Category: Uncategorized

Bring back the Inquisition

And ban all homosexual priests. Because the Catholic Church is almost completely converged.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who helped elect popes and ran the Vatican’s finances, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys, a court said Tuesday, becoming the most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of child sex crimes.

An Australian court found Pell guilty by a trial jury on one count of sexual abuse and four counts of indecent assault of two boys at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell, now aged 77, was accused of cornering the boys — then aged 12 and 13 — in the cathedral’s sacristy and forcing them to perform a sex act on him.

The cleric denied all the charges and an initial trial ended with a hung jury in September, but he was convicted on retrial on December 11.

Catholics have to stop trying to defend their church and start fumigating it. With a righteious vengeance.

Labour calls for a revote, Tories for delay

The British establishment is rendering itself increasingly irrelevant. First, the Labour Party leader endorsed the EU’s principle of “vote until you vote correctly”:

Labour’s Brexit civil war escalated dramatically today after Jeremy Corbyn backed a second referendum. Leave-supporting MPs voiced fury after the leader heralded a seismic shift, warning that trying to overturn the result from 2016 would be ‘catastrophic’.

Tensions are also already seething over when a referendum should be held – and whether Remain should be on the ballot paper.

In an extraordinary move, Mr Corbyn told his MPs last night that the party was ready to back a second public vote to prevent a ‘damaging Tory Brexit’. The party is likely to table a Commons amendment which would mean a referendum on whatever deal finally gets through Parliament.

However, the new stance still appears to leave questions about whether Labour will call for a referendum if Mrs May’s deal is not passed, or whether one would only happen if Mr Corbyn wins powers and negotiates his own package.

And Theresa May showed her true Remainer colours by offering to delay Brexit beyond the March 29 deadline.

Theresa May faces a titanic Cabinet battle over Brexit today amid signs she is ready to surrender to a Remainer revolt.

The PM is gathering her senior team as tensions hit new heights, with negotiations deadlocked in Brussels and just weeks to go until the UK is due to crash out. Cabinet sources told MailOnline there were ‘encouraging’ signs that Mrs May is now ready to delay Brexit to avert mass resignations by ministers who are determined to rule out no deal.

But the expected concession will cause fury among Eurosceptics who have been adamant the option of leaving without an agreement must be kept on the table.

My best guess is that all this is all political sound and fury signifying nothing in the end, and Britain will exit with no deal by the end of March. I also expect Labour to get slaughtered in Leave districts in the next election. But we will see.

The end of atheism

The Z-Man explains why atheism is on the decline in parallel with the retreat of Christianity from the public space:

The central defect of atheism, old and new, is it is an entirely negative western identity and entirely dependent on Christianity. Specifically, it requires people of some status to defend Christianity and the Christian belief in the super natural. Atheism has always been the oxpecker of mass movements. Everything about it relies on its host both tolerating it and thriving on its own. It’s why atheism has had its spasms of success when Christianity in America has had a revival, as in the 80’s and the 2000’s.

Atheists will deny this, of course. They will argue, as Dennett often does, that the steep decline of Christianity is proof their arguments were superior. The reason they no longer talk about their thing is they won and their enemy is dead. The fact that there are plenty of Muslims and crackpot feminist airheads around spouting magical oogily-boogily never seems to get their attention for some reason. The only guy to venture into this area was Dawkins, but the Prog quickly reminded him who pays his bills.

That’s always been the tell with atheism. Belief in something as insane as male privilege or implicit whiteness should get their attention. After all, these are not just beliefs in the supernatural, they are primitive beliefs in the supernatural. Men of the classical period had more plausible and complex beliefs than people like Amy Harmon. She is a click away from demanding human sacrifice. Yet, the new atheists were never much interest in those magical beliefs. They were too busy hounding the last Christians.

That’s another tell. Atheism has always been a popular pose on the Left, because it was a useful signal. The bad whites loved their boom sticks and sky gods. The good whites rejected all those crazy beliefs. It’s why atheists tended to focus on the mainstream of Christianity, like Catholics and mainline Protestant churches. Mormons were always an easy target. They avoided the Jews and black Baptists. Sure, once in while a zinger against the tribe would be tossed in, but the enemy was always white Christians.

