Category: Uncategorized

The media is not above the law

I’ve been hard on Jonah Goldberg of late, and correctly so, which is why it is important to give the author of Liberal Fascism his due when he gets it right, as he does here with regards to the death of Gawker.

The real issue seems to be that journalistic corporations are just different than every other kind of corporation. No one would bat an eye if, say, George Soros, bankrolled an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit by the ACLU against a “normal” corporation like Microsoft or Bank of America. But when a media outlet is in the dock, the rules are different.

Gilles Wullus of the group Reporters Without Borders told the BBC that the Gawker case poses a dire threat to press freedom. “Journalism ethics should be taken care of by journalists themselves,” he said. “In case they do not, we think that nobody else can do it in their place, neither states nor governments; especially not wealthy individuals.”

A free press is an important institution in a democracy, but journalists don’t have any rights the rest of us don’t. What nonsense.

Yes, a free press is an important institution in a democracy (and even more important in non-democracies), but journalists don’t have any rights the rest of us don’t. A reporter has the right to free speech, and so does a plumber. Indeed, in the era of smartphones, it has never been more true: We all have the right and ability to commit journalism. That right manifests itself in people, not corporations. The New York Times, to the extent that it is a “corporate person,” should have no more (and no fewer) rights than Exxon Mobil.

Imagine the outrage if I said, “Petroleum-industry ethics should be taken care of by petroleum industry executives themselves.” It’s certainly fair to argue against the merits of the verdict. But no one is above the law. Not even journalists, never mind corporations in the journalism business.

There is no “Fourth Estate”. There is nothing special about the media and they have no rights that anyone else doesn’t have. And when they break the law, be it criminal or civil, they are liable for the consequences.

On the other hand, Jonah’s NRO colleague, Mario Loyola, fails to understand that the conservative media is, in part, culpable for the declining regard in which America’s institutions are held in a piece that is unmitigated cuckservative blather.

Democracy depends vitally on reverence for “the majesty of the democratic system.” That means reverence for its basic institutions, if not for the men and women who run them as individuals. It’s one thing to criticize politicians as crooked and mendacious, but quite another to say that our democratic institutions are themselves corrupt. If that is true in any major respect, it is vital to solve the problem fast. Democracy begins to die when democratic institutions lose the people’s trust.

Alas, such talk finds a willing audience today, across the political spectrum. During Obama’s entire presidency, trust in government has bounced along rock bottom at less than 20 percent — unprecedented in the history of polling.

While in power, Democrats have done enormous damage. During Obama’s first two years, when they controlled Congress, and since then in the form of unilateral executive actions, the Democrats have verbally assailed the legitimacy of vital democratic institutions, including the Constitution, the police, corporations, and, of course, elections….

President Bush’s last words were “I believe I have upheld the honor of the presidency.” We could do worse than to ask God to bless the next president with a similar sense of humility and dignity, and a similar awe for the majesty of the democratic system, but it will be for naught if the American people aren’t thankful for it.

Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
One reason the people don’t trust the institutions anymore is because commentators like you are constantly lying to them.

Mario Loyola @Mario_A_Loyola
Tell me Dark Lord, do you sit around at home all day defeating the enemy with these flaccid little one-liners? Wow

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
You can lie to people all you want, but no one is buying it anymore. The nation is dying and you’re still virtue-signaling.

When dilution fails

Steve Sailer observes that distributed integration is bound to fail:

A general problem faced by liberal social policies is that they are all based on 1960s assumptions about the immense size of the white Baby Boom majority into which minority problem people can be diluted at little harm to individual members of the majority.

The fundamental problem with progressive social policies in 2016 is that the country is running out of white kids to use to absorb the problems of minority kids.

We could charitably call this the Tragic Paradox of Liberalism: the liberal solution has always been to integrate the problem minorities with the majority, but to get the political power to do that, liberals have systematically set about reducing the majority to a minority, which means that their traditional solutions won’t work anymore, even in theory.

The secret way in which the local governments are surreptitiously buying suburban houses and installing black families in them is downright diabolical, considering how much effort whites around the USA have put into peacefully escaping minority-invaded communities.

