned and wielded as readily as machine guns and explosives by the special forces of the rival militaries, the most deadly of which are the elite contractors for the Nemesis Program. Both conventionally and unconventionally trained, the Nemesis Program is the hidden blade of the Hesperian National Intelligence and Security Agency, a weapon as lethal as it is deniable. But although they are given considerable leeway, not even Nemesis operatives are allowed to covenant with archdaimons… which poses a serious problem for Luke Landon when a simple assassination of a scientist goes badly awry.
NO GODS, ONLY DAIMONS is the first volume of The Covenant Chronicles, an exciting new supernatural Mil-SF series by Kai Wai Cheah, the Hugo-nominated author of Flashpoint: Titan, which appeared in There Will Be War Vol. X.
This modern supernatural Mil-SF novel is pretty wild and has nearly as much crazy, over-the-top action as a Larry Correia novel. It’s DRM-free and available on both Amazon and at the Castalia House store. In light of our long term concerns about Amazon’s viability as a publishing platform, we would encourage you to use the Castalia House store; both EPUB and MOBI editions for Kindle are available there. But either option is fine with us for the time being.
I should also mention that all four Moth & Cobweb books by John C. Wright are now available on the Castalia House store as well.
Moth & Cobweb Book Five, City of Corpses, will be out later this month.
EXCERPT FROM NO GODS, ONLY DAIMONS:
We dropped to the ground.
“AK fire,” Pete reported.
Several more bursts rang out, echoing through the city. The sound bounced off and around concrete and glass, coming from everywhere.
“Multiple shooters,” I added. “Can’t tell direction.”
“Can’t be more than a couple blocks away.” He picked himself up. “We gotta stop them.”
“Roger,” I said. “I’ll try to find them with open source intel.”
“I’m gonna get my long gun.”
“Go.”
He sprinted to a car parked down the road. I got to a knee and scanned around me. Civilians were still walking down the street, oblivious to the autofire raking the air, or froze in place. A couple actually stopped to stare at us. What the hell was wrong with people?
I powered up the Clipcom. An array of icons washed over my field of view. I touched the control button, freezing the screen in place, looked at the Memet icon and released.
The app booted. A deluge of raw information, updating every moment, flooded my cascade. Every major news agency reported a shooting in progress at Lacey’s in New Haven. An eyewitness had uploaded a blurry photo of a gunman racing into the department store, wearing a chest rig and cradling some kind of AK, maybe an AK-122.
Another photo showed a jinni. It looked like an old man with swarthy skin, flowing white hair and a thick beard, though his muscles were hard as rocks. But past his waist, the rest of him was a lion with exaggerated limbs, scaled up to support his mass. His tail whipped at air and spat venom—it was no tail, it was a snake.
This was a si’la in its default form. And si’lat were expert shapeshifters.
Pete slung a messenger bag around his neck, stuffed with everything the self-respecting gunfighter needed for an active shooter scenario. From the trunk he produced a Varangian Tactical carbine. It was one of the many, many variants of the AR-855 rifle; this one was designed by Special Operations veterans for their exacting needs.
As he checked the chamber, he asked, “Luke! Need a gun?”
“Got another rifle?”
“Just a pistol.”
“I’ve got mine,” I replied, drawing my SIG. “We’ll make do.”
He jumped into the driver’s seat. “What are we facing?”
I got in beside him. “Multiple shooters and jinn are hitting Lacey’s. Numbers unknown. AKs, grenades and at least one si’la.”
A fresh image appeared in the cascade. An ifrit, inside the mall.
“And an ifrit,” I added.
The car’s engine hummed to life. “Good thing I loaded aethertips.”
“Me too.”
We hit the road. I tuned the radio to the news and listened to a news station rattle off reiterations of the original active shooter report. The gunfire grew softer; the shooters must have moved indoors. Pete zipped through traffic, slipping past civilian cars too close for comfort.
“They’re inside the mall,” I said.
“Must be hitting the lunchtime crowd.”
Closing Memet, I opened Eipos, the preferred Internet telephony service of the Program, and dialed 911. The dispatcher picked up immediately.
“Emergency 911, this call is being recorded. How can I help?”
“We are two off-duty Federal agents responding to the shooting at Lacey’s,” I said. “Tell the first responders not to shoot us.”
“Okay, may I know what you look like?”
“Two white males. I’m wearing a black jacket, red shirt, blue jeans. I have a pistol. Partner has green polo shirt, khaki pants. He’s got an AR-855.”
“All right. What’s your name and which agency do you come from?”
I hung up and turned to Pete.
“Brick, comms on Eipos.”
I called his number. Pete grunted. Moments later the call window filled the screen. He was taking the call on his implants. I handed the app off to the holophone, piping sound into my buds, and cleared my field of view.
Pete slammed the brakes and worked the wheel. We fish-hooked right, stopping in front of the department store, just barely missing a parked van. As we jumped out, a civilian almost collided into me. People were fleeing the area, but the roads and sidewalk were streaked with blood. A dozen civilians were lying on the ground, bleeding.
“Any idea where they’re at?” he asked, shouldering his rifle.
A string of shots split the air.
“Inside!” I replied unnecessarily.
We charged through the front door. I broke off to cover the right while he moved left. More gunfire erupted deeper inside the mall, punctuated by single shots. The shooters had left a trail of broken, bleeding bodies in their wake. Brass shells glittered in pools of blood. Most of the casualties had been shot repeatedly in the torso and then once more in the head.
We tracked the shooters by their gunfire, brass and empty mags. By the destruction they left in their wake. We ran past a shot-up McDonald’s, the customers bleeding and moaning, the golden arches destroyed by a burst of gunfire. Past an electronics shop, everything and everyone inside slagged. Past a schoolgirl, clutching at her bleeding leg, crying for help.
Pete faltered at the last. Halted for a moment. Shook his head and kept running.
This wasn’t our first ride at the rodeo. First neutralize the threat and then tend to the wounded. Reversing the priorities would leave the bad guys free to kill even more, and that would not do.