The decline on atheism is a good example of the perils of negative identity. When you define yourself as being in opposition to someone or something, you inevitably become a slave to it. Your very existence depends on it. As the main Christian churches collapse in scandal and bizarre attempts to move Left, the enemies for atheists to attack are getting more difficult to find.

What I find interesting is how many people now understand that atheism is not what it etymologically purports to be, a lack of belief in gods, or even a lack of belief in the supernatural, but what it has observably been since the Abbe Jean Meslier posthumously published his Memoir of the Thoughts and Feelings of Jean Meslier: Clear and Evident Demonstrations of the Vanity and Falsity of All the Religions of the World in 1729, mere Western anti-Christianity.

That’s all very well and good. But now apply precisely the same historical observation and logic to the concepts of free speech, freedom of thought, and the Enlightenment. What you find yourself concluding may very well surprise, if not dismay, you, depending upon your allegiance to the aforementioned dogmas.

War and rumors of war

The Times of Israel is reporting on an Israeli government minister’s statement about how the US President and the Israeli Prime Minister are going to divide Jerusalem in the latest iteration of a Middle East “Peace Plan”:

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump were planning to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and divide Jerusalem.

Speaking before a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Bennett, who now heads the New Right party, warned the shift in Netanyahu’s declared position would come “a day or two after election day” on April 9.

Shortly after the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu responded to Bennett’s claim with a terse denial.

“It’s natural for him to be anxious, and to get a little confused,” Netanyahu said of Bennett. “It goes without saying that elections can do funny things to small parties.”

In a statement, Netanyahu’s Likud party called Bennett’s warning “utter piffle with no connection to reality. After the elections, Netanyahu will establish a right-wing government under his leadership.”

In his initial comments to the press, Bennett said that the Trump administration had completed its plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

“Netanyahu and President Trump have agreed to come out with the plan to establish a Palestinian state on 90 percent [of the West Bank]. They’ve agreed not to present the plan before election day so that it doesn’t hurt Netanyahu, but a day or two after election day the plan will be presented, and will include the division of Jerusalem.”

In the meanwhile, the US has gone back on the promises it made to the Turkish government in order to prevent Turkey from invading northern Syria.

The so called Manbij Roadmap was signed in June, 2018, a full 6 months before Trump’s withdrawal announcement. The deal requires the US to work with Turkey to remove all terrorist groups from Manbij– which is a Syrian city east of the Euphrates– and to assist with security during the transition period. This was the deal the US made with Erdogan during a period of heightened tensions between the two NATO allies. The agreement was made to placate Erdogan and to forestall the imminent invasion by Turkish troops massed on the Syrian border. Readers need to understand that Turkey is not behaving irrationally or precipitously. The Trump team made the deal, and Turkey expects them to keep that deal, that is the long and short of it.

The media has also mischaracterized Trump’s December 19th announcement to withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria bringing an end to the failed 8 year-long military campaign. The announcement was not the decision of an unstable and impulsive autocrat who had no real grasp of the situation. (as the media would like you to believe) What the media failed to report is that Trump had discussed the issue with a frustrated Erdogan just days earlier, and he decided to withdraw to avoid an acrimonious split with a NATO ally who was threatening to invade at any minute. Check out this article at the Guardian dated December 12, 2018, just 7 days before Trump’s announcement.

“The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said that Turkey will launch a military operation against the Kurds in northern Syria within days, in a decision that could signal a shift in Turkish-US relations and have far-reaching consequences for Syria’s future.

Long frustrated by US support for Kurdish militias that Turkey views as terrorists, Erdoğan has threatened to push deeper into north-eastern Syria since sending Turkish forces into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in February.

The president said during a televised speech in Ankara on Wednesday that the operation was imminent. “We will begin our operation to free the east of the Euphrates [river] from the separatist organisation within a few days,” he told MPs. “Our target is not the American soldiers – it is the terror organisations that are active in the region.”