This is not only evil on the part of the local governments, but it is extremely short-sighted, because if white flight is removed as an option, the only alternative that remains is white fight. Perhaps triggering that is the goal, as it appears the government officials are perfectly aware of the extreme unpopularity of their actions.

Inevitable

I don’t think I have ever been so unsurprised by an email in my life. To put it in context, I have to first explain that a producer from an NPR-affiliated radio station contacted me about the Hugo Awards.

As I’m sure you’re aware WorldCon is about to start…. As we’ve been researching and thinking about this event we discovered that in addition to the celebration, learning and networking there’s also a bit of identity politics controversy surrounding the Hugo award. As the conference unfolds we want to host a conversation with members of the Sci-Fi community and how they view the events. Our hope is to get a sense of what’s at stake and why it’s important. We really value having a diversity of perspectives on this issue.


I’d like to talk with you, by phone, today or tomorrow for about
15 minutes. This way we can make sure we’re a good fit and develop some
potential talking points for what we could discuss
during the show.

I had a few minutes to kill, so despite knowing how it was going to turn out, I called him back and we had a short, friendly conversation. He was genuinely curious about what was, to him, quite clearly an alien perspective. And I had to laugh when I got this the next day.


Thank you for sharing your time with us yesterday. I wanted to follow up and let you know that we found some folks who will make a better fit for this conversation and consequently we won’t be needing you as a confirmed guest tomorrow.


You don’t say. Anyhow, radio and television producers, this is why I keep telling you that I’m not interested in appearing on your show. See, I know the drill. I’ve turned down three other interview requests in the last day alone; keep this in mind if you’re wondering why various pieces on the Alt-Right often appear to ignore certain individuals you think merit mention. Sure, sometimes it’s because they’re playing the old “we don’t want to give them a platform” game. But more often, of late, it’s because we don’t see any point in talking to them and playing the token villain’s role.

That doesn’t mean I won’t talk to you all, though. Everyone is invited to the No Award 2016 Party, which will kick off 15 minutes before the Hugo Awards start at 8 PM Central tomorrow night. Special guests to be announced later as they let me know if they’ll be able to attend.

Speaking of the Hugo Awards, as the VFM are everywhere around the globe pursuing the shadowy will of their SDL, we have been culturally enriched by several reports from the Worldcon, including this one.


Here is a picture of Rape Rape in the wild. I was stunned by two or three things:

  1. Con attendees are mostly old farts.
  2. They look even more unhealthy than the average crowd in a WalMart on EBT night.
  3. GRRM is a close approximation of the average male attendee.
Watch out, ladies! One never knows what diabolically Byzantine form of nonconsensual relations is being worked out on paper.

Loki’s Child

Loki’s Child is a tale of music, revolution, and revenge. A pagan dystopian paean to chaos, a libertarian manifesto, and an insider’s scathing critique of the music industry, this is a book that Robert Anton Wilson might have written if he had known how to play electric guitar. This is a book so metal that even the consonants require umlauts. This is a book that will make you first question the author’s sanity, and then the sanity of the society in which you live.

Jasmine, Mitzi, and Sandy are Fatal Lipstick, a three-piece girl-metal band with a million-dollar record contract and less musical talent than the average gangster rapper. They dedicate songs such as “Whoredumb”, “Greed is Bad”, and “Guts Ripped Out” to the Devil and declare their greatest ambition is to inspire their fans to kill themselves. Their own sound engineer thinks they should be dragged out into the street and shot for their crimes against music. And it falls to Ezron Blenderman, a record producer who puts on his pants one leg at a time and makes hit records, to somehow transform their horrendous incompetence into something that will sell millions of records to unsuspecting teenagers around the world.

But one day, Blenderman catches Jasmine playing the guitar by herself… and begins to discover that the daughter of the Norse God of Chaos has no intention of becoming a manufactured one-hit wonder. Loki’s Child is angry, and she intends to set the whole world on fire.

Loki’s Child is 380 pages, DRM-free, and retails for $4.99 on Amazon. This is the same book that some New Release subscribers received as a bonus book last year, but it has been considerably edited since. However, please note that the book contains a number of elements that some Castalia House readers may find objectionable, including vulgarities, a pagan perspective, drug use, violence, the music industry, and a revolutionary libertarian theme.