Erdoğan also expressed disappointment that US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria had not left the town of Manbij, as agreed in a US-Turkish deal brokered this year. “The Americans are not being honest; they are still not removing terrorists [from Manbij],” he said. “Therefore, we will do it.” (Turkey primed to start offensive against US-backed Kurds in Syria, The Guardian)

There was no mention of Erdogan’s threats in any of the mainstream news publications. The focus was almost entirely on Trump who was blasted as impetuous and ignorant, a foreign policy dilettante. In fact, Trump was merely pursuing the rational option, which was to give ground on Turkey’s legitimate national security needs while concealing his real motives for the policy-change. Naturally, he couldn’t say the US was withdrawing because of Turkey’s sabre rattling, but that, in fact, is what happened. And that’s why Trump announced a ‘complete withdrawal of US troops’; it was a clumsy effort to hide the fact that Washington was backing down on their plan to control the area up to the Turkish border. The Trump team tried to make it look like the president was just keeping a campaign promise, but–as you can see– there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Now, of course, the administration has abandoned its withdrawal plan and decided to keep 400 troops in Syria indefinitely. Unfortunately, the new policy only further exacerbates the tension between the US and Turkey. The reduction in troops does not in any way alleviate Turkey’s security concerns, in fact, it worsens them because it indicates that Washington is more resolved than ever to preserve the status quo. If the US and their multinational allies stay, the YPG will continue to occupy Manbij and other territory along the Turkish border, the de facto independent Kurdish state in East Syria will be preserved, and Turkey will be prevented from resettling the more than 3 million Syrian refugees it has housed for the last 8 years. So, how exactly does Turkey benefit from this troop-reduction plan?

It doesn’t. Turkey doesn’t get anything out of the deal. Nor does the new arrangement fulfill the basic requirements of the Manbij Roadmap. There won’t be any joint Turkish-US patrols because Washington is now committed to keeping Turkey out of Syria altogether in order to “protect the Kurds”, which is a misleading sobriquet that is used to hide the real motive, which is to occupy east Syria and protect Washington’s terrorist-linked militia.

So, will Trump’s modified plan work? Will Erdogan see the withdrawal of some US troops as an honest attempt at peace and security?

No, of course not, because nothing has changed. The only choice Erdogan has is to ratchet up the pressure by delivering more threats to invade. And that is precisely the course that Erdogan has decided to pursue. 

So, not only will Turkey likely invade, but it now knows what the Russians have learned, which is that there is no point in even trying to reach an agreement with the United States, because the USA does not keep its word. And while the US military gets entangled everywhere from Afghanistan to Venezuela, Russia and China continue to bide their time and quietly improve their carrier-killing capabilities.

It’s really rather remarkable how every US president since Nixon seems utterly determined to throw themselves on the sword of their own Mid-East “Peace Plan”. I know literally nothing about the latest one, but I do know this: it won’t work.

No sympathy

If you want LGBTQWTF equality, then you deserve it, good and hard:

Andraya Yearwood hears the comments, usually from adults and usually not to her face.

She shouldn’t be running, they say, not against girls.

Yearwood, a 17-year-old junior at Cromwell High School, is one of two transgender high school sprinters in Connecticut, transitioning to female.

She recently finished second in the 55-meter dash at the state open indoor track championships. The winner, Terry Miller of Bloomfield High, is also transgender and set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds. Yearwood finished in 7.01 seconds and the third-place competitor, who is not transgender, finished in 7.23 seconds.

Miller and Yearwood also topped the 100-meter state championships last year, and Miller won the 300 this season.

Critics say their gender identity amounts to an unfair advantage, expressing a familiar argument in a complex debate for transgender athletes as they break barriers across sports around the world from high school to the pros.

“I have learned a lot about myself and about other people through this transition. I always try to focus most on all of the positive encouragement that I have received from family, friends and supporters,” Yearwood said. “I use the negativity to fuel myself to run faster.”

Connecticut is one of 17 states that allow transgender high school athletes to compete without restrictions, according to Transathlete.com, which tracks state policies in high school sports across the country. Seven states have restrictions that make it difficult for transgender athletes to compete while in school, like requiring athletes to compete under the gender on their birth certificate, or allowing them to participate only after going through sex-reassignment procedures or hormone therapies.