If you are, like me, a fan of either Robert Anton Wilson or Philip K. Dick during his VALIS phase, (which is to say his most reality-challenged phase) you will not like this book, you will love it. Loki’s Child is a satire even more biting than The Missionaries; while it is often funny, the humor is considerably darker and there is an angry edge to it that is more than a little appropriate to the political situation in which we find ourselves today.

Like its recent predecessor, Loki’s Child is a novel that would never have gotten past the gatekeepers at any other publishing house. And the fact that the book is about the music industry, takes place in part in Tokyo, refers to kawai metal, has a libertarian theme, and is written by someone named Fenris Wulf might lead some to believe it was written by a three-time Billboard-charting recording artist who studied in Japan, recently attended a Babymetal concert, has been named one of the 25 leading internet libertarians, and founded a game development house named Fenris Wolf.

However, I assure you, these things are mere coincidences.

From the reviews:

  • The book is smoothly-written. That’s a considerable feat, as it also manages to be rambling, nihlistic, and insane! The language is well-chosen, and events flow naturally from one to another, with no unnatural transitions. It is also very funny. The hypothetical bands and artists are wonderful… I would strongly recommend “Loki’s Child” to virtually any reader, particularly those that enjoy Douglas Adams, satire, music, science fiction and fantasy, or simply entertaining, unhinged stories.

That seems likely

I’m sure the good people of Calais, who can’t even drive on the highways near their homes, will be happy to have a few of the people smashing up their cars move in with them:

There are currently 147 reception centres across France, but these are in massive demand as desperate refugees continue to flee the Middle East.

Housing minister Emmanuelle Cosse has pledged to built a further 50 centres before the end of next month in a desperate bid to ease the crisis.

But she has also called on French people to open up their homes to migrants in need. Several organisations have already promised to help.

The group Singa has helped 300 migrants find a temporary home since it launched its ‘Calm’ scheme last June.

Singa co-director Alice Barbe said: “We match people according to where they live, their job, their hobbies, and the languages they speak.

“If things work out, the migrant will remain in the person’s home for a minimum of two weeks, and for up to nine months.”

How much do you want to bet that neither Cosse nor Barbe has any migrants living with them?

Twitter eats itself

It’s fascinating to watch Twitter wage war on its raison d’etre:

Twitter is taking another step forward in ensuring that its service is a safe place to be. The company today announced that it’s giving everyone access to its quality filter, which automatically screens out tweets from suspicious accounts and hopefully will minimize or eliminate abuse from taking place on the platform.

Users will also now have the ability to limit which notifications they receive across both mobile and the web.

During the company’s second quarter earnings call, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey responded to complaints around harassment, bullying, and abuse that seemed to be running rampant on the service. He acknowledged that Twitter hadn’t done enough, but promised that it was working on not only improving enforcement of its policies, but also developing new technological solutions to combat the hate.

The launch of this feature to everyone comes on the heels of a critical report by BuzzFeed alleging a lack of concern Twitter has displayed toward harassment. The company has since responded to the article claiming that it’s not factual and “We are going to continue our work on making Twitter a safer place.”

As for notifications, you can now select to receive notifications from just those you follow.

The thing is, if you just mind your business and simply mute or block anyone you don’t want to see, there isn’t a problem. I give people two chances to demonstrate they’ve got something substantive to say, and once I determine that they’re too stupid or too argumentative to bother, I mute them and move on.

So, given that it’s already quite easy to avoid any significant or persistent unpleasantries, what Twitter is trying to do is effectively impossible. They’re trying to make it a place that will feel sufficiently safe to users who are going out of their way to interact with people they don’t know while avoiding any criticism from them.

People have been asking about Big Fork. It’s going well. Figure an announcement within 5 weeks.

Then they fight you

(((Joel Stein))) attacks the Alt-Right in Time:

Trolling is, overtly, a political fight. Liberals do indeed troll–sex-advice columnist Dan Savage used his followers to make Googling former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s last name a blunt lesson in the hygienic challenges of anal sex; the hunter who killed Cecil the lion got it really bad.

But trolling has become the main tool of the alt-right, an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men’s rights and against immigration and may have used the computer from Weird Science to fabricate Donald Trump. Not only does Trump share their attitudes, but he’s got mad trolling skills: he doxxed Republican primary opponent Senator Lindsey Graham by giving out his cell-phone number on TV and indirectly got his Twitter followers to attack GOP political strategist Cheri Jacobus so severely that her lawyers sent him a cease-and-desist order.

The alt-right’s favorite insult is to call men who don’t hate feminism “cucks,” as in “cuckold.” Republicans who don’t like Trump are “cuckservatives.” Men who don’t see how feminists are secretly controlling them haven’t “taken the red pill,” a reference to the truth-revealing drug in The Matrix. They derisively call their adversaries “social-justice warriors” and believe that liberal interest groups purposely exploit their weakness to gain pity, which allows them to control the levers of power. Trolling is the alt-right’s version of political activism, and its ranks view any attempt to take it away as a denial of democracy.

It’s always educational to see how the media inevitably attempts to push its Narrative by redefining terms. They’re actually attempting to ban self-expression in the name of self-expression, in much the same way the EU tries to bar democracy in the name of democracy.


The alt-right argues that if you can’t handle opprobrium, you should just turn off your computer. But that’s arguing against self-expression, something antithetical to the original values of the Internet. 

No, that’s not arguing against self-expression, that IS self-expression. Moreover, it is using the media’s own argument against it: “if you don’t like it, turn off the TV”. It’s amazing to see them resorting to the Moral Majority’s position they used to oppose. They’re going to pine for the good old days when they were dealing with the terrible, no-good Religious Right they hated so much, as the Alt-Right is considerably less tolerant and merciful.

And, of course, the conservative media loves this stuff; they hate the Alt-Right worse than they ever hated communism, leftists, or Democrats.

Dana Perino ‏@DanaPerino
How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet – article in TIME – we are doing this subject on @TheFiveFNC. Mostly AGREE!

First the New York Times, then Time magazine, and now Fox News are attacking the Alt Right. Looks like we got ourselves a new media offensive on our hands. This is a good sign. They used to ignore us. Then they mocked us. Now, they’re fighting us. You know what comes next. We win.

Conservatives don’t get it

I genuinely like Ross Douthat. He is generally honest, and he genuinely tries to make sense of what is going on, most of the time, even though he reliably fails to understand what is happening on the right side of the political spectrum or why the Alt-Right exists.

Then finally, among men who were promised pliant centerfolds and ended up single with only high-speed internet to comfort them, the men’s sexual revolution has curdled into a toxic subculture, resentful of female empowerment in all its forms.

This is where you find Trump’s strongest (and, yes, strangest) fans. He’s become the Daddy Alpha for every alpha-aspiring beta male, whose mix of moral liberation and misogyny keeps the Ring-a-Ding-Ding dream alive.

There aren’t nearly enough of these fans to win him the election. Steinem’s revolution (Clintonian complications and all) should easily beat Hef’s at the ballot box this year.

But the cultural conflict between these two post-revolutionary styles — between frat guys and feminist bluestockings, Gamergaters and the diversity police, alt-right provocateurs and “woke” dudebros, the mouthbreathers who poured hate on the all-female “Ghostbusters” and the tastemakers who pretended it was good — is likely here to stay. With time and Christianity’s further decline, it could eclipse older culture war battles; in the pop culture landscape, it already does.

Ten years ago, liberals pined for a post-religious right, a different culture war.

Be careful what you wish for.

Douthat simply doesn’t understand that the Alt-Right is not the 60’s counter to feminism, we are the nationalist reaction to conservatism’s failure. The issues that absorb him are sideshows. The Alt-Right is on the rise across the West because Douthat, and the conservatism he represents as the New York Times‘s token conservative, completely failed to conserve the nation.

They will call us fascists. They will call us racists. They will call us Nazis. They will call us sexists. They will call us anti-semitic. They will call us ultra-nationalists. They will call us white supremacists.

And whether those charges are true or not, we don’t care. Because we prefer to live in Western civilization, among civilized Western people.