The other states either have no policy or handle the issue on a case-by-case basis.

Yearwood acknowledges she is stronger than many of her cisgender competitors, but says girls who are not transgender may have other advantages.

“One high jumper could be taller and have longer legs than another, but the other could have perfect form, and then do better,” she said. “One sprinter could have parents who spend so much money on personal training for their child, which in turn, would cause that child to run faster.”

Miller, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said that if she felt a competitor had an unfair advantage, it would simply push her to try to improve.

One of their competitors, Selina Soule, says the issue is about fairness on the track with wider implications. The Glastonbury High School junior finished eighth in the 55, missing out on qualifying for the New England regionals by two spots.

Soule believes that had Miller and Yearwood not run, she would be on her way to race in Boston in front of more college coaches.

“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing,” she said. “I fully support and am happy for these athletes for being true to themselves. They should have the right to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had extra rules to keep the competition fair.”

If you fully support these athletes, then stop crying about losing to them. Frankly, I don’t see how separate boys and girls competitions can be permitted any more than separate black and white competitions are.

In fact, isn’t it totally unequalitarian to deny people who don’t have the good fortune to attend high school, or be of high school age, the right to compete in high school track meets?

If equality is the standard, then impose complete equality across every single social construct. And if you won’t do that, then you obviously don’t believe in equality and we’re just arguing over where to draw the lines between various differences.

Corrosion in audio

Corrosion (The Corroding Empire, Book One)

Written by Johan Kalsi and narrated by: Jon Mollison. 7 hours 3 minutes. DRM-free ebook included in both Kindle and Epub formats.

Galactic society is ruled by algorithms. From interstellar travel and planetary terraforming to artificial intelligence and agriculture, every human endeavor has become completely dependent upon the hypercomplex equations that optimize the activities making life possible across hundreds of inhabited worlds. Throughout the galaxy, Man has become dependent upon the reliable operation of 10 million different automated systems.

And when things begin to go wrong and mysterious accidents begin to happen no one has any idea what is happening, except for a sentient medical drone and the First Technocrat of Continox. But their ability to even begin to try fixing the unthinkably complicated problem of galaxy-wide algorithmic decay is made considerably more difficult by the fact the former is an outlaw and the latter is facing a death sentence.

Johan Kalsi is Finland’s hottest science fiction author. An accomplished geneticist as well as a 6’3″ ex-Finnish Marine, in Corrosion, Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimovian than Asimov himself. Corrosion marks his English-language debut.


Jaggis was unsurprised when he was permitted to take his customary seat in the center of his colleagues, as it may as well have been the witness stand. All eyes were on him. There was an audience in attendance; the room was packed, almost entirely with media.

He wondered if he would be thrown to the mercy of the Human League immediately or if the process would be drawn out. A part of him wished they would simply get the business over with quickly, and without requiring him to participate in the charade.

As he expected, the Third and Fifth Technocrats were running the show. Although Rikker-Smythe was nominally presiding—he wore the sparkling digital sash that had hitherto been Jaggis’s prerogative as First Technocrat—one could see by the way he looked to Harraf and St. Asko for approval that appealing to his common sense would be fruitless. Did the Human League have something on the Second Technocrat? Or was it simply his natural weakness of character permitting the two predatory politicians to dominate him?

He shrugged. It didn’t matter now. What he needed to know was if Harraf was merely attempting to unseat him or if he had more nefarious intentions. He found it difficult to believe that either man was a genuine Humanist, but the fact that he’d been arrested on the same day as the assassination attempt smacked of St. Asko’s meticulous, belt-and-suspenders approach to life.

“As the initial order of business, it falls to me, as Second Technocrat, to ask the First Technocrat to recuse himself from this discussion,” Rikker-Smythe said. He sounded authoritative, he looked authoritative, with his thick white hair and patrician features, but Jaggis knew the noble appearance was misleading. The Second Technocrat was a junior officer in an admiral’s body, and had made a career of successfully shying away from all responsibility. “It would not be appropriate for him to participate in this discussion, as he is to be its subject.”