A prescription for Africa

Peter Grant provides his thoughts on aiding Africa:

Based on my extensive experience of Africa, I suggest there are two – and only two – ways in which Western aid should be focused in the short term.  The first is education.  Teach people the basics of how to think, how to use their brains – and do so in a way that is tailored to their current levels of intelligence.  Don’t expect a teenager with an IQ of 70 to function at the same level as someone with an IQ of 100.  He must be taught things he can do – and at which he can succeed – that are commensurate with where he’s at right now.  That way, he won’t get discouraged and abandon his studies.  He can be set tasks that grow progressively more complex and more difficult, but not at a level he can’t master.  His children will go further, and his children’s children further still . . . but he won’t.  He can’t.  That’s the brutal reality of the situation.

The second way in which aid can be useful is in providing basic infrastructure that is operable, and maintainable, and sustainable, by people in the IQ range we’ve discussed.  Examples:

  • It’s pointless giving them a complex engine-powered pump to bring up water from a well if they aren’t capable of maintaining it.  Rather give them a hand-operated pump, one they can understand, and which they can repair themselves if it breaks down.  It’s more and harder work to use it, but it’s also more practicable for them.  When it comes to health care, providing mosquito nets and clean water and hygiene education is far more important than providing anti-AIDS drug cocktails.  Sure, without the latter, people will die;  but without the former, many more people will die. Invest limited resources where they’ll do the most good for the greatest number.  Yes, that means some people will be condemned to die.  That’s economic and cultural reality in Africa.  Live with it.
  • I’ve seen several entrepreneurs in Africa take discarded Western high technology, ‘dumb it down’, and use it with great success.  Example:  pedal-powered washing machines (which we’ve discussed here before).  Old, broken-down automatic washing machines are connected to good old-fashioned bicycles mounted on frames, using drive belts made from locally-produced leather or cloth.  Result;  the pedalers earn a living, local women can wash their clothes much faster and more conveniently than taking them down to the local river (where they’re frequently preyed on by crocodiles), and the entrepreneur who put the whole idea together becomes a Big Man in the local economy – and is able to use his profits for other useful economic ideas.  Moral of the story:  find individuals with that sort of entrepreneurial drive, and help them.  That aid will ‘trickle down’ into the local community and benefit everyone.
  • The corollary to the above is that aid must not – repeat, must not – be given to government officials and bureaucrats who’ll siphon it off into their own pockets.  Corruption, nepotism and dishonesty are not just rife in Africa – they’re a way of life.  Tragically, too many agencies and large aid organizations (all of which should know better) are willing to let dishonest governments and bureaucrats handle aid money, so as not to offend local sensibilities or be seen as ‘neo-colonial’ in their attitudes.  Worse, some of them openly bribe governments and bureaucrats, figuring that it’s better to do that in order to ensure that at least some of the aid they provide reaches those for whom it’s intended.  Often that proportion is ten per cent or less – the rest lines venal pockets further up the food chain.
  • Finally, aid must be distributed in a way that is accountable.  Money and supplies must be accounted for when they arrive, while being sent to their final destination, and upon delivery.  The way they’re used must be monitored, and any discrepancy must result in disciplinary action – i.e. the withholding of further aid from the miscreant(s) involved.  There can be no blind acceptance of someone’s bona fides unless their actions match their words.  There can be no resigned, shoulder-shrugging acceptance of ‘shrinkage’ without a major effort to minimize losses.  If that isn’t done, the venality of Africa will soon ensure that most (if not all) of the aid sent is diverted into fat-cat pockets.  (How do you think Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire, managed to embezzle between $4 billion and $15 billion during his time in power?  It sure wasn’t his salary!)

There is a third way in which aid might be profitably spent – but it’ll never fly, because it’s 100% politically incorrect.  That way would be to hire mercenaries – probably former servicemen from Western armies and their allies – to pacify an area, ensuring that aid workers can operate safely and without coercion.  They can raise and train a local militia if responsible individuals can be found, but that’s unlikely at first.  It’ll be more important for them to proactively attack local thugs and gangs.  That’ll be an object lesson to everybody – “Get with the program, or get dead!”  In an environment where life is so cheap, and atrocities are everyday occurrences, that’s probably the only way in which this could work.  However, the reaction to that by liberals and progressives would be so outraged that, as I said, this idea will never fly.

While I agree with Peter’s diagnosis, I don’t agree with his prescription. Education will not change one single damn thing in Africa because it cannot. The intelligence gap between Europe and Africa is genetic and only several centuries of ruthless eugenics will raise the average intelligence of the latter continent. In fact, despite more people being more educated than ever before, the dysgenic social structure of both the European nations and the USA has already reduced their average intelligence levels; the gap is being reduced, but by lowering the average intelligence levels in Europe and the USA.

That is why we are seeing the Western countries gradually start resembling the better third-world countries. Over time, they will start to resemble Africa, and similar behavioral patterns will begin to exert themselves. The only good news, if it can be described as that, is that the Western warlords of the future will likely be considerably smarter than their African counterparts, so perhaps there will be the occasional Singapore that can serve as the core of a new high-IQ civilization.

And since  the current population explosion in Africa is almost certainly dysgenic, I expect that the average intelligence will actually decline in Africa and the situation will get even worse there, with widespread cannibalism and other practices even more depraved and demonic than mutu beginning to appear.

The more I look at the global situation, the more I am convinced that those in the 1980s who thought Japan and China would dominate the world were correct, they were simply about 100 years early. The fall of the Soviet Union was not the triumph of Western liberal democracy, it was its last chance, but instead of taking that chance, the liberal democracies slashed their own throats. Yes, Japan and China are both economic disasters, but they are still smart, homogeneous nations and they will bounce right back from the next economic crash. Most of the nations of the West are not, and therefore they will not be able to do so.

That, I think, is why China is biding its time. It has no need to defeat the USA. It need only wait and let the USA finish destroying itself.

This is why we de-troll

There is absolutely no point in tolerating endless repetitions of the same argument over and over again from rhetoric-limited SJWs who cannot learn from information and whose thick skulls remain impenetrable to facts, logic, science, and history. Case in point:

Sorry, but I happen to agree with the sentiment that many of the so-called “anti-amnesty” voices here and elsewhere are in fact, racist. I understand Ace’s use of the word “spics”- I do the same thing, in an ironic sense when I make the point that for many of you, “illegal aliens” is a code word for “dirty fucking Mexicans”.

I’m not slamming Mexicans, I’m slamming your attitude towards them and translating some weaselwords into their true meaning, without the code.
Posted by: docweasel at March 29, 2008 03:05 PM

Ah, the old “some of my best friends are dirty fucking Mexicans” ploy. I don’t know about individuals. Its possible you are not. I’m saying that by and large the “anti-amnesty” Malkinite argument is that Mexicans deserve special attacks and exclusion is that 1. Mexicans commit a lot of crimes (while posting anecdotal news items about illegal immigrant crime 2. Mexicans use a lot of services and cost the community more money than they are worth 3. Mexicans are uneducated and unskilled and unworthy of being Americans 4. go back to Mexico, we don’t want your culture here, we don’t want your language here, assimilate and “act white” or you dont deserve citizenship.

Maybe not you personally. But taht’s the way the argument has been framed. And I call racism. A lot of you say “I love Mexicans my best friend is Mexican I work with Mexicans I love Mexicans, btw, fuck Mexicans, we don’t need any more in this country, expel as many as possible and lock the rest out.

The bottom line is, I don’t believe the people who make racist arguments against Mexican immigration, then say they aren’t Mexicans: face it, live with it, if you try to STEREOTYPE an entire ethnicity by thea few criminals you are a fucking racist, period. You don’t like it and you reject it, but you are one anyway, motherfucker.
Posted by: docweasel at March 29, 2008 03:32 PM

And just 8 years later:

That image posted at the top of post isn’t what I’d call “Christian”- I’m the last one to be over-sensitive or pulling the race card, but that image is flat out racist.

No one who calls themselves Christian or bemoans the loss of Christian ethics has any business posting something like that, or else they have a thin grasp of exactly what Christianity is in the first place.

I only started reading this site regularly a few months ago when a link from somewhere else brought me here. If this is the tone I don’t guess this is the place for me.
Posted by: docweasel August 16, 2016 4:04 AM

Clearly the very last one to pull out the race card. SJWs ALWAYS lie. The appropriately named docweasel is banned for SJW. We neither want nor need SJWs here.