“If he’s the subject, he’s going to have to participate, Mikke!” The Eighth Technocrat, a fleshy New Tejan, cracked, but subsided when Harraf glared at him.

“Well, I mean to say, he cannot participate as a participant-”

“Oh, for Space’s sake!” Harraf broke in. “I move that Caden Jaggis be temporarily stripped of his seat on the Council while the matter of his alleged criminal negligence concerning the growing incidence of algorithmic decay throughout Continox.”

“Seconded,” St. Asko said, barely beating three others who echoed him.

“It’s not necessary,” Jaggis said quietly.

“What’s that?” Rikker-Smythe asked.

“I will recuse myself from the Council today in order to permit the consideration of my actions, so long as they are limited to this specific accusation of criminal negligence under Statue 245.856, subsection 28b.”

Rikker-Smythe looked at Harraf, who looked thoughtful before glancing quickly at St. Asko, who gave no sign of acceptance or approval. Harraf nodded, and Rikker-Smythe cleared his throat. “The First Technocrat has graciously offered to recuse himself from our deliberations, therefore I shall preside until such time as he resumes his duties or a new First Technocrat is named.”

The latter looked to be a much more likely proposition, Jaggis thought. But would it be Harraf or St. Asko who would replace him? Was it the taciturn Fifth Technocrat who was the real force behind this, and not his openly ambitious colleague?

“I will now open the floor to questions, in order of precedence. Tech Harraf, you may proceed.”

“Thank you, Tech Rikker-Smythe.” Harraf nodded to the Second Technocrat and flashed him an obsequious smile. “And I should like to, if I may, commend the way you have handled this unfortunate situation with the utmost fairness to all the parties involved.”

Jaggis sighed and tried not to roll his eyes as Rikker-Smythe beamed and murmured some self-deprecatory nonsense. He really should have done a better job of promoting stronger allies on the Council; all the Second Technocrat really wanted was to be petted by his colleagues and admired by the public. Harraf’s shameless flattery was rendering the man as pliable as molten plastic.

“Now,” said Harraf staring down his long, elegant nose at Jag. “How long have you been aware of the potential problem of algorithmic decay?”

“In theory or in practice?”

“In theory.”

“Twenty-five years.” Jaggis knew they were expecting a denial, or at least an evasion, and smiled at their murmurs. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of going through the pointless drama of pinning him down. “We’ve all known it was at least a potential problem since the Curbotron Incident. No one really took the theory seriously at the time, but it’s a matter of public record. I expect even you might have come across the concept at a cocktail party on occasion, Mellam.”

The Third Technocrat flashed his white teeth again, but there was death in his eyes. Like most politicians, he bitterly resented any suggestion that he owed his place more to his networking skills than his technical expertise. But he kept his cool.

“Twenty-five years,” he replied calmly. “You’ve known about the problem for twenty-five years. And when did you begin to investigate the subject?”

“About three months ago.”

“And would you say algorithmic decay is a trivial problem, a significant problem, or a major problem?”

“I would say it is somewhere between a planetary catastrophe and an existential threat to the species.”

His statement was met by was considerably more murmuring and shifting of seats on the part of the councilors. But the audience was even more affected, as there were gasps and inadvertent outcries on the part of those watching who had been hitherto unaware of the situation.

“What measures have you taken to in an attempt to address the problem?”

“None,” Jaggis answered Harraf. “And you, Mellam, what have you done.”

Harraf glared at Rikker-Smythe, who harrumphed and intervened.

“Tech Jaggis, you will address the Member of the Council as Technocrat or Tech Harraf.”

“Very well, let me rephrase that. What have you done, Technocrat?”

Harraf gestured and rows of figures began to spill across the huge screen behind him. “I took the initiative to establish a full research investigation of the problem, an investigation that you initially deemed unnecessary, ignored, and eventually, stifled.”

“I did nothing of the kind!” Jaggis couldn’t help raising his voice.

Harraf smiled coldly and gestured again. Jaggis heard his own voice, declaring in his own words, that algodecay was not real, that there was no need to do any research into it, and that the very idea it was real was likely the product of a diseased mind. It was a recording of one of his early conversations with Servo, and Jaggis winced as he heard the arrogance and disdain that fairly dripped from his voice.

“Wait, I can explain–”

“The Council has obtained a quantity of your written communications in which you repeatedly state similar opinions, despite the best efforts of various parties to bring the issue to your attention, Mr. Jaggis. Is it necessary for us to read them out loud or do you admit to obstructing efforts to research the causes and consequences of algorithimic decay?”

“I… it’s not quite…”

“Are the allegations true or not, Mr. Jaggis!” Harraf was insistent.

“They are true,” Jaggis said reluctantly, knowing he had no choice but to admit as much. And they were true, he had to admit. But his words were being taken out of context! Surely the other Technocrats had to understand that.

No church can serve two masters

The African Methodists choose Jesus Christ over Mammon:

Please hear me when I say as graciously as I can: we Africans are not children in need of western enlightenment when it comes to the church’s sexual ethics. We do not need to hear a progressive U.S. bishop lecture us about our need to “grow up.”

Let me assure you, we Africans, whether we have liked it or not, have had to engage in this debate for many years now. We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal, church elite in the U.S.

We stand with our Filipino friends! We stand with our sisters and brothers in Europe and Russia! And yes, we stand with our allies in America.

We stand with farmers in Zambia, tech workers in Nairobi, Sunday School teachers in Nigeria, biblical scholars in Liberia, pastors in the Congo, United Methodist Women in Cote d’Ivoire, and thousands of other United Methodists all across Africa who have heard no compelling reasons for changing our sexual ethics, our teachings on marriage, and our ordination standards!

We are grounded in God’s word and the gracious and clear teachings of our church. On that we will not yield! We will not take a road that leads us from the truth! We will take the road that leads to the making of disciples of Jesus Christ for transformation of the world!

I hope and pray, for your sake, that you will walk down that road with us. We would warmly welcome you as our traveling companions, but if you choose another road, we Africans cannot go with you…. Some Africans have been told that if a gracious exit petition is passed our evangelical friends in the U.S. will go their own way and no longer support efforts in Africa. That is not true.

Many of us in Africa have developed deep and long lasting friendships with our brothers and sisters in the U.S. Those relationships will not be severed if a gracious exit petition passes.

Unfortunately, some United Methodists in the U.S. have the very faulty assumption that all Africans are concerned about is U.S. financial support. Well, I am sure, being sinners like all of you, some Africans are fixated on money.

But with all due respect, a fixation on money seems more of an American problem than an African one. We get by on far less than most Americans do; we know how to do it. I’m not so sure you do. So if anyone is so naïve or condescending as to think we would sell our birth right in Jesus Christ for American dollars, then they simply do not know us.

We are seriously joyful in following Jesus Christ and God’s holy word to us in the Bible. And in truth, we think many people in the U.S. and in parts of Europe could learn a great deal from us. The UM churches, pastors and lay people who partner with us acknowledge as much.

Please understand me when I say the vast majority of African United Methodists will never, ever trade Jesus and the truth of the Bible for money.

What a bold and admirable man of God! God will bless those African churches for their faithfulness and bless their nations through them. Those enlightened liberal American churches will die, for they have forsaken Jesus Christ in the name of sin and worldly approval.

Darkstream 20k

To celebrate this subscriber milestone for the Darkstream, I’ve uploaded this one-hour 43-minute excerpt from the Jordanetics audiobook, which includes Milo’s Foreword, my own Introduction, and chapters one and five. If you haven’t read or listened to the book yet, this extended audio sample provides a solid foundation for the book’s case against Jordan Peterson and his evil philosophy.

It includes one of my favorite sections of the book, which addresses the oft-heard claim that Jordan Peterson’s thinking is simply too advanced for less-refined intellects to understand. The claim is particularly amusing for me in light of how few recognize, or even notice, my occasional literary pyrotechnic.

Objection 1: Jordan Peterson is a complex thinker with a Platonic approach that is easily misunderstood by those who don’t carefully follow him. You just don’t understand him.

I answer that, It is true that Peterson is inclined to excessive wordiness and run-on sentences, his references are often obscure, and the examples he provides are frequently too loosely connected and meandering for the average person to easily follow. But the nebulous word salad Peterson customarily presents in lieu of logical arguments is not at all typical of a genius-level intellect, to the contrary, it is much more commonly observed among academic poseurs who wish to be mistaken for one.

If you have actually read the great thinkers of whom Peterson is almost entirely ignorant, one thing that will often strike you is the intense clarity of their thought processes. Their genius stems from the way in which they enlighten the reader, from the way they turn dark chaos into orderly light. They do not confuse, to the contrary, they clarify.

As an exercise, compare the following four sentences, all of which are more complex than the norm these days. I ran each of them through the Gunning-Fog Index, a weighted average of the number of words per sentence, and the number of long words per word. The index provides a number that is supposed to indicate that the text can be understood by someone who left full-time education at a later age than the number; the higher the number, the more complicated the text. But it’s really just an objective measure of textual complexity.

  • We must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. (GFI 31.6)
  • In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well –such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have. (GFI 21.9)
  • The great dramatists and religious thinkers of the world have been able to grasp this fact, at least implicitly, and to transmit it in story and image; modern analytic thinkers and existential theorists have attempted to abstract these ideas upward into “higher consciousness,” and to present them in logical and purely semantic form. (GFI 18.2)
  • We have considered that students in this doctrine have not seldom been hampered by what they have found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, partly also because those things that are needful for them to know are not taught according to the order of the subject matter, but according as the plan of the book might require, or the occasion of the argument offer, partly, too, because frequent repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of readers. (GFI 40.2)

Were you able to distinguish the Peterson quote from the Aquinas, the Aristotle, and the Plato quotes? If you noticed, the Peterson sentence, which is the third sentence, is considerably shorter and less structurally complex than the other three examples, but it is also observably less clear than them. Whereas the Aristotle sentence in particular is rich with meaning, as it implies a vital distinction between rhetoric and dialectic that many today have trouble grasping even when it is explained to them in no little detail, but nevertheless clarifies the relevant point for the reader, the Peterson sentence unnecessarily complicates what is a fairly simple and straightforward observation about the mythopoetic human response to the concepts of good and evil.

And yes, the GFI on that last sentence was a respectable 36.3. But it wasn’t actually that hard to follow or understand, was it? Complexity is neither ambiguity nor nebulosity, and insight does not require complexity. Also, in case you’re interested, the authors of the four sentences, in order, were: Aristotle, Plato/Socrates, Peterson, Aquinas.

All-male military draft unconstitutional

The inevitable consequence of the drive to put women in the military is on the verge of arriving:

A federal judge in Texas has declared that the all-male military draft is unconstitutional, ruling that “the time has passed” for a debate on whether women belong in the military.

The decision deals the biggest legal blow to the Selective Service System since the Supreme Court upheld the draft in 1981. In Rostker v. Goldberg, the court ruled that the male-only draft was “fully justified” because women were ineligible for combat roles.

But U.S. District Judge Gray Miller ruled late Friday that while historical restrictions on women serving in combat “may have justified past discrimination,” men and women are now equally able to fight. In 2015, the Pentagon lifted all restrictions for women in military service.

The case was brought by the National Coalition For Men, a men’s rights group, and two men who argued the all-male draft was unfair.

Men who fail to register with the Selective Service System at their 18th birthday can be denied public benefits like federal employment and student loans. Women cannot register for Selective Service.

The ruling comes as an 11-member commission is studying the future of the draft, including whether women should be included or whether there should continue to be draft registration at all.

Regardless of what the needs of the U.S. military may be now, we know there will be military drafts in the future because there will be war in the future. And now, thanks to the feminists, young women who don’t want to serve in the military will be drafted and forced to risk their lives in combat.

Feminism has always been focused on destroying Christian Western civilization. And turning young women who should be wives and mothers into sterile worker bees and amazons is an important part of that goal.